BONES: Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
October 9, 2009 by Sarah Curtis
“Wrong-ology; keep your grubby anthro-hands off my psych!”
Those are fighting words, BONES fans!
Really quickly, here are some questions for you all to consider.
1. Were Booth and Brennan OOC in this episode, or is this all part of a natural progression? (I’m talking Brennan’s comfort level around Parker and Booth’s comfort level around…whips.)
2. Do you think Booth ‘does fine’, or did he just say that last season?
3. What significance is there in Brennan offering Parker and Booth the guest key to her pool?
THE CASE:
At the beginning of this episode, I felt like I’d stepped into “The Sandlot”. But before Ray Charles could start singing ‘America, the Beautiful’ and I could say ‘you’re killing me, Smalls’, we had ourselves a dead body (albeit not that gross of one!). I always like the cases where I don’t know who the murderer is till the end. And for this case, I was def curious the whole way through. Would it be the jealous wife, Kelly? Bob, the man whose wife and daughter BOTH had affairs with the victim? The neighbors whose dog died of mysterious causes? The landscaper, the therapist, or her husband? Oh, what a tangled suburban cul de sac of a web you weave, BONES writers!
THE SQUINTS:
Angela: Was she wearing boots and shorts? Her ‘you’re with me, Baby Booth’ made me smile, though. She’s only five months into celibacy world? Mmmm….at least she publically stated she wouldn’t put the moves on Booth. Babysitting Parker and sorting through ‘evidence’ were her main jobs for the episode, but she managed to do both without annoying me. Yay!
Sweets: Making it his job to tell the victim’s wife about his death was an interesting move. I can see how that would be a good spot for Sweets. Maybe I read too much into it, but I thought Brennan and Sweets were kind of vying for Booth’s approval the whole episode. In a fun scientific ‘my theory can beat up your theory’ kind of way. How very season three of them!
Hodgins: I love how he doesn’t ever, ever let anyone detract from his love of science. He’s just so comfortable with himself. He always has been, and that is very, very cool. Hodgins in the lab is rad; Hodgins in the field/crime scene is totally tubular! What’s your all time favorite Hodgins moment from any episode?!
Arastoo: Oh, ho! Is it me, or did he also get smarter when he lost the accent? Thoughts from you?
Cam: I liked the way she called Vasiri out on his non-accent, even when it was just the two of them. I just don’t know why she was so obsessed about it, to the point that she called Booth and Brennan AND plowed right into Sweets’ office.
BOOTH & BRENNAN:
I loved Brennan being so disgusted with the therapist, although Paula returned the love about anthropology, haha. Booth could have tossed his partner a chuckle or two at her humor. He did call her awesome, though, which was very nice.
I think the discussion in the break room was my favorite part of this episode. My all time favorite Brennan is when she is trying to be funny. Without sounding too much like a Bob Evans waitress, I really do think it’s just the sweetest thing. “I will be your hamlet of 800 people or less.” Booth…that is love, brother! Be open enough to see it!
Another Question: Is Booth back? Or are we still seeing Booth becoming his old self? Since when is he totally comfortable talking about sex or chilling with Brennan in a garage of sex toys? Is that the part of Booth who doesn’t mind clowns? Is OLD Booth the real Booth (as in the Booth we’ve seen the past four years is just Booth worn down by a hard life, but now he’s happy because he doesn’t remember all of that?) Someone please help me. I do love uptight Booth, and he was a lot of that in this ep, too, which was fun. Also he slammed a bad guy into a car, and then said please. That’s why we love Seeley Booth!
As far as the Booth+Brennan+Parker…that whole end scene was inevitable the moment Parker got in his mind that Booth needed a GF. While somewhat formulaic, I won’t begrudge BONES for going the sweet, milkshake route with smiles and compliments at the diner. Is Parker the first person to ever tell them that working together is a stupid reason to not BE together? Perhaps. I’ll have to look into that one. More on that in the coming weeks. But for now…
I posed quite a few questions to you this week, and I want some answers! Hook me up!
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Filed under #1 featured, Bones, Posts by Sarah (Seels)
I don’t think it that Arastoo is smarter; it is just that when he doesn’t have to think about putting on a fake accent he get to the point quicker.
1) I’ve always presumed that Brennan has had contact with Parker and I think having her act so comfortable around him is a sign of how much she’s changed. This is, after all, the woman who said she didn’t have magical powers over infants. It seemed to me she was just eager to be a bigger part of Booth’s life- be the stepmom vs studmom…
Booth’s had a pony play dream pre-coma and he’s played with sex toys that they’ve confiscated before- handcuffs especially, and he knows where guys keep their stimuli(in shoes, of course). So nah, it just played to me that he was deflecting/joking about things like always.
2) Far as gettin some; I don’t think he has since Cam. But I think he’s fine b/c he’s got a fulfilling relationship with his Bones and just like he doesn’t like ppl going out with her, I don’t think he sees himself as “available”….in that same breath, he squashes his desires far too often and really needs to let her know he’s got the hots for her soon- like next week!
3) Hmmm….1 of 2 reasons maybe? A) To ameliorate the situation and get Parker to stop asking Booth to get a GF(a role that’s hers now that she’s his village). She knows it bothers Booth, plus she sees that she can meet Parker’s desire, so she offers. She’s quite straightforward that way so it wouldn’t surprise me if she just thought that was the best way to be a good friend. or B) (slightly more romantic) She wants to be in Booth’s world and invites Booth into hers. She’s offered to be his “hamlet of 800 people or less” and I think she wants him to ask her out/hit on her something. She seemed to give him a window just before answering Parker’s question to let him contradict her. All she’s gotten is “Atta Girl” so….yeah….I’d go out with another guy too.
I thought this one was a fun little romp that revealed a lot about how eager to please Booth Brennan is- and you’ll note, he kept asking her for the anthro advice vs Sweets’….
Next week, JUST going on the promo: the straw the broke the surrogate relationship’s back……this is gonna be fun!! (side note: wishes that Fox promo editors would stop cutting Bones promos like it’s an hr long sitcom….gimme the House promo guys any day)
‘Nough answers for ya?? 😀
I thought it was very telling how excited Brennan was when Booth asked her to be a part of his life outside of work. She couldn’t stop smiling. It is obvious that Booth and Brennan compliment each other in their work, but I thought it was really interesting that they also did that in their approach with Parker. Brennan’s approach was better for Parker than Booth’s was and it just shows that she would fit into his life quite nicely. It was a glimps that we have never really seen before that they would actually have the same perfect balance outside of work.
first of all, some ofmy favorite hodgins moments: hodgins shirtless after he and zack had to take a chemical shower. to quote you, “I didn’t know he had it in him.” :] oh and another would be the getting buried alive with brennan (i definitely cried during that one…), and any zack/hodgins moment really. like getting excited about doing experiments. and hodgins/angela stuff. am i the only one that wants them together? haha i thought they were hilarious. i really love hodgins… okay moving on…
i loved the sweets/brennan competition, as well as parker going around asking everyone to be his girlfriend and having sweets over-analyzing it. unless sweets really was right… hmm… (and to answer a question, i don’t know if booth “does fine”. we really haven’t seen any insight to their personal lives yet, and they haven’t really talked about it. i would assume that he isn’t “doing fine” because the only person he actually wants is brennan)
i thought that the random sex toy twist was funny, even if it oddly turned out to have nothing to do with the plot… (and another answer. something tells me that last season Booth wouldn’t have been too uncomfortable about the stuff with Brennan, he would probably tell her to quit it or feel uncomfortable if she was like curiously going through and examining the stuff curiously. which i can totally see happening haha)
and the suburb plot idea isn’t something we’ve seen before (i don’t think) so that was somewhat original. overall a good and funny episode!