S10.E02: The Lance To The Heart

[WendyCR72]

To find out who framed Booth for murder, the Jeffersonian team, with the help Special Agent James Aubrey, continues to investigate who is behind a conspiracy within the Federal Government that dates all the way back to J. Edgar Hoover. Then, when foreign DNA is found in a previous victim linked to the scandal, the team is able to narrow down the number of suspects, leading them closer to cracking the case.

 

Seems to be issues with threads not unlocking, so I am doing so now. Thanks!

[bmoore4026]

OK, so can someone explain why Booth was specifically framed by the doctor?

 

Also, never let Bones speak at a funeral.  Her speech was supposed to be inspirational, but I found it rather insensitive.

[WendyCR72]

I don't know. If anyone appreciated Brennan's approach, it WOULD BE Daisy, who emulated herself after Brennan.

 

And the whole thing about love, sure, Brennan expressed it clumsily, but I ALSO think it showed a bit of growth on her and, seeing as she finally "got" that it couldn't be explained. And she was, awkwardly, speaking from a good place, not her usual arrogant one. And did again show compassion in hugging Daisy.

 

So I didn't think it was entirely bad. Awkward? Sure. But that's who (later post S4) Brennan is.

[immortalfrieza]

Curse you Bones! You just had to put that infernal song in at the end! Now it'll be looping in my head for hours!

 

Good episode, I'm glad they decided to just finish this and get on with things next week instead of dragging this out the whole season. Not sure about the new guy yet, we'll see how he develops.

[el perro fumando]

OK, so can someone explain why Booth was specifically framed by the doctor.

I got nothing. The conspiracy was so convoluted that I just kept glazing over so I have no idea what happened. Other than ... Sweets died. Show just felt really ... I don't know. Surprisimgly less emotional than I expected. I'm a HUGE crying freak typically, but only the scene with Daisy reading Sweets' bones and, to a lesser extent, Bones' speech got me going tonight. I was more affected last week. Hoped I'd warming to Aubrey this week, but not so much. Shouldn't have watched old eps on TNT today. They spoiled me.

[pcta]

Agree last week was the heartbreaker. No warmth for Doppelganger Sweets character. Bones speech was good. Other than that - meh. Not as angry at the show as I was with the Zach fiasco. But feel there is a large hole in the emotional composition of the show now. Now I sorta hope this will be the last season.

[LakeGal]

I didn't care for this episode.  It just did not keep my attention.  After Sweets dying last week I just expected more.

[el perro fumando]

But feel there is a large hole in the emotional composition of the show now. Now I sorta hope this will be the last season.

That says it for me. Bones had such a perfect balance, with each character adding something very specific. For me, tonight underscored that Sweets' character provided the "heart" and the warmth. It felt oddly cold without him. And Aubrey felt so forced. Wish they'd cast someone who seemed less like an attempt at a Sweets' relacement. A woman or an older guy ... something. I kind of feel bad for the guy. It's like they just figured one twenty something guy is the same as the next.

[Demented Daisy]

It was much more moving, for me, when they sang the Coconut song for Vincent.  This felt like a weak send off for Sweets.  Shame.

[Mama No Life]

I've been trying to put my finger on why I enjoy this show so much less than the early seasons. I finally realized it tonight...it's ED's robotic portrayal of Brennan. She used to play her as quirky but human. Now she's so....wooden. I wasn't moved by anything she said last night bc her acting is so stilted. It's a shame...this used to be must-see tv for me. Now I work on the grocery list and school work while it's on.

I can't even with the conspiracy...it made no sense. No payoff whatsoever after all that build up. None.

Time to put a fork in this show.

[sadtvjunkie]

I'm lost about this whole arc. Don't know why Booth was targeted, and couldn't stand Bones stuttering, stammering diction. Is this the character or the actress? Just STOP! They should have shown how they explained to Christine why Daisy and Sweets weren't coming, maybe I'd been emotional then. This show is so soulless now. Glad they wrapped it up in 2.

[el perro fumando]

 

They should have shown how they explained to Christine why Daisy and Sweets weren't coming, maybe I'd been emotional then. This show is so soulless now.

 

Yea, maybe it would have been to difficult to get a little girl that age to do that much emotion. She was really cute, but I don't know if she could have pulled that off. But they could have pulled back and shot a scene through the window from behind her, with the emotion coming from Booth and/or Brennan's expressions and them just pulling her into a hug. That might have affected me more.

 

It really was odd how cold everyone felt to me last night. Admittedly, I love the character of Sweets, probably BECAUSE he was the emotional one. He always brought the compassion/heart to the equation. I guess I went into last night with high expectations.  Last week the lack of huge emotional reaction made sense in the bodybag scene: they had to detach to do their jobs with his remains.But last night I expected to see a lot of emotion bubbling beneath the surface for everyone, but it just wasn't there. to see Did Hodgins or Angela show any emotion at all really? Some of my favorite scenes on this show were Hodgins' long-ago "therapy" sessions with Sweets, as well as any conversation the two ever had (loved those two together on screen). And the Angela who counseled Sweets last year when he was thinking of leaving the job ... just seemed she would have been more emo.

 

Anyway, I cried more yesterday watching the rerun of the subway episode on TNT than I did at last night's episode, which surprised the hell out of me. Frankly, I think I cried more at last week's episode, too, because by the time the show started, I felt pretty sure Sweets was going to die, so I was sad every time he was on screen. And I sobbed at the death scene and the autopsy scene. But last night, only Daisy and the bones and, to a lesser extent, Brennan's speech, which I did like enough to rewatch, hit me last night. But that was it. Oh well. It's probably all my fault - I just discovered Bones last fall and bingewatched the hell out of it all year. Figures that by the time I fell in love with it, it was inevitable that it would fall apart.

 

I do hope for the sake of those who still love it that the show finds it footing again post-Sweets. Maybe now that the shakeup is over, they can reinvent themselves.

 

ON EDIT: I also liked the scene with Cam planning the funeral, actually. That was at least a nice payoff of her connection to him. Always loved her scenes with him in his office, too. I've missed those kinds of scenes. When did they stop doing those? I can't remember the last time we had a Sweets' office scene.

Edited October 3, 2014 by el perro fumando

[immortalfrieza]

OK, so can someone explain why Booth was specifically framed by the doctor?

Because he thought Booth was the head and thus if the doctor lopped it off the team would be finished? Considering they didn't really do a damned thing the entire time Booth was in jail besides try to get him out (they really should have already got all the evidence out of the bones of that Cooper guy and thus arrested the doctor long before Booth got out) it seemed like a fair assumption. Conspiracies never really make any sense in fictionland or outside of it anyway, they're always far too convoluted to make sense.

 They should have shown how they explained to Christine why Daisy and Sweets weren't coming, maybe I'd been emotional then.

I'm glad they didn't, I've seen more than enough speeches of adults trying to explain the concept of death to kids that always comes off painful already.

Edited October 3, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[roomtorome]

The detached coldness of most of the characters was really off putting.  Angela's reactions were just flat and emotionless but I chalk that up to the actress who I find to be a terrible actress.  

 

Why exactly did they need to clean his bones and not just do a regular autopsy?  Just to have Brennan in on the process?  And, come on, no professional institution would have let Daisy anywhere near his remains nor would anyone in her role really want to be walking around with some of his bones on a tray - so stupid and ridiculous.  All for the sake of some supposed drama?  Lazy writing, in my opinion, but what's new with this show since season 5 when the show took a weird, bad turn.

 

The only scene that resonated was the argument between Bones and Booth in the house - that seemed the most authentic moment for me.  Hated her robotic speech at the end but then when ED gets into that mode, my ears feel like they are going to bleed regardless of what she is saying.  

 

I read that the show runner believes killing Sweets was more satisfying for the audience than just having him off somewhere for awhile - on what planet does this man live?  Satisfying in what way?  That the writers can continue to disappoint?  Curious stuff.

 

I'm really glad they did not show them explaining Sweets' death to their daughter - these writers would have messed that up royally; seems they may have realized that.

[Trey]

Mostly I am glad this arc has been wrapped up already.  I was afraid it was going to drag on for most of the season.

 

The funeral wasn't too bad but it suffered by comparison to Barry Frost's (Rizzoli and Isles) funeral which I finally got to see on Wednesday night - it was lovely and very touching and made me cry.  Of course it was for an actual person as well as a character so it felt very real.

[Ilovemylabs]

The detached coldness of most of the characters was really off putting.  Angela's reactions were just flat and emotionless but I chalk that up to the actress who I find to be a terrible actress.  

 

Why exactly did they need to clean his bones and not just do a regular autopsy?  Just to have Brennan in on the process?  And, come on, no professional institution would have let Daisy anywhere near his remains nor would anyone in her role really want to be walking around with some of his bones on a tray - so stupid and ridiculous.  All for the sake of some supposed drama?  Lazy writing, in my opinion, but what's new with this show since season 5 when the show took a weird, bad turn.

 

The only scene that resonated was the argument between Bones and Booth in the house - that seemed the most authentic moment for me.  Hated her robotic speech at the end but then when ED gets into that mode, my ears feel like they are going to bleed regardless of what she is saying.  

 

I read that the show runner believes killing Sweets was more satisfying for the audience than just having him off somewhere for awhile - on what planet does this man live?  Satisfying in what way?  That the writers can continue to disappoint?  Curious stuff.

 

I'm really glad they did not show them explaining Sweets' death to their daughter - these writers would have messed that up royally; seems they may have realized that.

I agree.  Why not a regular autopsy?  They knew how he died.  And John Francis Daley said in an interview there was almost no one around when he did his final scene for the show.  It was late, most of the crew was gone as were the main character actors.  He walked away in an almost empty set.  I did not like this episode.  Too convoluted.  Not sure why anyone was after Booth in the first place.

[immortalfrieza]

And, come on, no professional institution would have let Daisy anywhere near his remains nor would anyone in her role really want to be walking around with some of his bones on a tray - so stupid and ridiculous.  All for the sake of some supposed drama? 

What makes this worse is during the Gravedigger trial all of the evidence the team managed to find up to that point was considered inadmissible because Hodgins and Brennan were both the Gravedigger's potential victims before, therefore clear bias could be established. The same exact thing should have happened with any evidence Daisy and probably most of the team would have found, ESPECIALLY the DNA sample they illegally obtained.

 

Of course, this kind of thing is standard in crime shows. The way the law would actually work are either done correctly or ignored entirely seemingly at random depending on what the writers think would work better.

[elzin]

I'm catching up on my shows today. I watched another crime show and the victim was shown for about 5 seconds and I am getting more emotional over his death and its effect on the survivors because of how it was done vs. how I feel about Sweets. I was shocked and surprised at the showrunners, but did not have a sad feeling. I wouldn't have been happy if they killed him and made it a powerful, emotional, poignant study, but killing him and then dropping the ball just made it worse.

 

I do hope Daisy comes around from time to time.

[bmoore4026]

Because he thought Booth was the head and thus if the doctor lopped it off the team would be finished? Considering they didn't really do a damned thing the entire time Booth was in jail besides try to get him out (they really should have already got all the evidence out of the bones of that Cooper guy and thus arrested the doctor long before Booth got out) it seemed like a fair assumption. Conspiracies never really make any sense in fictionland or outside of it anyway, they're always far too convoluted to make sense.

 

They just wanted to see David Boreanaz all angsty and in a black t-shirt and stuff like that there.  I'm beginning to think that's why they came up with the storyline.  TV people, if you have a conspiracy going, make it make sense.  Also, don't have the head of the conspiracy be some wormy, neebish man.  It comes off as being a parody of conspiracy theories and masterminds than being legitimate threats. 

[Actionmage]

What really made me sad was that they hired Rance Howard and he was reduced to interrupted "senility rambling" (which held clues) and looking lost. Granted, I didn't want Ron Howard's dad to run around and beat up scoundrels, but in the season premiere, he dropped a supposedly big clue (working for Hoover), Booth got the call about Sweets, and they left the gent in the old folks home. Couldn't they a) have politely said good-byes as they left ( I hate that on tv shows) and/or b) taken the gentleman with them? Say it was protective custody? Yeah, he was part of the conspiracy and it probably saved him from a hit that Booth and Brennan left him, but for some reason, it seemed ruder than usual. Maybe it was how Mr. Boreanez was playing Seely so emotionally raw, in the first episode? ::shrugs:: Then Mr. Howard's character ends up barely mattering in the unraveling!

 

I kept waiting to well up, especially after Christine getting ready for Uncle Sweets and Aunt Daisy, but I never really did. Carla Gallo (Daisy) was  the most empathetic Daisy I've watched. I do hope we see her from time to time, or semi-regularly. (She will have a baby to raise and that takes income.) I just hope there are no wacky hi-jinx around the baby's birth. No elevators, no freak-outs, no cabins in remote areas, and other situations that make us all roll our eyes. 

 

The conspiracy was great and suspenseful at the start, but was so...not in this episode. While it was a clever idea, the way it was presented did not continue to make me worry over the rest of the team.  I guess we are supposed to believe that the mastermind who blackmailed all sorts of movers and shakers, with a background as a doctor, would willingly let Booth leave his sight with blood on his hand? Blood that the doctor knows would be used to try to tie him into the murders et. al.? That this mastermind would have his fee-fees so hurt that he wouldn't offer to clean, or have cleaned, Booth's hand?

 

I am burned-out on conspiracies with regards to Bones. After Gormo and the Gravedigger and the Ghost Killer and P-whatsis, conspiracies and serial killers are tune-out material to me. A couple of two-parters, if the story is done right and not front-loaded, I can enjoy. I am hoping that now that Sweets is "put to rest", that the show can start to power down( hopefully it is the last season) and still tell good stories.

[bingham55]

What's with the Mini-Cooper bashing?  Its bad enough when they plug their sponsor's cars but randomly bashing another company's car for no real reason.  Very tacky.

[shapeshifter]

I liked Brennan's soliloquy.

Any of them--but especially Daisy--being involved with Sweets' body seemed wrong, but typical for the show.

The song was cringe inducing. Maybe the actors thought it was stupid too, especially given how John Frances Daily answered this interview question (http://tvline.com/2014/10/02/john-francis-daley-interview-bones-why-did-he-leave-sweets/):

TVLINE | In a perfect world, would you have liked to have been able to jump back into Bones after you finished shooting Vacation?

One hundred percent....

I liked the new guy better last week. This week they seemed to be making him into a quirky intern type rather than an FBI agent.

[Amerilla]

I didn't have much problem with the idea of the team doing the autopsy on Sweets, but I was really icked out by the idea (and the mental image) of them de-fleshing him - not in the least because it wasn't necessary to establish his cause of death.

While I liked the essence of Daisy and Brennan "reading" his bones, there was a missing emotional resonance, in part because the visual of the bones didn't really speak of Sweets' fleshed out body, his voice, his personal warmth. .. the thing that made him such a compelling figure for so many years. In fact, I think some of the sense of emotional distance and hollowness in the episode stemmed from the lack of a body or a picture or montage or vocal of Sweets anywhere in story. Combined with the script, I think it didn't give the actors much to draw on, which is why they felt a little flat to me.

The funeral scene felt really weirdly perfunctory for a major, long-time character. A small private deal is fine, but I would have liked to have seen more of the squints there - Aristoo there for Cam, for example, some of the others there to support Daisy. And Sweets was a FBI agent of some length, so you would have expected some official presence, even in a small ash - scattering ceremony.

[pcta]

What jarred me was that Cam was planning the funeral. Shouldn't Daisy - Sweets baby mama - have some major input in that?

[Amerilla]

I thought that too, pcta. No problem with Cam doing the arrangements, because we know Sweets didn't have family beyond the team, and I would expect a woman who works as a coroner to be attuned to the aftercare of remains, but it was clunky to have her seemingly assign herself the task unbidden.

I chalk it up to a badly-written line. All they would have had to do is have Cam say something like she didn't want to add to Daisy's load by having her have to plan a funeral, or that Daisy had asked her to do the planning so she could concentrate on the case. Then it wouldn't have felt so random to me.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Amerilla

[el perro fumando]

 

the visual of the bones didn't really speak of Sweets' fleshed out body, his voice, his personal warmth. .. the thing that made him such a compelling figure for so many years. In fact, I think some of the sense of emotional distance and hollowness in the episode stemmed from the lack of a body or a picture or montage or vocal of Sweets anywhere in story. Combined with the script, I think it didn't give the actors much to draw on, which is why they felt a little flat to me.

 

Yea, I have to admit I was really disappointed in how this episode went out of its way to completely strip Sweets from the show. He only appeared in the previouslies as a dead body, no lines. He was pulled out of the credits (they couldn't give him a last week, eh?) and replaced with the new guy. And, as you said, there was nothing visual at all other than stripped bones. And although I was moved by Daisy in the baby name scene and in the bones scene, and by Brennan at the end, I was left pretty empty by all these other people who didn't seem to have any emotional reaction at all to the loss of such a close friend. (I was way more moved watching the little "Moments of Sweetness" videos by the five castmates online, where they were very fondly recalling their characters' relationships to Sweets). 

 

And I really wanted to see Booth react more than he did, I guess. Clearly the writers love to give Brennan all the "Look what I've learned about humanity!" moments, and I did love her relationship with Sweets. But Booth and Sweets were so close that I expected more emotion from Booth. We got his one "He was family" at the beginning, and some indiscriminate anger, but I would have liked to see Boreanaz tackle a goodbye Sweets speech. Lost opportunity to let him do the emotional reveal for once. Maybe they'll give him a chance to speak in the baby episode down the road. 

 

Oh well. Missed opportunity IMO. I was surprised, because I went into the show with a box of tissues, expecting to sob over the loss of my favorite character, and really, I only had two teary reactions, I think. Bummer.

[Julie23]

This episode is still on my DVR. Given the comments above, I'm not sure I'll ever watch it. I have no desire to see his dead body de-fleshed and picked apart. I'll just pick up next week and pretend Sweets isn't dead, just gone away somewhere nice.

[el perro fumando]

Ha! I finally went today and found the Finder episode with Sweets in it. It was new Sweets material for me! Maybe I'll just pretend he moved to Florida permanently. Because yea. The whole death thing is still unacceptable for me.

[Lovecat]

I hate to be knit-picky but that wasn't enough ashes for a hamster let alone an adult male. And there was absolutely no wind on that hill to carry the teaspoon they did have away.

Also, and I know this from personal experience, cremains generally don't float away on a gentle breeze--they're too heavy. There may have been some that blew away if the wind was brisk enough, but holding the urn aloft like that, the majority would have wound up on Daisy's shirt. And in her hair. And probably on her face.

[crowsworks]

Sweets wast he only onew ho knew Zack didn't kill anyone. Neat if he left a will or something so Zack could come back if the actor can.

[WendyCR72]

Zack may not have physically killed anyone, but he was an accomplice to the real killer, letting him know where to find his victims. I cannot fathom how he would EVER be allowed to work back at the Jeffersonian even if that info Sweets knew came to light.

[WendyCR72]

Maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't Zack not allow Sweets to spill what he knew because then Zack would be released from the mental facility but then would likely have to go to jail as he was still an accomplice? I could swear Zack made some comment about not handling jail and, thus, ordered (due to confidentiality) Sweets to keep the truth quiet.

[Galloway Cave]

You are correct. Hodgins told Zack there was no way he would survive in a prison, so Zack needed to stay in the loony bin at all costs. If Zack were to be released, he could be tried and sent to prison since loony-bin time doesn't count towards a criminal sentence.

[WendyCR72]

You are correct. Hodgins told Zack there was no way he would survive in a prison, so Zack needed to stay in the loony bin at all costs. If Zack were to be released, he could be tried and sent to prison since loony-bin time doesn't count towards a criminal sentence.

 

Thanks for confirming, Galloway Cave! It's good to know I'm not crazy (much)!