BONES – The Final Chapter: The Brain in the Bot

By: Paige Zinaman

When the episode starts, we are shown the outside of a Virginia regional dog show when Patty (Melanie Paxson) appears on screen walking her dog Gaston, a very lovely snow white Poodle. Patty is clicking her teeth at to get him to respond to a command when Donald (Doug Budin) comes running up to her frantically asking if she has seen his dog Lady Carlisle who ran off when he had turned his back. Patty tells Donald that she hasn’t seen Lady Carlisle and she is probably off being the mutt she is, but as this happens Gaston takes off into the woods. Donald and Patty chase after him, but when they finally reach Gaston they find he and Lady Carlisle biting at the bones of a dead body.

Before reaching the crime scene, Booth (David Boreanaz) and Brennan (Emily Deschanel) discuss how Brennan is doing a good thing going through old files on the lobbyist murder that Zack (Eric Millegan) was accused of doing. When Booth changes the topic to Brennan’s impending 40^th birthday, he questions what she wants while also telling her that she is not supposed to plan her own surprise party. Brennan tells him that her party has a strict no gifts policy. When reaching the crime scene, they get straight to work while Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) works on getting samples of blood and evidence off of Gaston. He is being bossed around by Patty who threatens hell to pay if he messes up Gaston’s top knot. When Booth goes to look around the trails to see if he can find anything, Brennan and Cam (Tamara Taylor) examine the body. Cam finds an active fit monitor imbedded in the man’s wrist and Booth soon returns with a smoke pipe stating that someone was “Smokin’ the dope.” Cam informs him that the location is a local teen party spot and Hodgins also tells Booth that if the was weed left in the pipe he’d take it – causing everyone to look at him when he clarifies that it was for evidence. Patty becomes impatient and once again threatens hell to pay when Hodgins says he will speed it up. He pulls at an electric clipper and is about to shave Gaston when Patty rushes him and tries to take it away from him only to have Booth grab her and pull her back. Unfortunately, it isn’t before causing Hodgins to shave off one of his eyebrows.

At the Jeffersonian, Brennan tells the team what she’s found as Cam, Daisy (Carla Gallo) and Angela (Michaela Conlin) continue to work. A phone ringing causes Angela to stop taking pictures and pick up the phone, stating that it is once again unknown number and ignores it. Daisy gets the courage to ask Brennan if she could use her as a reference for the National Forensic Lab that she’s applying to and Brennan says that Daisy could use her as a reference, but also tells her to not get her hopes up as Daisy’s young age may be an issue getting a position at the NFL. This causes Angela to state that Brennan got her job at the Jeffersonian when she was still in her twenties to which Brennan responds with it was an “exceptional circumstance.” There is a pause until Angela’s phone starts ringing again and Cam asks if she needs to answer it. Angela ignores it saying that it is the third time that number has called. When Hodgins rolls in he notices Cam, Angela, Brennan and Daisy are having a hard time not laughing at Hodgins and his lack of an eyebrow as he is trying to tell them information on the case Brennan tells him that it’s a symmetrical. He tells the team that he determined that the weed that Booth found was last smoked eighty hours ago.

Aubrey (John Boyd) pulls up on the side of the road stopping a man named Randy (Max Adler) who is stumbling along the sidewalk carrying a bag of what looks like takeout food. Aubrey tells Randy that they have evidence that he was in the woods at the same time as the victim and Randy tells Aubrey that there is no law about communing with nature. Aubrey tells him that there is a law about communing with drugs. Aubrey asks if Randy recalls seeing anything unusual in the woods the night of the killing and Randy tells him a guy walked in with a flashlight about 11:30. He asks Aubrey why he’s being asked these questions and Aubrey tells him that someone dropped a body there to which Randy responds with, “Talk about littering. When are, people going to learn to respect Mother Earth?”
Meanwhile, Brennan comes to ask Angela how the facial reconstruction is going to which Angela tells her that she didn’t need to do one because the monitor that Cam found in the victim’s wrist could tell her the ID of the man if she could crack the code. Once again Angela’s phone rings and she finally decides to answer it. As she steps out for a moment, Brennan tells Hodgins she wasn’t aware that the kind of biotechnology was available yet which Hodgins tells her it’s not and that maybe the victim has a connection to technology. at this moment, Angela walks back in and tells both Brennan and Hodgins that it wasn’t someone trying to sell her a cruise, but that she won a MacArthur Fellowship that everyone calls a “genius grant” for her work with the Angelatron. Hodgins tells Angela that he knew he married a genius! Brennan; however, becomes jealous and tells him he didn’t marry a genius and that she’s happy for her, but she never imagined Angela would ever achieve the honor – especially before her. Angela tells Brennan and Hodgins that she figured out the wireless password and that their victim’s name was Ian Goldberg (Paul Bartholomew) who was a “pioneer” in the artificial intelligence. He made robots who worked with kids on the Autism spectrum.

As Booth and Brennan go look into Ian’s company, he asks her if she’s upset over Angela getting the MacArthur award. Brennan tells him she is just busy planning her party when about this time Daisy video calls to provide her ante mortem contusions that were hidden behind the blunt force trauma to the skull. She reveals that someone had punched Ian in the head and that whoever did it ended up with a hand injury. Booth and Brennan talk with Kate Dalton (Aasha Davis), someone who worked with Ian since their MIT days. She introduces them to AMI (Advanced Modular Intelligence), a robot who has great speech pronunciation and who can also recognize facial features and fluent in eight languages. Booth notices a man named Alan (Jed Rees) who is sporting a wrist brace. When asked he says it’s from carpal tunnel from sitting at a computer all day only to have Brennan apply pressure on the man’s hand. At the FBI, Alan admits that he punched Ian in the head. When asked where he was at the time of the murder he said he was at his desk all night coding and tells them that they should look into the guys at Stop the Robopolopsye – a radical group that believes AIs are out to destroy humanity and that and that in real life Ian was a “dink”.

Daisy tells Cam that it’s like the victim was hit with several different objects from different angles. Before Cam leaves she tells Daisy if the NFL doesn’t hire her she will always have a job there. Aubrey meets up with Angela who tells him that Alan was telling the truth about being at work all night and Aubrey tells her that the leader of the Anti-Robots group, Matthew Coburn (Justin Welborn), crashed one of Ian’s speaking engagements with a baseball bat. Daisy asks Hodgins if she really has a shot at getting the job and he tells her she is good at what she does. She says Brennan was already running the Jeffersonian at her age and Hodgins tells her life is more than just a competition. Daisy says the killer must have been smart too, which calls Hodgins to say they must have dragged Ian’s body through the woods to obscure evidence.

Aubrey and Booth go to question Matthew Coburn at his trailer home when they find him with headphones and cooking out only to start running when they show him their FBI badges. They track him inside a warehouse where he runs out the back door and they arrest him. Matthew tells them that the government is using the robots to weaponize robot killers, saying guys like Ian say they care, but sell out the highest bidders. Cam comes to Brennan and Daisy asking if they found evidence of dislocation saying it looks like someone tried to rip Ian’s arms off only to have Hodgins say the tests he took shows the same signatures as the ones AMI is made of. Kate brings AMI to the FBI to have Booth and Brennan question her. AMI tells them she has no memories of that day because someone wiped them.

Max (Ryan O’Neal) is waiting for Brennan when she arrives back at work telling her he had errands to run and stopped by to spend some time with her. He questions her about her jealousy and her surprise party and if there will be dancing at her party. Angela finds a match to the coders to find that Ian erased AMI’s memory. Daisy figures out that the body was hanged after he was already dead while Angela finds only an audio message to a company about a mile from where Ian’s body was found. Booth and Aubrey go the company where they find Dave Esposito (Patrick Gallagher) who says Ian and he were going into busy together, but he first had to talk to his business partner.

Daisy and Hodgins go to the crime scene and search the woods and they find a rope that has blood on it. Booth asks Brennan if they found prints on the speaker, but instead she finds that Ian was stabbed with a small knife in the neck. Booth realizes that it was Randy who was doing LSD with Ian the night he was killed. Randy confesses that he was the one who killed Ian. He killed Ian because he thought he was going to get a portion of the money brought in by the robot sex dolls because it was his idea, but instead he got a Bluetooth speaker.

On the way to Brennan’s party Booth gives her a present and when she opens it she finds an appeal for Zack’s court date. At their house their friends are waiting for them to arrive while also wondering what’s inside a huge box that is there and talking about if Brennan was truly okay with Angela winning the award. Christine (Sunnie Pelant) runs in telling everyone that Booth and Brennan are home. When they get inside Brennan tells Booth and Aubrey to open the box to show that there are three cakes – one because Daisy got the job at the NFL, another one for Angela and her winning the award and one for her. She tells everyone that the surprise was to celebrate everyone because she was the one who recommended Daisy for the job and Angela for the grant. The episode ends with Christine running to Max and handing him a medical bracelet he dropped. He says that it’s nothing and they sing the Happy Birthday song while Max watches his daughter with a smile on his face.