Bones

The rather comical second episode of Bones' fourth season begins with a truck driver in search of an outhouse. Do those things still exist? He finds one and, as some men do, he decides to enjoy a cigarette while doing his business. Unfortunately, as soon as he lights it, the outhouse goes up in flames. The truck driver is flung into the air and miraculously survives, though his first order of business is to stop, drop and roll to put out the fire on his butt.

Booth (David Boreanaz) stops by Bones' apartment to pick her up, and he's shocked to see a half-naked beefcake. On the drive to the crime scene, Bones has no shame about her purely physical relationship with the deep sea welder because, though they have nothing in common, he satisfies her sexual needs. She proudly boasts he can hold his breath for three minutes, and Booth's mind goes straight to a dirty place.

At the outhouse, Bones (Emily Deschanel) mocks Booth's irrational fear o feces then wonders why she's there if the truck driver is still alive. Booth points to the char-broiled outhouse where some human remains are resting at the bottom of the outhouse. Back at the Jeffersonian, Sweets (John Francis Daley) rather succinctly sums up the body's injuries: “Shot in the head, punched in the face, dumped in the poop.” Bones discovers he wasn't punched, but rather a crumpled up photo was shoved in his mouth.

Hodgins (TJ Thyne) and Ms. Wick, Bones' perky female assistant du jour are sifting through the feces and they find hair that suggests the victim wore a toupee. Hodgins asks Ms. Wick to sift through the six barrels of fecal remains to isolate all the other hairs. It's a crap job, but someone's got to do it. Angela's facial reconstruction reveals the victim is the host of a reality TV show called Busted by Bill where he catches men in the act of cheating on their wives.

The reality show prompts a theological discussion in which Bones believes monogamy is a false construct of humans and Booth stands by “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” He calls her motives for preaching polygamy into question when he learns she is dating a botanist who provides intellectual stimulation while sleeping with the physically stimulating deep sea welder.

After Booth and Sweets target one of the cheaters as a potential suspect, they drop by Bones' date with the botanist. He wears tight Italian suits, likes Coldplay and ordered mint tea and fruit tarts. Booth and Sweets agree that her platonic botanist date is gay. They then enlist the aid of a creepy stalker to track down their suspect, but the investigation proves he's innocent.

Meanwhile, Ms. Wick is way too into her job, desperately trying to impress Bones, who she calls her hero. She's rubbing the rest of the team the wrong way with her chipper attitude and almost stalker-like obsession with Bones. The team learns the photo is of Bill and a mystery woman with a tramp stamp getting sexy, and when Hodgins discovers a mixture of saliva and metal on Bill's thigh, which leads to a production assistant with a tongue stud Bill was sleeping with. She claims innocence, which leads to the real killer, her ex-boyfriend who was a cameraman for Bill's show who acted out of rage after seeing the photo.

Romance is all over the Jeffersonian. Sweets shares some flirtation with Ms. Wick, and Bones is stunned when both her botanist and deep sea welder show up. Somehow, she remains unflustered and explains in her hyper-rational way her reasons for seeing both men. That night, Bones and Booth get some counseling from Sweets where we learn both of Bones' men aren't as rational as her, so they dumped her. Sweets posits that Bones and Booth use their partnership as a surrogate relationship, and after they go to get some Chinese food, a lonely Sweets calls up the recently fired Ms. Wick to ignite some loving of his own.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of FOX)