BONES Recap: ‘The Brother in the Basement’

Hello, BONES fans! It’s time to discuss this week’s episode, “The Brother in the Basement.” It’s a continuation of last week’s season premiere, and there’s a lot to discuss, so let’s begin!

THE CASE:

This episode begins with a small flashback; we see Booth, Kevin O’Donnell and the other two men in the posse, Pete and Alex, at the van we know they eventually blew up. Jared’s dead body is inside, and they’ve all agreed they have to destroy the evidence. It’s difficult for Booth (understatement), but he insists on being the one who lights the fire. Later we see his gunshot wound getting worse and we learn the men are waiting for about five hours to sell a list for big money. But can Booth stay alive that long?

Brennan, Caroline, and Aubrey confront Agent Miller on why she was quiet about her own partner, Richard Bannerman. She finally admits her partner printed out a list and then went missing. The list contains names of hundreds of undercover FBI agents. Aubrey wants to take Brennan to investigate Richard’s property. Miller says it’s a waste of time; another team already did that and found nothing. Brennan argues the Jeffersonian team is better, and Miller says it isn’t, at least not since she has been gone.

At Richard’s home, Miller admits he also had a new fiancée who has gone missing. There is no evidence on his computer or mobile phone. Aubrey finds wine and cheese in the fridge, and when Brennan finds a bloodied mailing envelope she checks the freezer. Sure enough, there’s a severed finger in there. Boom. And gross. At the lab, Cam makes a definitive discovery; the finger belonged to Richard’s fiancée Chloe Robertson. Brennan and Arastoo figure it was cut by something like scissors.

Aubrey, Caroline, and Miller figure Chloe was being held for ransom, but they aren’t sure where Booth comes into play. Aubrey thinks it’s because Jared was involved; Booth was going after him, and now he’s going after the list. Caroline agrees and says it means Booth will either be the hero or die trying. We cut to Booth, and he is still hemorrhaging a lot of blood. He then uses some squinty knowledge by identifying silver nitrate and cauterizing his own wound. DANG!

Hodgins, Arastoo and Angela examine Chloe’s finger and determine it was cut with a wire cutter recently also used on chain link fence, and Hodgins traces additional particulates to an old abandoned battery recycling facility. Aubrey and Miller rush there, but they don’t find Booth or the killers—instead they find two more dead bodies covered in vultures and battery acid. Seriously GROSS!

At the lab, the team examines the two new bodies while also racing against the clock to figure out where Booth could be. Cam wonders if Brennan has faith, but the most she’ll say is that she can’t imagine a world in which Booth doesn’t come home. We’ll take it. The team identifies the bodies as Chloe Robertson and Agent Bannerman. They are also approached by Dr. Benjamin Metzger, a handsome digital forensic scientist for the FBI. He’s forthcoming with the charm, the flirting, and fun facts about his carpal tunnel and cats. Hodgins is immediately suspicious.

Booth continues to struggle with his wound, and Kevin privately praises him for his guts, jokingly wondering if Booth is sure he wasn’t in the Navy. Booth isn’t in the mood for jokes (deadly injury, death of his brother, etc., will do that to a guy), and we then see Kevin get a text — Booth is FBI and he needs to kill Booth or the deal is off.

Angela is able to pull up footage on Bannerman’s phone that matches surveillance footage Miller and Aubrey found and skull fractures Brennan and Arastoo confirm — Bannerman was followed by an Aryan brotherhood gang member named Barlow and recently they were in a fist fight. They bring Barlow in for questioning, and he insists he was Bannerman’s informant. Caroline and Miller don’t believe him, but Barlow insists, a story later confirmed to Aubrey.

At the lab, Hodgins figures out that Chloe was drugged while eating wine and cheese at Richard’s house. So she likely knew her killer. Meanwhile, Angela has found incriminating photos of Miller and Richard. Aubrey and Caroline confront her, and she eventually admits she and Richard once had a romantic relationship, and that when they broke up, she made threats about Chloe. But she swears she is innocent and not involved with the business with the list. Aubrey doesn’t believe her and asks for her gun. She hands it over, but the Jeffersonian team declares her bullets to not be a match for those used on the victims. Instead, Arastoo points out damage to the skull, and Brennan realizes it was caused by a set of brass knuckles. She knows Miller would never implicate herself that way, and she figures whoever killed Bannerman would have bruising on their hand; she remembers Metzger was wearing a brace on his wrist.

Aubrey and Miller question Metzger, who denies everything. Brennan, listening from the observation room, grows annoyed and bursts in the room—she knows how to make Metzger talk. Miller gives her the go-ahead, and Brennan twists his arm, effectively convincing him to let them know where Booth is.

At the warehouse, Kevin is anxious about the new information on Booth. He wants to call the whole thing off. The other two men are furious and when they find out Booth is FBI, a fist fight and gun fight ensues. Booth manages to escape to a side room, and when Pete comes after him, Booth evades him and eventually knocks him out cold with a shovel.

The FBI sends in a SWAT team, and as they are entering the building, Booth pulls himself out of the basement through a small window. He and Brennan are re-united…before he practically passes out. We later see him recovering (nicely) in a hospital bed with Brennan at his side, and Miller and Aubrey exchange praise to one another for solving the case. Like I said last week, I loved Kim Raver as Agent Miller. I hope she is back at some point!

THE SQUINTS:

Outside of the case, the main squint storyline revolved again around Cam and Arastoo’s relationship and Arastoo feeling displaced at the lab at Brennan’s return. It will be interesting to see what happens there, as they seem to have agreed to break-up over their careers. I am not too invested in them, but cheers to the show for showing a realistic issue a lot of couples face.

Hodgins and Angela were great. It was fun to see Hodgins a little jealous of Metzger, but mostly because Angela had no interest and he turned out to be evil.

Caroline continues to be the absolute best. More please!

BOOTH & BRENNAN:

Off the bat, I want to say that Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz do such an amazing job with Brennan and Booth, and this was no different. Both communicated the depths of handling difficult situations with quiet strength, an admirable quality.

As for the episode, on one hand, I thought the ending scene between B&B wrapped things up a little too quickly. He apologizes, she says it’s fine, he says she’s incredible, she says they are going back to work, and tada — problems solved. On a call last week, co-showrunner Michael Peterson said there won’t be a lot of fall-out between B&B over Booth’s decision to get involved with Jared, because Brennan knows who Booth is at his core. I can see that (and Brennan did explain that in this episode), though I think it’s just a little too soon after seeing Booth caught up in gambling and lying about it. I do believe everything good said about Booth and I do believe he was telling the truth—I would also just love to have a stretch of episodes in which he doesn’t have SOME sort of traumatic experience. Setting fire to your own dead brother’s body? That is rough.  And it seems fishy that the FBI would just take him back without major intervention.

Having said that…the writers were handed a real mess of a s10 finale, honestly, and they had to get back to the winning formula of B&B solving cases quickly (and in a way that allowed David Boreanaz the ability to recover from a health situation this summer). So while it’s not exactly how I might have done it, and while I do think it might have been interesting to actually see B&B have a life outside of the FBI/Jeffersonian, this isn’t fan-fiction where plots can just veer off without consequence to sets, cast and crew members, and millions upon millions of dollars invested in a historically successful show.

So all in all, these first two episodes of season 11 tell me that the show is on the right track. I’m looking forward to more.

How about you? What did you like or not like about this episode? The comments are open!