So I am totally one of those people who’s embarrassed to watch Bones (I just deleted “to be a Bones fan” because frankly that description is not fair to me OR the show) but I thought that last episode was a bit of a return to the show’s roots.
EXCEPT that bit where fingerprints on a conservatory piano showed that of course he broke his own hands. What? They knew he was there in the first place, and a practice room piano has a bazillion fingerprints and… is this really just for the parents’ peace of mind? Look, I was a music minor, and if I had had an inexplicable aneurism and not been found for months in the practice rooms in college (only slightly inconceivable) you could have pinned the crime on hundreds of people! This is stupid.
But the resolution is much more realistic - it isn’t suspect one or two, it’s, as probably in real life, a cheap dirtbag thief who didn’t even mean to kill the guy, and that isn’t the point. I enjoyed that.
I also enjoyed the parallel stories, for what it’s worth, and that sort of thing usually annoys the crap out of me. (It helps that I like Cam a lot.)
And I confess, I had had a few, but I got a little misty at that barn scene where the father was defending himself and the parents found out about their son’s talent.
And I was moved a bit by the not-to-be brother-in-law’s moment about the beauty of the piano, and what WASN’T a crisis of faith for him.
I’d say, decent episode, not shitty.
ETA - I forgot my reason for including the title - major points for not explaining the term “plain”.
No, I mean, I knew that the Amish use the word “plain” to mean eschewing the modern, but I didn’t think the SHOW knew that I knew that, because the show thinks I’m one step up from requiring somebody to change my diapers.
It really bugs me when a show undercuts itself when it really doesn’t have to. In one scene the brother says that “speaking for God” is like the worst sin ever, but in the final scene Bones convinces the couple to accept the DVD player (never in a thousand years) by, you guessed it, speaking for God! It’s just stupid.
The most powerful line in the episode, in my opinion: “He was going to be my brother.”
It kind of bugged me that Booth didn’t know about Rumspringa, since he’s an FBI agent in the DC area. I’m from Texas and not at all involved in law enforcement, and even *I *know about Rumspringa. I guess it could be fanwanked that his coma and resultant memory loss could explain his not knowing about it, but still…
They had to have some way to explain it to the dimmer members of the public, and poor Booth is often pressed into service as the “oh, I just forgot to bring my brain - could you please exposit?” character. Which is unfair - the guy went to college and they sometimes write him like he barely manages to tie his shoes in the morning, even before the brain tumor.