Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

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English Al
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Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

Post by English Al »

Is it me or do we find out subliminally (is that a word?) that Jack fancies Angela? It's certainly more apparent in the next episode.

This is yet another different episode to the others in the series. No pirates again though. It's full of fear for Tempe and it keeps in with Kathy Reichs' first book (I've just read a scene that was similar to Tempe waking up).

Off to watch ep 1.21 again - The Soldier on the Grave.

Maybe a couple more too.
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Re: Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

Post by Ellen »

I think there are a few episodes in which we see glances and looks etc etc between the pair that shows us something will happen between them, before it was even put into their scripts. Those writers. Aren't they great? :D
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Re: Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

Post by Sinkwriter72 »

So... Sharon, Hanne and I were just chatting in the chatbox about this episode and this wonderful Hodgins scene. It's on par with Booth's "cops solve cases" speech in the pilot episode -- how that speech says a lot about Booth and about how he feels about his profession and how dedicated to his job he is. In this episode, we get that kind of speech for Hodgins, and it illuminates his character. The details of his work, his smarts, his knowledge base... and how passionate he is about his work. I just love this speech.

And it's funny, too. :D

Text borrowed from the Bones Fans Online episode transcripts...



Zack is looking through a magnifying glass as Hodgins comes up behind him. He stays behind him during the entire scene.

HODGINS: I've been over every inch of these X-rays.

ZACK: Me, too.

HODGINS: There's evidence of particles on the bones, but there is no way for me to know what they are.

ZACK: Probably dirt.

HODGINS: Yes, thank you, Zack. But 'dirt' is a meaningless word.

ZACK: (not paying attention, still studying the X-ray) You can't see air on an X-ray.

HODGINS: What? I never said you could. I'm not even talking about air.

ZACK: You can see a space where air might be like a cavity, but not the air itself.

HODGINS: What I'm saying is that yes, there are flecks on the X-rays that might be dirt, but that doesn't tell us anything.

Hodgins is getting mad that Zack isn't paying attention to him. He jerks Zack around in his chair so he can see his face.

HODGINS: Is it sandy? Hm? Silty, "humusey"? Is it clay? Is it more organic than mineral? Is it soil? Is it pulverized gravel? What minerals are in it? Are the minerals crystalline? See, these are all details a person cannot get off an X-ray no matter how long he stares at it.

Zack has slowly drifted off during Hodgins' speech and is obviously thinking about something else.

ZACK: Sometimes a person should look for things that aren't there instead of things that are there.

HODGINS: You mean me? In dirt?

ZACK: No. Me. On the X-ray. I've been looking for anomalies which exist instead of anomalies which don't exist.

HODGINS: Zack, if you are ever going to successfully mimic being human, you have to stop making everything about you and feign interest in the other guy. (no response) Zack!

Zack continues to stare at the X-ray.

ZACK: (murmuring) I've noticed that you try to look taller.

HODGINS: When?

ZACK: Around Dr. Brennan.

HODGINS: I do not.

ZACK: And Angela. Because they are both taller than you.

HODGINS: You know what? I take it back. Don't take any interest in the other guy.

ZACK: (oblivious) Thank you for your help.

Hodgins pretends to strangle him from behind.



That dirt speech is priceless. I love it. And the banter between Hodgins and Zack just cracks me up. Great stuff!
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maggimaemellon
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Re: Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

Post by maggimaemellon »

I just watched this episode! when Hodgins and Angela have their first "moment" !!! They just stare into to each others eyes! :)
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Re: Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

Post by ThyneAlone »

I do have to proclaim to all here and now that this episode contains one of my all-time favourite Booth lines: "Jesus is not a zombie!!" (although "While you're a murder suspect behave more like a normal woman and less like Lily Munster" comes a close second. I'd have gone for Morticia Addams for preference though - Lily is but a pale copy!). And it is also a watershed in that it introduces the absolutely wonderful Caroline Julian, on great form from the very start, with her shrewd summary of Brennan's chances in court and her knowledge of the past history ("stop me if I say something wrong").

Apart from being convincingly topical - Bones does this kind of thing very well, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was still a major theme all over the world - the episode centres on belief. Self belief. Belief in your friends. Belief in power beyond mortal ken and life beyond death. And although Brennan says "Things are just things. they don't have magical meanings or powers", she clearly feels the significance of her mother's earring, which Booth returns to her at the very end (incidentally, what happened to these episode dénouements when they were all sitting round together discussing the case and having a friendly chat? When did it become all about a BB 'moment' at the end of each ep?). Finally, it is Brennan's and Booth's belief in humanity that wins through.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So Brennan is in New Orleans and helping with the Katrina clear up and all looks pretty normal. Audaciously, the clues are laid before us in the first few lines; Mike Doyle, who works in the morgue, has acquired himself a girlfriend who is turned on by death and likes to have sex in among the coffins. He has just confided the information when we realise that Zack, on video connection, is listening to this somewhat inappropriate snippet and congratulates him blandly on his coffin sex! Nice one Zack. And nice one Brennan, when, a few minutes later, while Zack is bewailing the fact that he cannot be with her, she jokes to him "sex on a coffin is not guaranteed!" I don't know why, but somehow Brennan always seemed more relaxed and happy working with Zack than with any of the interns who followed. They just had a particular chemistry, an excellent rapport.

The viewer then shares the shock and horror as Brennan awakens, covered in blood, injured and with no recall of how it happened. A lot of the best episodes have camerawork that make us feel as if we are in the relevant character's mind, and throw us into the middle of a mysterious situation which requires flashback explanation. Here, fragments of memory doh-si-doh randomly in front of us and we feel Brennan's trauma.

As we begin to piece events together more horror and enigma emerge. The John Doe whose X-rays Brennan sent to the lab for closer perusal disappears - and then turns up sharing a box with poor Mike Doyle. By now he has been identified as a 'good' voodoo priest, further complicating the affair. Graham Léger is found flayed and crucified in his own living room. Someone is attempting to frame Brennan for murder. By now some of the motivation for all this was beginning to escape me - you know how easily I become confused - but events and their analysis were still following a logical path, so I was still very much engaged.

The voodoo element now begins to dominate. Cue various discussions about religion, superstition and belief, which are quite interesting, especially Brennan's comparison of voodoo and Christianity (this is another manifestation of the religious discussion which is a regular feature of BB interaction), and Sam Potter's remark, "You don't have to believe in the spirits, Dr Brennan. They believe in you." Voodoo has a poor reputation, but here we see an exploration of its true core; a need for balance of the forces in the world. The Secte Rouge, a cult within voodoo, is the 'dark side' of the religion, desiring power through magic and thus an imbalance of these forces. That sounds a bit too Star Wars, but you know what I mean.

Meantime the team back at the lab is watching and waiting anxiously. Angela is at first cock-a-hoop that Booth is with Brennan - she's desperate to pair them off - but becomes very upset at Brennan's casual mention of bail, a murder charge and healing wounds. It is indeed a glorious moment when Hodgins knows exactly what to say to make her feel better - the eyes do meet in a second of recognition and promise. He tells her that Brennan has become a rookie adventurer because she has seen something of Angela's full, wonderful, richly varied life and wants to duplicate this in her own experiences. Angela isn't totally reassured, but she is warmly flattered and begins to feel that things will be ok. One up to the blue eyes. You can always tell that she's feeling good, even excited, after a conversation with Jack, because she gives that little, secret half-smile.

The amount of blood in this episode could be quite upsetting; Léger's fate was horrific and the violent death of Eva Benoit on a spike was awful to contemplate (though the jaw-dropping horror at finding out her father had done this was somewhat alleviated by the bathos of him screaming curses at Brennan until she poked him in the eye). Was all the blood on Brennan hers? Had she been to Graham's or not? To me, that wasn't clear. In fact I wasn't 100% clear why Graham was targeted. I'll have to watch again.

So how have we moved on by the end of this episode? Well, we have dipped into Booth's religious beliefs once more, such an important part of his character; we have seen Jack and Angela's mutual attraction in a much stronger form than has been intimated up until now; we have met Caroline; we have once again seen clues about Brennan's attachment to her mother; we've learned, in the brilliant Hodgins/Zack conversation quoted above this post, just how passionate Jack is about his subject (although - STILL not enough TJ). I personally found out enough about voodoo to make me want to learn more, and Brennan learned a degree of tolerance and that she has to rely on other people - not just herself - from time to time. I think it was very important that she was for a while without that swift, agile, analytical brain and dependable memory. Booth was a very firm support and they even had a short, slightly flirty conversation in which they expressed admiration for one another. Lots of development there.

Things I disliked? Apart from lack of Hodgins? Two words: Rose Harding. What a nasty, closed-minded detective she turned out to be.
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"We make our lives out of chaos and hope. And love." - Angela Montenegro

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Re: Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

Post by skftex »

This episode starts by showing New Orleans during Katrina. Lots of places got hit by that hurricane, my sister who lived in Gulf Port, Mississippi at the time had her house flooded, but thankfully she had prepared and evacuated before it hit.

Brennan is working in a morgue there helping to identify bodies.

Poor Zack, the sex in the coffin thing is not guaranteed.

That Graham is some sort of party guy judging by the way Brennan looks when she wakes! That is A LOT of blood. Yikes an earring ripped right out of the ear would HURT. I don’t like Detective Harding. Why is she so mean? I don’t understand that.

Ah here is our lovely Hodgins.
Angela: “I keep hoping for a baby T that says The Big Easy.”
Hodgins: “Oh we’re all hoping for that.”
Then the innocent look when he tells Angela “For you, I mean.”

“Usually dead people are pretty much silent on their own.” Booth sometimes is very funny. Booth doesn’t believe in voodoo. “Jesus is not a zombie!” I saw that Steph mentions that above as being one of Booth’s best lines. It really is, I love how he says that. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that.” HEE
So Booth and Brennan go to the Benoit voodoo shop and ask about black gumroot and want to know who has bought it recently. Benoit tells Eva to look on the computer. What if someone walked in and paid cash? They wouldn’t have a record of that would they? Personally if I were going to do Secte Rouge stuff I’d go cash all the way. ;)

Benoit says there are misconceptions about voodoo and Booth responds with “Yeah well you know that zombie stuff puts a crimp in your public relations.” Booth sure can be snotty about other religions can’t he, yet he always gets so offended when Brennan says things about his religion.

Ha, I never noticed when Booth and Brennan go to Graham’s house and Brennan keeps shouting “Graham? Graham!” Booth says “cracker”.
And there Booth goes again, “Easy on the Catholics.” But he didn’t care that Brennan said something about acupuncture. :/

Graham apparently is not such much of a party boy anymore. Hanging on the wall that way. And there is snotty Detective Harding. She is a bad cop. “You want to look behind me and remind yourselves why I’m a little low on humor.” Well sure I’ll look behind you but I have a feeling Detective Harding that your sense of humor was gone waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy before Brennan and Booth got to town.

And here we have Booth do something that I think really tells what he is willing to do for Brennan. He sees the missing earring and puts it in his pocket. As Booth has a very strong sense of justice and how the system works, I think that really speaks to how connected feels to Brennan that he’d hide evidence.
I don’t understand why no one seems to know about John Doe 361, not only was James there and said it when he brought it in, Sam took the voodoo thing out of the mouth and Detective Harding was also there when they brought it in. ALL of them seem to be victims of amnesia so Detective Harding needs to stop being so snotty about it. ;)

Booth: “Now call me crazy but I’m suspicious of snake man.”
Brennan: “That is because you’ve been inculcated by the mainstream cultures of prevailing Judeo-Christian tradition into instinctive skepticism of alternative morays.” For some reason I love the way Brennan says that and then Booths reaction “Yeah! Thanks for that explanation.” :D

I’m not going to repeat the Hodgins/Zack scene since I saw that Sherry put it in the thread already, but I am going to say I do love this scene. I love the way Hodgins gets so upset about the dirt comment then at the end the way his face looks as he acts as if he is going to strangle Zack. I think scenes like that is really why I miss Zack, even though I know there are a lot of fans that hate to hear people say that, it isn’t because I think he should be brought back, I still think these scenes worked better than a lot of the Hodgins/intern scenes did because the chemistry is different. Plus can I just say here, TJ’s hair is awesome in this scene. ;)
How did the voodoo people get Brennan into the hotel room with all that blood on her? Seems like someone would see that? Why does Detective come storming into the room without even knocking? They had no reason to believe she would be a flight risk, she hasn’t left yet. So why act that way? I really, really don’t understand Detective Harding’s thinking.

“She’s a fool? You didn’t tell me she’s a fool.” I’ve always loved the way Caroline talks about and to Brennan. :D
Hodgins: “You know Angela isn’t that much taller than me.” Then while looking like he is thinking: “We both like Brussels sprouts.”
Zack: “You don’t like Brussels sprouts.”
Hodgins: “A man can change!” HAHAHA Sorry but I’d let her keep the Brussels sprouts and find something else to have in common. BLECH.

Ha poor Hodgins, Brennan says dirt to him too. It means nothing in the lab, scientifically! That’s okay Hodgins, people just don’t understand dirt like you do. :D
I’ve always loved the conversation with Hodgins and Angela, where Hodgins explains that Brennan gets involved in solving crimes because she saw how Angela lives and wants a big life. “That’s how it looks to me anyway, but what do I know, I’m a bug guy, bug and slime. Well, dirt.” Hodgins called it DIRT!!! :o

“Okay then we just toss the ring into the molten river then blah blah.” Wow Booth has lots of great lines in this one. And it’s a Lord of the Rings reference. Awesome. 

“I’ve noticed that very few people are scary once they’ve been poked in the eye.” HAHA Good philosophy there, I think I'll start trying that.

“Dark sorcerers suck man!” HAHAHA Hodgins, yes, I think that is basically the whole thing about dark sorcerers, they definitely suck!

Booth gives the earring back to Brennan. He proves something but not what the others are thinking it does. :D

Cool episode. Great mix of funny stuff and strange stuff.
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Re: Bones 1.19 - The Man in the Morgue

Post by stargazer »

I definitely need to rewatch this one, I remember really enjoying it. :) Sharon, I'm glad your sister made it out before Katrina hit. It seems that all of us in the US probably know someone who was affected by that storm. My coworker evacuated New Orleans and came to Florida to get out of the path and she ended up staying here. Lucky us! We get to keep her! LOL! :D
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