Bones 12.07 The Scare in the Score

Discussion of TJ's most popular venture to date!
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skftex
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Bones 12.07 The Scare in the Score

Post by skftex »

Okay here we go, episode 7!

They find a woman that has been tortured similar to the way Aldo was tortured but the woman is basically a shut in and they don't see a connection until Angela figures out that one of the men in Booth's old squadron, Mike Reiss, was the person that delivered the packages she would order. This is one of those cases where they find way too much information, way too easily, and it is glaring in the difference in early seasons where things weren't just a flick of Angela's wrist and they knew everything there was to know about someone (as you mentioned Steph in the discussion for the Past in the Present). She has access to his work record, his phone record, his atm and bank records, just like that. They also seem to be able to identify the first body just by the fact that the woman bought some sort of hummingbird jewelry from a home shopping network? Or maybe I missed something there.

So Booth sees a photo of the son of the Warlord Radik in a bar and recognizes him immediately as the son that was at the birthday party. Angela does some more hocus pocus and suddenly Brennan is SURE Mark Kovac is the son of Radik just based on some playing around with a facial recognition program. At least they do have Cam as the voice of reason and integrity saying that Brennan usually requires a lot more facts than she has before deciding something. Then they excuse it by having Brennan say this isn't a regular case, like that has ever mattered before.

So they move the kids and Brennan's father to a safehouse and Kovac comes to the FBI to make it look like he is being cooperative. And then they find out that there was a shooting at the safe house and they tracked Max via his pacemaker! NOTHING IS SAFE ANYMORE WITH THESE DARN COMPUTERS I'M TELLING YOU!!! Or in the land of Bones no one has good computer security. :icon-rolleyes: Max protects the kids, but is shot. Kovac had used a defibrillator on Reiss and they found his sweat on the machine so now we have proof Kovac killed Reiss. Back at the hospital Max dies. I've never been a fan of the Max character but still it was sad, it is always sad when they kill someone off. I was expecting a lot more outrage on social media about it but I guess because it is the last season people are more just sad. Oh and also earlier we find out that someone was still tracing the pacemaker AFTER the hit men were dead at the safehouse so Hodgins gets to tell us "This is not over." So we know that the arrest of Kovac wasn't the end to this story!

While I like this arc, I love that they reached back into the depths of Bones for it, I found that this episode felt rushed. I get that they only have so many episodes to finish this thing but I think there were also already 3 episodes this season that we could have easily have thrown out and they could have devoted to this story. So all their forensic/lab finds didn't seem so presto magic-o! Even so, there was a lot going on and I found the basis of it to be pretty solid, and of course any time they kill off a character we know they bring the fan emotions crashing in as well, so while it isn't what I'd call the BEST episode ever, it did hold my interest.

And as an end note, cleanly shaven Hodgins let us see how very young TJ can look without the beard! LOL As soon as I saw him I was thinking "Aww look at our young boy looking TJ! Isn't he adorable?" :romance-smileyheart:

Only 5 episodes to go!
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Re: Bones 12.07 The Scare in the Score

Post by ThyneAlone »

This sounds interesting. Obviously I can't comment on it for a couple of weeks, but do you think Max knew something about what's happening? I mean, what about that paper he slipped into his pocket and told Christine it was "nothing"?
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Re: Bones 12.07 The Scare in the Score

Post by skftex »

Steph it was a nameplate from the hospital, he was hiding the fact he had a medical procedure to put in a pacemaker from Brennan.
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ThyneAlone
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Re: Bones 12.07 The Scare in the Score

Post by ThyneAlone »

Ah I knew there was a reason for not commenting until I was up to date. :doh:
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stargazer
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Re: Bones 12.07 The Scare in the Score

Post by stargazer »

I finally got a chance to watch this one, a couple days late. Overall, I thought it was a very good episode and I knew from the beginning that it was probably going to be Max who died, although in a different way than I expected. Although I was right about a medical condition, I was thinking more along the lines of cancer. It's sad that just when he gets a pacemaker and is feeling better that he gets killed protecting the kids. :( I'm curious as to why he eventually died because it appeared that he had been stabilized after the shooting. I'm sure it was just complications from the surgery to save his life but part of me was wondering if the pacemaker had something to do with it. I mean, they used the GPS from the pacemaker to track him, it's not so wild an idea that maybe someone was able to stop it remotely. Especially on this show, where Pelant could basically do magic electronically. LOL! I guess we'll probably never know.

I like this story arc but I agree with Sharon that everything has seemed rushed and forced so far. They seem to come to resolution very quickly and in questionable ways. They make it seem too easy. LOL! I have to admit that the warlord's son had me convinced in the beginning that he wasn't involved, but of course he was. He was using his wife's properties to torture his victims which makes me wonder if the wife was involved as well, or if he was just with her to use her resources.

The first thing I noticed about Hodgins was that he shaved!! Sharon is right that it makes him look younger but I prefer just a little scruff on his face. :D

It was pretty funny when Cam got mad at Arastoo for letting it slip that she watches a home shopping channel. And of course TJ was adorable with his comment that "someone's in trouble". Hahahaha!! :laughing-rolling:
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Sinkwriter72
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Re: Bones 12.07 The Scare in the Score

Post by Sinkwriter72 »

It's funny to see you all talking about how rushed things have been this season. Mainly because in other seasons they've drawn things out to the point of ridiculousness (see: PELANT). So it's kind of sad that they didn't utilize the final 12 episodes a little better, maybe used each one to tell the pieces of the warlord storyline instead of wasting some time on relatively cheesy cases like the logger or the tutor.

At any rate, this was an episode I appreciated mainly because it got back on task with the warlord stuff. I wish they'd give more attention to the Zack stuff as well, instead of just the token Hodgins scene to show he's still investigating it. The question is, why don't we see BOOTH in on the discussion, Booth who had been solidly in Zack's corner and even defended his innocence to a dubious Brennan? Why aren't they all digging in? Why isn't this bigger?

General thoughts about this particular episode:

LOL to the reveal that the elegant Cam watches Home Shopping! Heeee. (And LOL at Arastoo for busting her on it. Dude. You know better than to do that. You know how private she is. As Hodgins pointed out, you are in sooooo much trouble.)

I liked the flashback to Booth taking the shot at the warlord. I liked the way they showed him taking his time with the shot. Not only because that poor little boy was right there in the danger zone (and made me beg my TV screen, "Booth, please don't shoot him with the little boy in his LAP!"), but also because everything I've read about snipers talks about their precision, their need for hyper-focus and calm, and how they have to calculate everything (wind speed, distance, etc.) to line everything up and time it just right. So I appreciated that little detail of Booth being so careful before finally taking the shot.

It was pretty chilling to watch him at work. Though I think it's a fascinating element of his character, one I would have liked to have seen more of (like when he did the challenging test shots in the episode Proof in the Pudding).

Side note: perhaps the warlord's son and his wife deserve each other, because WOW was she not at all compassionate with him when he revealed who his father was and how he wasn't proud of it. Though - now that we know the son is actually the culprit - it makes me wonder if she's in on it, because maybe that angry defensive "How could you lie to me?" was actually an act for Booth and Aubrey's benefit? If it wasn't an act, wow, she really had no compassion for him. Just wouldn't budge an INCH no matter what he said or how upset he seemed to be.

I'm with Kathy, though. I was fully willing to believe the son was not guilty, based on how he acted in the initial scene, protesting how he was not proud of who his father was and why he hid it. But then the psych eval discussion came forth, and the point that he's behaving TOO calmly about it all, too rationally, and not showing any disturbance, shame or genuine upset in his evaluations was pretty telling. That made me pause and think, okay, maybe he IS guilty. And then of course when he showed up at Booth's office, I had the gut feeling that he was there to watch Booth's reaction and get enjoyment from it, getting bad news of some sort (and give himself an alibi - "I couldn't have done it - I was standing right in your office when you got the call!"). So that was an interesting scene as well.

A question: shouldn't Booth have put his entire former unit under protection after what happened to Aldo? Seems to me like that should have been priority #1. It seemed like whoever was guilty of torturing Aldo would be gunning for the rest of the unit next, to gather more info and torture the lot of them. So once Booth realized that, how it was far from over and the killer was most likely coming for Booth, at the end of the Aldo episode, wouldn't he have immediately put the remainder of his Ranger unit under protection? Or, if they weren't willing, because they felt they could take care of themselves, at least put them on notice to be careful? That was a detail I wish they'd worked harder to present to us, the viewing audience. Like perhaps Booth's friend Mike wouldn't have been captured and tortured and murdered if he'd been in FBI protection after Aldo's death.

Also, hello?! Shouldn't he be worried about the Jeffersonian team too? If the killer is willing to torture an innocent old lady, he's no issues going after the Jeffersonian team, Brennan, Caroline, or Aubrey, in order to get to Booth. They should ALL be under high surveillance or protection of some sort, I'd think. At the very least we should have seen that happen while the killer was still undetermined and not in custody.

About Max... okay. I have NO love for Max. We all know this. But his final scene with Brennan was a lovely one. And when he died, and she stood up and was saying, "No no no..." and "I'm right here, Dad" as the medical staff swarmed in, that got me right in the heart. I really felt for her. They've had such a complicated relationship, and when Emily is given opportunity to go deep with her character, she can make me cry like crazy.

I'm reminded of the last episode of season 1, where she finds out she's not who she thought she was, and neither was Russ, or her parents, and in her panic, she starts babbling, "My name is Brennan. I’m Dr. Temperance Brennan. I work at the Jeffersonian Institution. I’m a Forensic Anthropologist. I specialize in identif - in identifying – in identifying people when nobody knows who they are. My father was a science teacher. My mother was a bookkeeper. (she starts to cry) My brother - I have a brother. I’m Dr. Temperance Brennan." And Booth comforts her with "I know who you are." Ooh, such a gut punch.

Anyway, I don't love Max, but I do feel for Brennan because of his death. And Booth walking down the hospital hallway and then being there for her was an excellent way to take us out of the episode. That was good stuff.

Side note to Sharon: I'm stunned by TJ without the beard! I'm really curious about his choice in shaving it off for these final episodes. Even in season 3 and later, when he wasn't as beardy as he had been in the first two seasons, he was still slightly scruffy. (Always in an attractive way, LOL.) But to see him completely clean-shaven was such a stunner, like wow! Look at Hodgins! It felt like an unusual change in him, and I wonder if there's an underlying purpose to it. I know in past interviews TJ has talked about how he went with the beard and the scruffier hair length in the early seasons to show Hodgins being more focused on his work, and that after he started dating Angela, his clothes got less baggy, a little more stylish, and his hair and face got cleaner, more attention paid to his appearance. So I wonder what the cause is for this change in Hodgins right near the end of the series. Hmm... a question for TJ when it's all done airing, I suppose. :romance-smileyheart:
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