First off, I love how the episode began with the camera gazing into those gorgeous blue eyes!!
Well, like TJ said, this was definitely a unique episode. I thought that the idea of having the story told from the perspective of the skull was clever, but I also thought that it detracted somewhat from the story. I found myself concentrating on how the scene was filmed instead of on the details of the case. It was quite distracting. Also, the motion of the camera bouncing around when being handled was not good for someone who may be prone to motion sickness.
I wasn't really a fan of the smoke/fog/clouds between scenes. I think that they could've found a different way of transitioning between the scenes that wouldn't have made it seem so corny, but I guess that it went along with the mystical nature of the episode. LOL!
There was one thing that bothered me the most about this episode. Even though Hodgins is a scientist first and foremost he also has an open mind in other areas, especially concerning his conspiracy theories. With that in mind, I would've thought his character would've been more open to the idea that there could be a spirit still attached to the remains. Instead, he was almost hostile with Avalon when she appeared to try and talk to the dead boy. It may just be me, but it seemed a little out of character for him.
I did enjoy the personal moments that each character had with the skull when no one else was around. It showed that Brennan has definitely softened since the birth of Christine, as opposed to her almost cold demeanor in previous seasons.
Overall, I liked the episode but I didn't love it. Maybe if I watch it again and try to focus on the actual case, I would enjoy it more.
**LOVE Brennan's dance moves!! :eusa-dance:
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"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." ~Brian Littrell
I enjoyed the different perspective and liked thinking about how they filmed it.
Particularly I enjoyed hearing Booth call Bones Temperance. Nice touch.
I dunno what they're doing with Angela and Hodgins, but I feel like he's dancing around trying to make her feel better about what she does. Isn't that something she had an issue with the first season, but liked it cause "she gives faces to victims"? It worries me what is going to happen at the end of the season I feel the music starting to get darker...
Great episode, I was glad it was an accident and not a murder.
Ignoring all the negative comments on this way of shooting the episode, I must say I find it quite appealing. But that could also be because of TJ's close-ups, haha So much in love with those close-ups
I liked the personal moments, too, just because they could say what they really wanted and felt.
I do think that when Hodgins told Angela she should stay proffesional, he could have known, and more thought about, the fact she makes the bones human, so she can't possibly not think of the boy but of the bones.
Just commenting on the part where Brennan started crying: the crying is something anyone could do. Especially anyone with a kid. I get that. But I thought her face was in kind of an evil mode when she turned towards the camera haha
And I still love Avalon. When I heard Cyndi was coming back, I kind of hoped she would bring her cards and turn around one that said 'the egyptian'. It was just a little thing boiling up in me. But I like the way Angie kept her opinion that she believed in Avalon, and believed the boy still had some things undone. I wonder many times if spirits could stay until they finished, and if that indeed was true, if I would stay.
The scene with HOT BLOODEEEED was funny, like Booth picked up Christine from Brennan because she was dancing hard HAHA love her moves... Shows the child part in our doctor.
Now: I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN MICHAEL VINCENT WHERE IS HE DID HE DISAPPEAR?! I'm really aching for some cute moments between the Hodgins family Can't wait till January
Now, I'm going to watch some Grinch since the snow is keeping me home from school.
xx
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"What about love? What do you have to say about love?" -Angela Montenegro
"It's overrated. Most of the time." -Jack Hodgins
Hmmmm, feels like I am spoiling everyone’s fun here, but this one didn’t really work for me. It was a good concept, but too many compromises had to be made to allow the POV to continue. I felt the conceit hadn’t been thought through sufficiently, particularly the fact that reasons were going to have to be given for carrying a piece of a skeleton around all the time while investigating a death. On a table in an interview room? Taken home for the night? Not convinced.
Clearly we were playing around here with the idea of life after death, ‘unfinished business’, and it’s an interesting one. I did like the metaphor of the wasps buzzing around in the brain, an inner noise that had to be silenced before peace could descend on the victim. However, the whole episode felt very contrived plot-wise and inevitably the unravelling of events had to take third place to the study of the concept of souls/spirits and to the mindsets of the individual team members. And why was Colin so significant anyway? With the mantra-like repetition of the “Really hate it when it’s a kid”, anyone would think all the past child/teenager killings, such as the Girl With The Curl or the Boy In A Tree, had never existed. Of course, the soliloquy addressed to the camera, masquerading as a conversation with something or someone else (an unseen psychologist, an animal, in this case a spirit), with the object of revealing something about the character speaking is not unusual, quite common in fact; and the skull even references Hamlet (another story of an unquiet spirit, now I come to think of it)! But the contrast between the little pieces to camera and the unsubtle hammering home of the various shorthands that we have for the characters’ personalities was just too great. They tried too hard.
To take Brennan as the chief example. On the one hand we strike a huge number of familiar bells here. We have “I don’t know what that means”, “Dancing phalanges” and a rousing chorus of ‘Hot Blooded’. She talks about being inhibited by her desire ‘not to embarrass myself in front of a fellow scientist’. She claims to follow the facts and not invest them with emotions, and dismisses the idea of consciousness surviving after death because there is no ‘empirical evidence’. Then she dissolves into tears in front of fellow scientists because she is dealing with the death of an adolescent. And talks to the skull, and takes it home. And leaves visitors abruptly saying she is ‘going somewhere else to do something.’ I am willing to believe that Brennan has become softer and more trusting, more prepared to give of herself to others, yes, but these juxtapositions are too bald for me to accept. Hodgins is another case in point. We expect him to scoff at Avalon, which he does with aplomb (“She’s not in control of what she hears.” “You can say that again”); but then he talks to the skull more than anyone else does. That’s superb by the way. I adore those TJ close ups and the way he puts such passion into his words – particularly when he goes into detail about the ‘glorious mess’ of life. But I can’t really work out whether he is being patronising to Angela about her belief in the psychic or respectful of her connection to the human, as she is the one who is to give Colin a face. Neither was he too gentle about creating a worst-case scenario for her.I’m hoping there is not to be a widening gap between Hodgins and Angela, but it looks as though we are shaping up for a few misunderstandings.
I guess Angela and Booth are the most believable in their relationship with the skull. Angela believes wholeheartedly in the spirit (that takes me back to S1 and the Skull In The Desert!) and Booth, on a different level, believes wholeheartedly in life after death, so her conversation and his prayers are entirely appropriate. I love the way they both believe in Brennan so firmly, too (“Given the opportunity, she always rises to the occasion”).
I apologise to her many fans, but Cyndi Lauper irritates the heck out of me – again, her characterisation feels contrived and I don’t like all the gurning in which she seems to indulge. It distracts me from the scenes she’s in. Would she really be so readily allowed into the lab? Really? Other things that surprised me; Sweets doesn’t seem to register the significance of a boy making a mix tape for a girl. That’s basic psychology, isn’t it? And the identification of a specific age and make of car from a scrape of paint stretches my credulity a little, though I suppose it would be possible.
The corniness that really antagonised this loyal viewer was the moment after the somewhat saccharine (though well-played, I thought) admission of his love - Colin finally leaving this world in a classic Cold Case ending, skateboarding off into infinity. One too many tweaks of my sentimental streak, I fear!
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"We make our lives out of chaos and hope. And love." - Angela Montenegro
