Bones Season 2 DVD Review
Posted by Ryan Byers on 09.26.2007
If you like dead people and romance, this is the show for you.
FOX's anthropology-oriented murder mystery series Bones is slated to begin its third season in just a few days. To coincide with season three, the fine folks at FOX have also released the second season of the series in a six-disc boxed set that includes all twenty-one hours of the season's content as well as plenty of bonus features.
The show focuses on the lives of forensic anthropologist Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), who are called in to investigate murders which usually involve not much of the victim being left aside from his/her skeletal system. Their efforts are supported by a team working out of the Jeffersonian Institute, a thinly-veiled clone of the Smithsonian. Among them are Dr. Jack Hodgins (T.J. Thyne), an expert in all things related to insects and dirt, Angela Montenagro (Michaela Conlin), who specializes in facial reconstruction, and Zach Addy (Eric Millegan), who begins the series as a doctoral candidate in anthropology working under Bones but quickly earns his degree and becomes a Jeffersonian employee in his own right. In an interesting twist on the traditional crime drama, the characters' personal lives are explored just as much as their professional lives, as will be seen as we run down the twenty-one episodes that comprised season two.
The Titan on the Tracks: Exposition ahoy! Seemingly, the entire reason that this episode exists is to remind everybody of the big storylines left over from last season and add a couple of new elements that will play out over the course of the next twenty episodes. Bones and her crew are confronted with a new boss (Tamara Taylor), whose goal is apparently to make sure that things are run a bit more by the book. Elsewhere, the search for our protagonist's father takes a bizarre turn, as the man accused of killing her mother is the target of a hit apparently orchestrated by the aforementioned missing dad. These stories are told against the backdrop of a bizarre murder, with a modern day captain of industry crashing his automobile in to a train that just happened to contain a United States senator. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, it is slowly revealed that the man in the car wasn't who he was initially believed to be and that the deaths involved were actually the product of a white collar crime gone horribly wrong. A lot of the recapping in this one as well as the introduction of a new character out of nowhere came across as horribly forced, but I'm willing to accept that as something which will hopefully set up better episodes later in the season.
The Mother & Child in the Bay: Well, these titles don't lie, as the episode focuses in on a mother and child found dead in a bay. At first it appears that an abusive boyfriend did the deed, but various forensic evidence reveals that the truth is something far more disturbing. We've also got some nice character development for our leading duo, as Booth has some problems when his ex starts seeing a new man and exposing him to their child. This in turn results in exploration of Bones' personal life and her feeling on relationships, which serves to paint her as even more of a socially awkward supergenius. This was a huge step up from the first episode thanks to the removal of the sledgehammer of plot, and I enjoyed the action in the character's lives paralleling the subject matter of the crime that they were investigating. It made the episode feel much more organic as opposed to a setup in which the murder mystery and the characters lives were unrelated but given equal treatment.
The Boy in the Shroud: When an upper-middle class teenager from the suburbs gets romantically involved with a foster kid/street urchin, he winds up getting shoved out of a window, falling fifty feet, and splattering on the ground below. I was glad to see this story placed where it was, because the murders in the first two episodes fit a basic pattern of "one conclusion looks certain at first glance, though it's proven wrong by forensic evidence inside of forty minutes." I was beginning to fear that the entire season would use this format, but this show broke the mold by creating a scenario in which nobody even had a good theory about what happened until the case was solved. Elsewhere in the episode, the characters' personal relationships progress a bit more, as Bones bonds with new boss Camille and comes to an understanding as it relates to their tense professional relationship. Speaking of relationships, there also seems to be some romance brewing between Doctors Montenegro and Hodgins, though it's hard to care because they've been nothing more than bit players up to this point in the season.
The Blonde in the Game: Howard Epps, a serial killer introduced in the first season, makes his triumphant return in this episode. As with most serial killers in mainstream media, he's not just evil, he's an evil genius. He's so intelligent, in fact, that he manages to orchestrate an elaborate path of clues for Bones and Booth to follow while he is sitting on death row awaiting his execution. Why is he doing this? Apparently because he gets off on torturing Bones, who broke his wrist in a prior episode. Why are our heroes paying any attention to him? Because, if they don't, a gaggle of blonde teenage girls will wind up meeting their deaths. The writers did manage to come up with a rather creative trail of clues for the good guys to follow, though it was difficult to watch Epps' character and not think that they were doing a poorly-executed knockoff of Silence of the Lambs. And, as good as Heath Freeman may be in his serial killer role, he's no Anthony Hopkins.
The Truth in the Lye: I'm not a squeamish person, but the murder in this one even got me feeling a little bit queasy. The basic premise is that a contractor has been found in a bathtub full of abrasive chemicals that have completely liquified most of his corpse, something recreated in grizzly detail by the special effects team. However, it's not just the mystery of how the man got there that unravels during the course of the episode. The team also discovers that this gentleman was leading the sort of bigamist lifestyle that seems custom made for an episode of Jerry Springer . . . and did I mention that he's impregnated a third woman? Of course, with three obvious suspects, it turns out that a fourth individual was the one who actually did the deed, and fortunately the explanation for that one winds up not coming off as too horribly contrived.
The Girl in Suite 2103: Forget serial killers or twelve year old boys who fall in with the wrong crowd . . . it's time to start dealing with some professional criminals! In this case, a Colombian drug cartel is accused of setting off a fire that killed several individuals during a conference, including a poor waitress whose badly burned body was flung up in to a chandelier. Yet, at the end of the day, it turns out we're not dealing with drug lords at all. Instead a far more domestic murder combined with an unfortunate accident is what has left several people torched. When this episode first started, it seemed like it would be another that followed the somewhat cliched plot arc of "obvious suspect proven innocent by physical evidence," but there were some added elements that kept it from falling in to that trap. Most notable among those was a guest appearance by omnipresent little person actor Danny Woodburn, who plays a State Department official who repeatedly hampers Booth's investigation in the name of diplomacy. The tension between those characters added a type of conflict not normally found in the series, and it was a welcome change.
The Girl with the Curl: As if Little Miss Sunshine didn't do a good enough job, now Bones gets a shot at pointing out just how creepy beauty pageants for little girls are. In this case, a pre-pubescent beauty queen has wound up dead, and, after eliminating the usual suspects (parents and pedophiles), it looks like the case will remain cold forever . . . until the child's body shows up. Fortunately, our super-sleuths have this one unraveled quicker than you can say "Jonbenet." I wasn't a huge fan of the writing here, because two of the major plot elements (a child is shockingly revealed as the killer and the death winds up being accidental) had already been used in other episodes this season. However, this did give us a scene in which Emily Deschanel's character is forced to interact with children, and the hilarity resulting from Bones' that saved the episode.
The Woman in the Sand: Just for the hell of it, why not set an episode in Las Vegas? Unfortunately, it's not a C.S.I. crossover. Instead, a woman is found dead, and it looks like an underground fighting ring may be involved. This leads to Booth and Bones going undercover to figure out exactly what happened. Of course, as part of the undercover work, Booth just has to wind up stepping in to the ring. The scene in which he does battle is intercut with another scene in which a simulated fight takes place at the Jeffersonian labs, and it actually is one of the better things that has been done this season from a visual standpoint. However, there's not much else about the episode that caught my attention, as it seemed to be a cheap ploy to cash in on the current popularity of mixed martial arts.
Aliens in a Spaceship: This is a very different episode. The identity of our murderer is virtually unquestioned. It's the "Gravedigger," a serial killer whose M.O. involves burying individuals alive in closed containers and demanding that a ransom be paid before they run out of air. If the money shows up, he reveals their location. If not, they die. The Jeffersonian team has recently come in to possession of the bodies of two individuals who have died as the result of the 'Digger's plot. However, before they can try to figure out who the mysterious man is, Bones and Hodgins are abducted by the killer and trapped underground in an automobile. With ransom money not forthcoming, this leaves the rest of the team responsible for determining the location of their colleagues and the buried doctors responsible for finding a way to extend their limited oxygen supply. Of course, the fact that the series continues should clue you in to the fact that everybody survives. At this point in the season, it was nice to get an episode that went outside of some of the series' conventions. I was surprised when the Gravedigger didn't make another appearance later in the season, though. Perhaps he'll be back in the near future.
The Headless Witch in the Woods: Hey, remember the Blair Witch Project? Neither did I until just now, but this looks like the series' attempt to remind us all. A film student and his friends have headed in to the woods to shoot a documentary about a mythical witch who apparently inhabits the area. In addition to delving in to all of the characters' feelings on the paranormal, we get to see a little different side of Bones, as she has a couple of dates with an individual who is involved in the case. Unfortunately for her, he also turns out to be the murderer, which leads to a rare moment in which our protagonist's self-confidence is shaken.
Judas on a Pole: Seemingly out the blue, we depart from our "random killer of the week" format and jump back in to the mystery of Bones' parents. A former FBI agent is found tied to a pole and burned to death, a disturbing crime that Bones slowly learns was perpetrated by her missing father. Meanwhile, it appears that somebody is attempting to murder her brother, who also shows up. Via some incredibly convoluted writing, this is somehow tied in to an decades-old conspiracy involving a civil rights activist being framed for murder by the FBI. Booth works to unravel that mystery and is ultimately successful in clearing the activists' name, though it costs him his job with the Bureau. Fortunately, getting reinstated by the end of the episode doesn't seem to be all that much of a problem for him. Meanwhile, Bones is hot on the trail of her father, who she discovers posing as a priest (thanks to some major plastic surgery). Unfortunately, the family reunion can't last long, as individuals are still attempting to end the lives of our heroine's kin, leading to daddy hitting the road. This felt like it was two separate episodes haphazardly slapped together, with the result being something that was damn near unwatchable.
The Man in the Cell: Howard Epps is back for another go-round, this time escaping from prison by setting his cell ablaze and coaxing a firefighter in to the resulting inferno. Using the charred body, Epps make it look like he was the individual killed. It only fools Bones for twenty seconds, but it fools the prison guards long enough for him to slip out in to the night. As in his prior appearances, the serial killer leaves a trail of morbid clues for the Jeffersonian staff to follow, which leads to a confrontation with Booth and Bones in the anthropologist's own apartment. When cornered, Epps decides that taking his own life would be preferable to being killed by his adversaries, so he takes a fifty foot dive from Bones' balcony. Booth attempts to make the save and holds on to Epps for quite some time, though ultimately the battle is lost, and, as is revealed in later episode, Booth remains uncertain of whether he intentionally let go or whether he merely lost his grip. This seemed like the best time to end Epps' run as a recurring character, as his intentionally planted trail of clues gimmick could only be kept fresh for so long, and the manner in which he died was the perfect opportunity to set up more probing in to what makes Booth tick.
The Girl in the Gator: Speaking of what makes Booth tick, this is where that story arc really starts to take off. Annoyed by an ice cream truck, our favorite FBI agent pulls his hand gun and shoots out its clown-shaped speaker, which results in the Bureau benching him until a psychiatric evaluation can be completed. Of course, people aren't going to stop getting killed just because Booth is on the sidelines, which means that Bones gets a new temporary partner as she looks in to the case of a college student being fed to an alligator while on spring break. The new partner is Mr. Sullivan, casually referred to as Sully. The two hit it off after some initial tension, and they wind up dating after determining that young lady's death was a result of her involvement with a Girls Gone Wild-esque company. We're also treated to several scenes involving Booth's new therapist putting the g-man through his paces, which provides plenty of new insight in to the character. I was glad to see a few new plot elements brought in to the show at this point, as we're headed in to the home stretch and needed a few twists to keep the season from ending on a dull note.
The Man in the Mansion: Things get personal for Hodgins, as the murder victim this time around is an old friend . . . the husband of his ex-fiancé, in fact. However, when he hides his connection to the investigation, he nearly blows the prosecution of the individual who committed the crime. The whodunnit aspect of this particular episode wasn't too enthralling, but the fact that the majority of it was focused on the trial resulting from the team's investigation as opposed to the investigation itself was a welcome change, as was the exploration of the team's dynamics in the wake of Hodgins' indiscretion.
The Bodies in the Book: It was alluded to in prior episodes that Bones is independently wealthy thanks to a career writing murder mystery novels based loosely on her background as a forensic anthropologist. Now her side career takes center stage, as it appears that an individual has been copycatting the series of murders committed in her most recent book, in which victims are bound and fed to various animals. Naturally those who care about Bones are worried about her well being while the killer is on the loose, which results in Sully getting himself assigned to the case. This in turn leads to a good deal of tension between he and Booth, who is not used to having somebody else in the middle of his relationship with his partner. Ultimately the resolution of this mystery winds up being one of the more creative of the series, and I have to applaud whatever writer dreamed it up.
The Boneless Bride in the River: Bones tries to take a vacation with Sully, but she finds herself repeatedly dragged back to the Jeffersonian as a result of a bizarre murder in which a Chinese immigrant's skin is found in a river, devoid of virtually all of her bones. The resolution of the case lies in an ancient Chinese ritual in which a dead bachelor is buried with the skeleton of a single woman in order to provide him with a bride in the afterlife. Though it quickly becomes clear that the dead man's family, their funeral home, and many others were involved in making sure that the female bones were procured for the ritual, establishing just which one of them killed the woman proves to much more difficult. Significant developments also occur in Bones' personal life, as Sully asks her to take a sabbatical from her job so that she can take a one year trip around the Caribbean on his newly purchased boat. As indicated by the continuation of the series, she says no . . . but her boy toy still takes off.
The Priest in the Churchyard: When a water main near a graveyard ruptures, numerous bodies are forced above ground, and Bones is called in to identify the corpses to make sure that everybody winds up being reburied in their proper location. However, the flood also turns up another body, one that wasn't buried in the cemetery . . . at least not officially. After all, we wouldn't have an episode if we didn't have a murder victim. The dead man turns out to be a priest who recently left the church amid allegations of pedophilia. Fortunately, he didn't actually touch any choir boys. Unfortunately, an individual who though that he did and misinterpreted the word of the good book wound up having the man of the cloth poisoned. Really, though, the murder mystery feels more like a backdrop for future exploration of the relationship between Bones and Booth thanks to the tension that discussing religious topics creates between the two of them.
The Killer in the Concrete: Bones' father is back! Fortunately, the storyline isn't nearly as convoluted as it was during his last appearance. This time around, our heroes are looking in to a murder that is tied to a small time crime ring in West Virginia. It appears to be a fairly run of the mill case until some of the bad guys manage to get their hands on Booth, tying him up in a rug and threatening to kill him. With her partner in trouble, Bones turns to the one individual that she never thought she would rely on for help: Daddy dearest. His experience as a career criminal comes in rather handy in recovering Booth, and it also provides Bones with more insight in to what makes her old man tick. In short, she begins to see him as more of a human being and less of a faceless murderer.
Spaceman in a Crater: Once again, the episode titles don't lie. An individual is found in a crater in a field, apparently having been thrown out of an airplane to his death. It turns out that he is a former astronaut, recently grounded due to his medical clearance being revoked as a result of loss of bone density. (Which is apparently a legitimate side effect of space travel.) This leads to more intra-governmental tension, as Bones and Booth butt heads with the fictional version of NASA. Ultimately, the homicide in the episode winds up being yet another "accidental shove turned deadly," which is at least the third of the season. I could use a little bit more variety here, guys. Also in this episode, the relationship between Hodgins and Angela heads to a whole new level, as he proposes . . . and she says no.
The Glowing Bones in the Old Stone House: A popular television chef is found murdered, with her remains glowing thanks to a luminescent single celled organism that is found in seafood. Of course, this makes everybody who has ever come in to contact with fish a suspect, though the crew manages to narrow down the list of potential murderers by looking at the victim's MYSPACE PAGE! Between that and the wannabe Rachel Ray getting offed, the writing team has to be making a conscious effort to integrate as much popular culture in to this show as possible. It makes me wonder just how well the series will hold up a decade or so down the road. Elsewhere, Hodgins' quest to get himself hitched continues, as he attempts to get relationship advice out of Booth in a fantastically awkward scene and ultimately gets Angela to agree to his marriage proposal . . . though it only happens once he decides that he's going to stop proposing.
Stargazer in a Puddle: And the season wraps up with what is actually a very fine episode. Our murder du jour involves a disturbed mother who does in her handicapped daughter out of a perverted notion of love. However, the mystery once again takes a backseat to the personal lives of our heroes. Bones' father is back once more, this time to provide her with more information about her deceased mother. This sets off a pretty damn funny b-story with Booth trying to arrest him, which is complicated by the fact that the man has fabricated himself a new identity and seemingly erased most records of his old life. Ultimately, a connection between the two identities is made, which allows the arrest to take place – despite the fact that Bones has finally reached the point where she can say she loves her father. The big draw of the episode, though, is the Hodgins-Angela wedding, which has a very nice setup but is ultimately ruined by a run-in from a State Department official who informs us all that the bride is already married. Whoops. The final scene is endearingly self-referential, with best man Booth and maid of honor Bones standing at the alter, leaving our title character to ask "What do we do now?"
Special Features
Audio Commentary: We've got alternate tracks for two episodes, namely "The Glowing Bones in the Old House" and "Stargazer in Puddle." The first is with executive producer Stephen Nathan, star of the series Emily Deschanel, and Emily's father Caleb, who directed this particular episode. As commentaries go, it's well done, providing a solid look at the inner workings of this episode. Commentary number two features the return of Stephen Nathan, a second executive producer in the form of Barry Josephson, and Hart Hanson, the man behind the entire series. It's always a treat to hear the individual who originated a concept talk about how it has evolved since other folks came on board, and Hanson does not disappoint in this regard.
The Memories in the Season: It's your typical fluff piece with the cast and a few members of the crew sitting down, flapping their gums about how great the show is, and talking about a few key moments from the season. Not much to see here.
Visceral Effects: The Digital Illusions of Bones: This winds up being a good deal more fascinating than the other featurette, as we get a breakdown of just how some of the gory bodies and other eye popping effects on the show are pulled off. If there's an area in which the series doesn't disappoint, it is the visual component, so it's nice to see the folks responsible for that getting a nod.
Deleted Scenes: I never like watching deleted scenes, because – surprise surprise – there's usually a good reason that they were deleted. At least this time we get optional commentary explaining why they were cut.
Gag Reel: Its' five or so minutes of folks flubbing lines and miscues with props. Okay.
The 411: Bones is a very hit or miss show. For every intriguing episode with solid character development and a whodunnit that leaves you scratching your head until the show's closing moments, there is another in which the murder is cliched, the plot is too convoluted, or the extra bits about the characters' personal lives feels like they were tacked on at the last minute as opposed to being an organic part of the story. Had the second season been roughly half this length, it would have been an easy thumbs up, because the performances by the actors are always solid, and, when the writing is hot, it's very hot. However, it seems as though the pressure to produce twenty episodes took its toll on the series, resulting in a few shows that fall well below the high standard set by the quality episodes.
