S11.E13: The Monster In The Closet

[WendyCR72]

The Jeffersonian investigates the decomposing body of a social worker in the park, but evidence suggests the killer lived with the body for months before dumping it. Things get even more complicated when they determine another set of remains has similar details which link the multiple victims to a serial murderer who had sinister interactions with his victims’ bodies. Booth and Aubrey  consult with behavioral analyst Karen Delfs to help with clues to the killer’s identity while Cam tries to determine what (and who) she wants in her romantic life.

[Julia]

Cam tries to determine what (and who) she wants in her romantic life.

Nothing against his character as a stand-alone, and nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent, but please, not that sanctimonious patriarchal jackass Aristoo. She's just less when she's with him, because that's what he expects from her. Do not want.

[shapeshifter]

The Jeffersonian investigates the decomposing body of a social worker in the park, but evidence suggests the killer lived with the body for months before dumping it. Things get even more complicated when they determine another set of remains has similar details which link the multiple victims to a serial murderer who had sinister interactions with his victims’ bodies. Booth and Aubrey  consult with behavioral analyst Karen Delfs to help with clues to the killer’s identity while Cam tries to determine what (and who) she wants in her romantic life.

Sounds like they're dialing back on the Hodgins melodrama.

Funny wording: while Cam tries to determine what (and who) she wants in her romantic life. Could "what" mean a space alien? Just kidding but would be better than you know whoo.

[Panopticon]

LOL! Yes! Cam + Space Alien 4-eva!

 

I don't dislike Arastoo in theory, and I even saw a reasonable amount of chemistry between him and Cam, but as has been said, he does not bring out her best. At all.

 

Not looking forward to Karen Delfs either. A yappy scatterbrained caricature, typical of the show's late additions.

 

And apparently this episode will also have Christine. It's a perfect hat trick of guest stars I don't want to see.

[shapeshifter]

Too much Criminal Minds style for me.

And it seems the writers don't think intelligent humans are still watching, because the marionette thing was obvious from the first mention of "articulated."

[mojoween]

I love Arastoo.  So much.  I blame Cam for how she acts with him but I like that they appear to be getting back together lalalala I can't hearrrrr you.

The music director was having a banging good time freaking me out, I mean I knew the killer was going to be watching from somewhere but I was still nervous during the end at their house with the camera going from inside to outside and the plink-plonking soundtrack.

So glad to have minimal Hodgins.  I don't know where they are going with this but they better get there fast.

[Mama No Life]

The writer who destroyed the most likeable character on the show should be shot. As should that character.

You know, I don't work with my husband, but I'd like to think if he showed up at my office one day I'd greet him more warmly than, "Bones, what are you doing here?"  in a totally hostile tone.  Yes, surrogate Brenda, Booth is always annoyed with something, and most of the time it's his wife.

Also BOO to Arastoo and Cam. They are both tolerable alone. Together they make me want to hurl things. Like dinner.

That bitching aside, its the first episode I've watched from start to finish in over a year.  So yay?

[Panopticon]

The bad:

• Hodgins continues to insult Angela's intelligence at every opportunity.
• We essentially have confirmation that Arastoo is it for Cam. Sigh. (I will give the actor credit for the lovely expression of reigned-in delight when Cam confessed to getting rid of her superior love interest.)
• In addition to his myriad other sins, Arastoo has a way of refining Brennan to her most robotic.
• I'm already bored with the killer zooming in on Brennan's face from the camera footage. They do realize that Pelant was, plot-wise, the worst thing that ever happened to this show, right?

The good:

• Booth and Brennan's apparently inexhaustible supply of coordinated trench coats. The next time the writers want to show some Booth/Brennan fluff, how about we see them in the coat section of Neiman Marcus instead of with Christine?
• The musical montage of Brennan obsessing over the bones until Booth showed up in the lab was very old school in style if not necessarily in quality.
• While I dislike all things Christine, I appreciate the continuity of having her skeleton drawing hanging in Booth's office.
• I laughed at Hodgins' line about the woman being a fashion victim as well as a murder victim. And I liked Brennan reverting to form by insisting that the remains be respected.

[laredhead]

Does anyone remember when Pelant was still alive and he had placed tiny cameras in Booth & Brennan's house?  I can't remember if they ever found them or addressed that issue in a later episode.  I think there was one in the bedroom in the clock.

I'm ready for Hodgins to have a miraculous recovery and get out of that wheelchair.  I don't like that story line or his attitude. 

[secnarf]

I was sick of Hodgins' attitude by the time the theme song started in the previous episode. It is making me dread watching the episodes. I was hoping for some character development in this episode but they went nowhere. I understand it might not be realistic for him to be exactly the same as before, but I don't think this behaviour is in character for him, and I also don't watch TV to see bleak realism.

I did enjoy the case, though, and I haven't in a while. Just as long as it doesn't move into Pelant territory, and is wrapped up within a few episodes (or at the very latest, the end of the season), I'll be okay with it.

[scrambled eggs]

The most horrifying episode of Fringe dealt with a human marionette. I did not need to see that again. 

Although actually, it wasn't as bad as watching Hodgins be an asshole to his wife. 

[Julia]

And, once again Hodgins was an abusive asshole, and there's no excuse for him, but Brennan was wrong. Angela does have something to apologize for. 'Fat chance, he doesn't show respect for the living' was provocative and inappropriate. She was airing their private dirty laundry in an environment where she would have people on her side, which is not appropriate workplace behavior (not that appropriate workplace behavior exists at the Jeffersonian). She should let Cam address his workplace behavior, and if she can't deal with his private behavior, she should stand up for herself or leave. She certainly shouldn't be letting Michael Vincent watch what's going on now.

I almost didn't recognize Bobby Singer. He was surprisingly good.

[auntiemel]

That last scene was straight out of the middle seasons of Pretty Little Liars! :D

[Lee4U]

The only thing I can imagine in how they get past this awful Hodgins story is that at some point - hopefully soon! - something happens that makes him feel that being alive with a loving family is better than being flat out dead.  I don't know or care what gets him to that point - I just hope they get there sooner than later.  If they have him pop up out of that chair, that will really be insulting to the viewers' intelligence but they really do (to me) need to get past him behaving like such a dick all the time. 

I actually was surprised to hear Bones sounding less robotic in the scene where she comes to Booth's office to tell him about the state of the victim and what they found - that whole bit was done in a real human voice.  Actually, it was like that for quite a lot of the episode - Fancy that!  They can have her speak as she used to.

I actually liked her in this - after years of finding her unbearable - I liked her excitement about the gun sounds on her phone.  Felt a bit old school to me.  Nice seeing them out together in the field in a potentially dangerous situation.  Also, old school, her alone with the bones.  And, Booth in the lab and we know how much DB doesn't like being in scenes in the lab.  

Did the world turn on its axis and I missed it?

Just disappointed they (the team) took so long to figure out what was so obvious as to what was being done to the victims.  The only serial killer arc I liked on this show was the first one and not a fan of another and don't like thinking Christine is going to be in some sort of danger from what is obviously a very real monster.  

[possibilities]

I can't stand how Hodgins is acting, and I hate that everyone is giving him a pass just because of the paraplegia. It's really inexcusable. They need to show us that he had a brain injury that changed his personality or something, because what we're seeing is not the normal post-disabling adjustment period, it's just abusive BS. Being in a chair is an adjustment, but it's not a fate worse than death and it's not Angela's fault. And Hodgins has more resources than almost anyone else on the planet when it comes to social support and accessibility modifications. If they want to actually do some educating about the reality of paraplegia, they're failing miserably. It's a total fail both dramatically and as an awareness plug. It's just super-annoying BS.

[Julia]

Well, in fairness, this team has never dealt with a serial killer who ritually screwed the skeleton together except that one time the entire second season.

[rainsmom]

Sigh. I'm so ready for this show to be over.

Hodgins was my favorite, and now I want to push him in front of a truck. I wish the people around him would tell him to shut the fuck up and grow up. Yes, it sucks to be in that chair. Sulking and driving everyone away won't make it better. My guess is they'll have a moment where he makes some super human effort and saves Angela from the Big Bad, and that will show him that he's not as helpless as he thinks he is and remind him that he has it pretty good with her. *yawn* So original.

The only Big Bad I ever halfway liked on this show was the Gravedigger -- and that was only until she was captured. Every single other Big Bad has been a horrendous failure, and I doubt this one will be any better. Writers, you're not good at these arcs. Stick to what you're good at. Stick to...

Oh. Hmmm.

Right.

What else is on my DVR?

[Panopticon]

Last week Hodgins seemed more frustrated; this week he seems more calculatingly nasty. The previous episode seemed to indicate that Hodgins was consciously deciding to be a jerk to Angela above all others so he could "save" her from being married to a paraplegic by convincing her to divorce him. But he's singularly unsympathetic if that's really where he's coming from... he's demonstrating that he thinks she's too stupid to make her own life decisions by constantly calling her stupid. That being the case, she really should leave him, although I'm holding out hope that he's calculatingly not pulling this crap in front of their son.

Regardless of how quickly the show gets him out of the wheelchair, his attitude needs adjustment now. It's going to make the character and his romantic pairing permanently less enjoyable if he goes on like this for months and then it's supposedly fixed because Hodgins pretty-cries and apologizes in one 45 second scene before resuming his old personality.

[Panopticon]

8 minutes ago, rainsmom said:

The only Big Bad I ever halfway liked on this show was the Gravedigger -- and that was only until she was captured. Every single other Big Bad has been a horrendous failure, and I doubt this one will be any better. Writers, you're not good at these arcs. Stick to what you're good at. Stick to...

You know, I loved some elements of the Gravedigger. I loved some elements of Broadsky. I even loved some elements of Gormogon. But this one is screaming Pelant at me, and there was no part of Pelant that I enjoyed. He was the absolute nadir of the show for me.

[rainsmom]

I'm sorry we lost half the season devoted to Gormagon, and they didn't choose to play the arc out over the next season. 

Instead they decided to destroy a beloved character and stretch out the ludicrous storyline about Angela's missing husband.

This show proves the point that weak writers go to the old networks, and strong ones go to Netflix.

[Calamity Jane]

33 minutes ago, rainsmom said:

Sigh. I'm so ready for this show to be over.

Hodgins was my favorite, and now I want to push him in front of a truck. I wish the people around him would tell him to shut the fuck up and grow up. Yes, it sucks to be in that chair. Sulking and driving everyone away won't make it better. My guess is they'll have a moment where he makes some super human effort and saves Angela from the Big Bad, and that will show him that he's not as helpless as he thinks he is and remind him that he has it pretty good with her. *yawn* So original.

The only Big Bad I ever halfway liked on this show was the Gravedigger -- and that was only until she was captured. Every single other Big Bad has been a horrendous failure, and I doubt this one will be any better. Writers, you're not good at these arcs. Stick to what you're good at. Stick to...

Oh. Hmmm.

Right.

What else is on my DVR?

There has never been a Big Bad that I could tolerate on any show except perhaps the eponymous one on Buffy.  I think it cheapens a show and is lazy and uninspired.  Does it ever make a show better?  Don't think so.  

[Panopticon]

1 hour ago, rainsmom said:

I'm sorry we lost half the season devoted to Gormagon, and they didn't choose to play the arc out over the next season. 

Instead they decided to destroy a beloved character and stretch out the ludicrous storyline about Angela's missing husband.

Even if the writers strike hadn't happened when it did, I wonder if they would have followed through with what was said to be the original Gormogon plan. When it comes to the serial killer arcs, there seems to be a pattern of prioritizing showing the audience who's boss over a tightly knit plot or keeping characters true to themselves. The shortened season three didn't mean that they had to ignore everything they'd ever written about Zack to pretzel him into apprenticeship; it wasn't a situation like the start of this season where actor availability left a Jared screwup/offscreen death as practically the only option. Zack's downfall was because they really, really wanted a "gotcha" moment. The same thing happened with Heather Taffet as the Gravedigger. The show got its gotcha moment at the expense of the story making any kind of sense.

Hey, audience, bet you didn't think this little tiny middle aged woman was the Gravedigger!

Hey, Show, that's because it would be physically impossible for her to drag Booth around all by herself without being noticed.

Yeah, we don't really care if we cheat as long as we get to feel smarter than you.

Broadsky was at least believably motivated and capable of causing havoc, but the showrunners sounded weirdly gleeful about having him kill Vincent just because Vincent was almost universally beloved. I'm not sure "but the audience will suffer!" is a good reason for killing off a character...

Maybe that's why Hodgins is being such an asshole, too. Even people who are highly critical of the show in its current form tend to like Hodgins and see him as a bright spot, and again realistic plot or consistency of character take a back seat to upending perceptions at any cost.

[Julia]

I've been wondering since the financial details have started coming out how much Hanson and Nathan were involved in the skullduggery, because right about the time that syndication came into play they started to make it abundantly clear how much they really disliked their show, their characters and their viewers.

The only thing that makes me feel better about the way things turned out is that screwing the audience turned out not to be the best way to sell pilots.

[Clanstarling]

On ‎4‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 2:54 PM, rainsmom said:

Sigh. I'm so ready for this show to be over.

Hodgins was my favorite, and now I want to push him in front of a truck. I wish the people around him would tell him to shut the fuck up and grow up. Yes, it sucks to be in that chair. Sulking and driving everyone away won't make it better. My guess is they'll have a moment where he makes some super human effort and saves Angela from the Big Bad, and that will show him that he's not as helpless as he thinks he is and remind him that he has it pretty good with her. *yawn* So original.

I don't like the Hodgins plotline right now either, but to be fair, they are calling him out on his behavior, and have been.

I also thought the look on Hodgins face when they were discussing one of the victims - I think it was the woman - and how the marriage had been happy and they were nearing their 10th anniversary or something like that - seemed like he might have had the beginnings of a wake up call. Hope so. Anyone remember just how long Cam and Hodgins have been married in show time?

[joanne3482]

On 4/29/2016 at 6:45 PM, Panopticon said:

Zack's downfall was because they really, really wanted a "gotcha" moment. The same thing happened with Heather Taffet as the Gravedigger. The show got its gotcha moment at the expense of the story making any kind of sense.

I thought part of the Zack issue was the actor who played him. Eric Millegan needed to be let out of his contract due to his medical situation, bipolar disorder. They left it open that he could possibly return, by not killing him off outright, but gave a "plausible" reason why he was now gone. Since he loved the Jeffersonian it had to be a big deal for him to actually leave on a permanent basis. 

I loved Bones' gun app. That cracked me up. 

[Panopticon]

6 hours ago, clanstarling said:

I also thought the look on Hodgins face when they were discussing one of the victims - I think it was the woman - and how the marriage had been happy and they were nearing their 10th anniversary or something like that - seemed like he might have had the beginnings of a wake up call. Hope so. Anyone remember just how long Cam and Hodgins have been married in show time?

I guess if you assume that Christine is now about six instead of barely four, the slightly older Michael Vincent is seven and turning eight toward the end of the season since he was born in a season finale. Since Hodgins/Angela were married over a year when Michael was born they could be approaching ten years married in flexible show time. Going on real time they're also approaching ten years since they first coupled up even though there was a broken engagement and some time apart in there. So no matter what timeline you use it would make sense for the ten-year milestone to affect Hodgins.

2 hours ago, joanne3482 said:

I thought part of the Zack issue was the actor who played him. Eric Millegan needed to be let out of his contract due to his medical situation, bipolar disorder. They left it open that he could possibly return, by not killing him off outright, but gave a "plausible" reason why he was now gone. Since he loved the Jeffersonian it had to be a big deal for him to actually leave on a permanent basis. 

 

Even assuming that they absolutely had to get EM out of there at the end of the season (and I'm not at all sure they did) and that they were committed to not killing Zack, there were plenty of options that didn't involve a rewrite of his entire personality. He becomes obsessed with giving Iraq another try after failing the first time and gets an opportunity to go back. One of his parents gets sick and while he visits his family something happens to keep him in Michigan longer than expected-- another dream job, a romance, a combination thereof. His social issues lead to him screwing up on the witness stand the way Cam always worried that he would, resulting in a Gormogon accomplice going free, and he's allowed to stay on at the Jeffersonian but only (unseen) on the pure research side. Gormogon attacks him or causes the same explosion in the lab that maimed his hands, resulting in his not being able to do the job for the foreseeable future. That last one even gives you almost the same scene of Brennan tearfully begging a traumatized, hospitalized Zack for information that aired.

In contrast, I also don't like the way the Jared arc ended. Every time we saw Jared, he was noticeably more grown up-- an uninterrupted upward trajectory. He sacrificed himself for his brother. He stopped drinking. He stopped asking for Booth's help and actively told Booth to stop micromanaging. It was sad to me that after all that he regressed, destroyed his marriage, died tragically, and nearly got Booth killed. Once the show is over, I'm going to rewrite my mental head canon so that Jared lives happily ever after, as much for Booth's sake as his his own. But, for this one I absolutely understand that the show had no other good option and I pat the writers on the back for doing the only thing that made sense.  Brendan Fehr had been off having a career for years; DB was unexpectedly too sick to start shooting on a normal schedule; it was the season premiere and had to start with a punch; and the show had just been through an arc about Booth lying to Brennan and giving up his danger seeking ways. The show was backed into several corners.

Not so with the Zack situation. Whatever their constraints may have been, they weren't tight enough to stop me from side-eyeing the hell out of their decision. 

Edited May 2, 2016 by Panopticon