Bones – The Final Chapter: The Flaw in the Saw

By: Paige Zinaman

It’s just an ordinary night as Pete (Brandon Soo Hoo) and Freddy (Jeffrey Larson) go dumpster diving to get back at a bully named Cooper. As they are going through the dumpster and pulling out what they believe to be animal guts. They play a “guess which animal this came from game” that results in Freddy pulling up a human arm, freaking the boys out to the point they drop the bag they had and ran off. The next morning Christine (Sunnie Pelant) runs into the house decked out in a helmet, knee and elbow pads yelling to Brennan (Emily Deschanel) that she is never going to ride a bike again just as Booth (David Boreanaz) comes through the door just in time to catch Christine’s helmet that she threw. When Brennan asks what happened, he explains that he was teaching Christine how to ride a bike and when he let go she fell off. Brennan told him that she didn’t want Christine riding a bike until she could go over all the proper physics of it with her.

Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) watches as Rodolfo Fuentes (Ignacio Serricchio) wades through all of the blood from the dumpsters that were brought in which also included the trash as Cam (Tamara Taylor) stands at the table trying to look over the remains that they already had. As Hodgins continues to give Rodolfo a hard time, Angela (Michaela Conlin) walks in and asks if they found the skull yet. Hodgins tells Rodolfo that he needs to find the skull ASAP and he has to dive under to find it. As he does so gagging, Hodgins gives her the skull that the techs found for her at the scene, she gives him a look and when he says he’s having fun.

As they go through all of the remains that Rodolfo pulled out, Cam asks what the sock was that was attached to the victim’s foot and ankle. Rodolfo explains that it’s chainmail and it’s the only piece of clothing he found. Cam says they are looking for some kind of knight and Rodolfo asks if knights play golf. He then proceeds to point out that the victim had a golfer’s fracture from long term golf play. Aubrey (John Boyd) shows up and tells Booth that the victim is Phyllis Paul (Melissa Tracy) who was reported missing by her girlfriend Nancy Alpert (Inga Cadranel). Aubrey talks to Nancy asking when the last time she saw Phyllis. She tells him that she left for a tournament and never came home. Aubrey mistakes the tournament as being golf related when Nancy tells him that it wasn’t a golf tournament, but a lumberjacking tournament. This was something that she wasn’t very supportive off so Aubrey asks why she said it was a waste of time. Nancy says that she had enough money to support them and that they were going to get cooking classes and getting married. When asked if anyone would want to hurt Phyllis, Nancy tells him that it was one of the lumberjackers because they threw a golf club through their window with a threatening and homophobic message on it.

Rodolfo calls for Brennan to show her that the tool that was used to cut the victim apart was a chainsaw and that she was wearing the chainmail when she was killed. This leads Brennan to conclude that Phyllis was killed mid-competition and that she and Booth would go check it out. Rodolfo tries very hard to appeal to Brennan’s science side and tells her he would go in her place, but Brennan denies him and tells him that she and Booth will go. As they head to the competition, Brennan is going through pictures of different events and finds it appealing. Booth tells her the word she’s looking for is “badass” and that lumberjacking is a major sport and that it’s way more exciting than golf.

Booth and Brennan arrive at the lumberjack competition and immediately find Dick Scarn (Dave Thomas), the man who is in charge of the competition. Booth tells him that Phyllis was murdered and when asked if they can ask him questions he tells them they need him at the main stage. They walk with him and Brennan asks him what’s wrong with his leg. He tells her that a chainsaw snapped and he got boned. He tells them that Phyllis was at the tree climb on Tuesday as well as some night events and hasn’t shown up for anything since then. He tells them that when Phyllis started she beat records and dethroned almost everyone including Helga Thisk (Stephanie Czajkowski). They ask where they can find her and the announcer calls her up next. Booth told Brennan wait until she puts down the big chainsaw before they accuse her of murder.

Booth and Brennan talk to Helga Brennan tells her that Phyllis’ body was dismembered and currently is decomposing. When Booth and Brennan start asking questions and stating motives for murdering Phyllis, their suspect Helga tells them she had no reason to kill her and that they were training partners. Phyllis was giving her the secrets she used to win. Booth asks if she knew of anyone who would want to hurt Phyllis and Helga tells them that it’s probably the crazy fans who said they were complaining because she was measuring. As they are talking Helga’s husband Ragnar Thisk (Trevor Torseth) comes up stating that he’s been looking for her and she tells him that Phyllis was murdered. He says that he will say something for Phyllis later, but until then he and Helga have to go for the Jack and Jill competition. This gets Booth excited, telling Brennan they have to go watch.

Hodgins comes to Rodolfo and before he says anything Rodolfo goes on a mini rant about how the day went from good to boring because he has spent hours scraping bones. Hodgins tells him that he found pesticides. When Cam joins Rodolfo he presents Cam with the proposal that they get a subpoena for all the lumberjacks with chainsaws so he can test them and find a match to the grooves on the bones. Cam asks if he just wants to play with a chainsaw and he tells her that he doesn’t like chainsaws and if there was another way he would do it. Just then a couple of people wheel in a cart with wood that was saved from the competition that was labeled with each competitor’s name. Hodgins goes to Angela who was looking at the photo Hodgins sent her. She soon realizes it is from the murder that Zach (Eric Millegan) confessed to and he tells her that he may have proved that the killer wasn’t Zach because there was too much blood. When she asks if she can show him something she pulls up a video of a kid named Gene Frong (Nathan Gamble) who recorded him yelling at Phllyis and started chanting and encouraging people to throw pancakes at her. Angela tells him that Gene works for his dad’s extermination company.

Booth and Brennan look for Gene and find him chugging beer. He takes off running through the carts and climbs up a tree. When he won’t come down, Booth grabs an axe only to be stopped by Brennan who starts to measure. The crowd starts to boo and he pulls her back. He starts cutting at the tree only to have Gene tell him to stop and that he will come down. Cam calls Brennan to tell her that they found vegetable oil around Phyllis neck and that the killer must have been covered in it. Booth and Brennan talk to Gene who tells him he loved Phyllis and that he would never kill her. He also tells them that the flapjack guy even made special pancakes to throw at her.

Aubrey goes to the lumberjack competition to talk to Jack Flap (David Koechner) who tells him that the feud he and Phyllis had wasn’t that bad. Aubrey tells Jack that they found vegetable shortening around her neck and Jack takes this as an insult. He tells Aubrey he makes them out of butter and he makes them from scratch. He also tells Aubrey that she normally ate healthy foods until Tuesday when she ate more pancakes than he could flip. They find that Phyllis’ scores were lower than usual even though she was still winning. Hodgins goes to Angela and tells her that he found plant fungi, which causes Angela to look up a plant nursery. He also tells her he found something in the lobbyist murder and that it was something Brennan missed that could prove Zach’s innocence. They find a nursery where Phyllis was murdered and they find her flip line that was covered in shortening, which they realized someone was sabotaging Phyllis.

Booth comes inside and finds Brennan putting up pictures of the competition to show him the math. They are interrupted by Cam who found a match from the flip line that pointed back to Helga’s husband. They go talk to Ragnar and Helga again and they ask why they found his DNA on the flip line. He tells them that he did it because Helga was working so hard and about all the nights Helga and Phyllis had training and the lumberjack trips they went on. When Ragnar went outside Helga admits that she and Phyllis were sleeping together and that they were going to leave their partners and get married. She told them they just got fitted for rings the week before.

Rodolfo tells Hodgins that whoever killed Phyllis didn’t use a lumberjack chainsaw and that they needed to test normal saws to figure out which one was used to kill Phyllis. Cam walks in on them as they are having too much fun and Rodolfo explains that if they find the make and model of the chainsaw they can trace it back to someone who owns it. When Booth and Brennan were talking, Nancy shows up to confront Helga who lays her flat when Booth helps her up and arrests her. Aubrey talks to Nancy who told him she just found out this morning when the jeweler called and asked about the ring saying that she got it resized to a nine and that’s she’s a five.

Hodgins gets results back when he notices that what was found from the swab was ingredients found in the kitchen. Aubrey tells Booth that he looked into Jack Flap and found that he paid off the loan he got for his new truck two days again. This leads them to believe he sold the ring Phyllis got for Helga to pay from the loan. Rodolfo and Hodgins go over the bones again and find a scratch. They go back to the chainsaws. As Brennan and Angela recreate the murder they hear Rodolfo yell out in pain and run to see what happened. They find out the chain snapped off and clipped him and that the killer has the same wound. They bring in Jack as Booth tells him that they can prove he chopped up her body. They checked out his hospital records and Brennan lifts his pants legs showing the wound. Jack admits that he did only because she was going to the police about him. Hodgins goes to Cam with evidence of what he found and Cam tells him she can’t look at evidence that may have been tampered with. He tells her to toss it and leaves, but she looks through it. Back at the competition Booth and Brennan battle it out on the log roll to decide who gets to teach Christine how to ride a bike. As they try and make the other fall the camera fades to black and there is a splash.