Bones 2.06 The Girl In Suite 2103

[ThyneAlone]

This is an extremely frustrating case. The family which is mixed up in this nasty little mess has diplomatic immunity and little Alex Radswell from the State Department does not want the FBI anywhere near any of them. Booth is almost climbing the walls with irritation by the close, and Cam has actually created a fake file with which to force the ambassador to waive her immunity; but Booth and Brennan aren't having any of it and in the end it is, ironically, the obstructive Alex who persuades Judge Ramos to stay by reminding her of the treatment she may expect on her return to Columbia if she is tried there.

Frustrating it may be - because justice does grind exceedingly slowly - but here are the reasons I am fond of it.

1) The spectacular find of the body splayed out on the chandelier and the rapid discovery that it is female (Brennan: "The sciatic notch doesn't lie." Cam: "Neither does the vagina.").

2) Alex. He's such a great character and an excellent, laconic adversary for Brennan. He's not fazed at all by her rudeness, and I'm sorry, this is not a refreshing departure from PC tokenism, it is quite unwarranted rudeness. OK, "People defer to you because of your size, and you take advantage - I don't like it" is perhaps an acceptable, if discourteous, touch of frankness. But the discussion about throwing Alex out of the window and her giggling reaction to "baby steps" are just inappropriate. He's not defensive though, quite the contrary. "Hello? Dr Brennan? I'm small, not invisible." It's good that his pragmatism leads him to justice, albeit by a different route from Booth's.

3) Hodgins and Angela. There are loads of lovely little touches here conveying the growing understanding between the couple. As well as some pretty overt flirting. In the first scene he's in, Hodgins exits the room as Angela comes in. You'll miss it if you blink, but his eyes follow her and he smiles in a kind of intimate way. Then there are more signs of him trying to get up close and personal when he asks Angela to upload the photos he's taken of the scene of the explosion, and adds, hopefully .."I also found these melted blobs of something." But Angela has seen it all before, "Not my department. You're just trying to prolong this conversation." And he leaves with a grin and she does her secret smile thing again. Later on, Angela has worked out from the photos that the 'bomber' must be alive, and is about 6' tall; Hodgins is more blatant this time: "I could kiss you!" "That would require permission," quips Angela gracefully, "which I deny."
There are more of these riches. For instance,we have the famous Odd Enthusiasms moment where Hodgins is not only to be found practically jumping up and down with glee like a demented four-year-old about his discovery that Cam and Booth used to be an item (we are in 'I-know-something-you-don't-know' territory), but is also caught smelling Angela's hair. This scene is neatly rounded off later when Angela guesses what Hodgins is 'talking about' and he says to her, "Love is in the purified and ionised lab air. Why should we resist?" "GO" she responds, laughing. The pacing is brilliant; the relationship has been picking up speed since the start of the season, though still quite delicately sketched, and this is exactly right, following on from the delicious flirting in the Truth In The Lye.

4) Hodgins on his own. So you're trying to reach a private plane and need to stop it taking off before you get there. Who you gonna call? that's right, "Bugs, slime, particulates, what's your poison?" And Hodgins' no-holds-barred maximum effort does indeed ground the plane - he calls the FAA with a highly classified code phrase to inform them that it is being targeted by a Colombian terrorist organisation. His enthusiasm here is nearly as funny as the expression on his face at the end when he is being frogmarched off between two Men In Black!

5) The explosion experiment. Cam is still trying to pretend she's in charge. She reckons the members of the group work too independently (we get told that at work, too, it's like all your individuality is being crushed). "Every circus needs a ringmaster... There's a loop, people, and I'm in it!" But they are still bypassing her, and nobody told her about the huge explosion her boys are about to create. Hilarious, as they roll around on the floor afterwards. Who clears up all the mess? Who's paying for all the mess? Oh - right - probably Hodgins!

6) Zack. Oh, I still miss him. He's taken Cam's order to put everything through her a little literally. She didn't particularly want to know about the performance artist with the six rabbits, but she got all the detail. Because it's Zack. He's also very proud of his efforts to make Booth more comfortable in the lab. "Broken finger - I'm using those words specially for you, Booth!" "Thanks" mutters Booth, ungratefully, as Zack continues: "Also disjunct of acromion and curacoid, with damage to the glenoid (looks at Booth) -dislocated shoulder."

The team comes up against, and negotiates, some difficult barriers here. It is made clear that we need mutual agreements such as diplomatic immunity. The fact that it is hindering Booth from doing his job on this occasion does not mean that it should be sideslipped or abandoned; if everyone got to do as they liked, anarchy would rule. It's basically the same rule as with Epps; protect the innocent and you're bound to end up protecting a few guilty people as well - that doesn't mean you should withdraw the protection. The show, headlined as it is by seekers after pure truth, often ends up highlighting the difference between justice and the law, but always stresses that the law is absolutely essential (qv the sheriff in 5.20, The Witch In The Wardrobe).

I wasn't overly impressed with Lisa Winnaker's mother. She advises her daughter to get pregnant to hang on to a man? You are probably propelling her towards the opposite of security, madam. How sad that she thinks this is the only way her child can escape the kind of struggle she herself has faced. And how sad and ironic, too, that it has brought about her death.

Brennan is still looking better and behaving more reasonably than she does nowadays! And the lab looks stunning too, especially when we view it from above in the final scene.

[SmackyKennedy]

I've been watching a lot of S2 lately while working in the weekend (some aspects of the captioning allow me to keep just one eye on it).

Oh how I love, love S2. This episode was always one of my favorites. Interesting and frustrating case and OMG Jack and Angela. The whole odd enthusiasms scene is so adorable.

Can't say much more that hasn't already been said below. Well done, Bones.