Bones – The Final Chapter: The New Tricks in the Old Dogs

By: Paige Zinaman

In just the opening scene of BONES, we get a glimpse of three teens all dressed in black breaking into a fenced off area. Kyle (Cade Canon Ball), Evan (Cyrus Arnold) and Claire (Megan Suri) broke in to conduct a “science” experiment (meaning they wanted to make the biggest canned snake firework) when they find human remains inside the snake they created. As Booth (David Boreanaz), Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Aubrey (John Boyd) head to the crime scene, Aubrey looks on as Booth and Brennan have a disagreement about how Brennan applauds the curious minds of the teens. Booth thinks it’s horrible while Aubrey comes to Brennan’s defense, to which Booth asks whose side he is on and Aubrey tells Booth that he is on Brennan’s. Aubrey is soon the victim of Booth and Brennan’s onslaught of questions when they start asking him why there are strange smells coming from his mouth only for him to say he is drinking a black kale smoothie. Booth asks if he lost a bet and Brennan asks if it’s something medical related.

When they arrive to the crime scene Cam (Tamara Taylor) is working on brushing away unwanted contaminates from around the skull when Booth agrees that it does look like a snake firework. As they are talking, a man walks up to Booth asking if he’s FBI. The man then proceeds to tell Booth that he needs to remove everyone wearing a Hazmat suits because it is prejudicial to his client. The man turns out to be a lawyer, Bertram Schillinger (Kurt Scholler), who represents the company Good Life Pharmaceutical. He tells the team that the Hazmat suits and everything they are using misrepresents the company and says that they are hazardous. Brennan tells him that the chemicals that were used are dangerous. The team start looking over the victim and gathering evidence to take back to Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) who was suffering from a wheel chair problem. Schillinger starts taking pictures on his phone, but when Booth asks him to put the phone away Schillinger tells Booth that if he insinuates that he had anything to do with the death of the man he will sue him for slander. As this is going on, Schillinger notices a news crew pull up and starts telling the team to rush. Because of this Aubrey accidently spills his smoothie on the back of Shillinger, which causes him to flip out thinking that the chemicals are on him. When Booth tells him to calm down he makes a bigger scene by frantically removing his jacket. He flips out saying that the stuff was pure “contaminated hell” and when Cam asks if he would like to be decontaminated he tells them to do it so Cam, Aubrey and Booth spray him.

Hodgins soon arrives at the Jeffersonian meeting up with Cam who tells him the story of what the skull is covered in. When he gets excited, he calls the kids lucky that their snake was as long as it was. Hodgins says that when he imagined his own death that it was the exact way he wants to go, telling her the day just keeps getting better and better. Angela (Michaela Conlin) is almost finished reconstructing a face when Brennan walks in. She tells Brennan that she feels bad because it’s not a very flattering picture. Angela runs the picture through missing persons and as they wait for any possible match Brennan tells her that she’s glad Hodgins is doing better after his wheel chair incident. Angela said that the wheel just came straight off the axis only to have Brennan say that what Angela really meant was she and Hodgins was having sex in his wheel chair once again – shocking Angela. When Angela tells Brennan that she and Hodgins talked about possibly having another kid she asks Brennan if she and Booth would have more. Brennan tells her they never have those talks, but maybe they should. They are interrupted by a match and they find out that their victim was James Felbeck.

Booth and Brennan head to the retirement home and talk about how little the FBI had on him. Booth tells her that it’s a good thing, meaning he had no criminal background. This brings Brennan to say that he had no family or children to come visit him. She tells Booth that Angela and Hodgins were thinking about having another baby and asked about them. Booth asks if she wants another one and that their family is perfect the way that it is, which Brennan agrees. She explains that is why she wants Booth to get a vasectomy, shocking him and he tells her that he’s not going to get one. When they get to the retirement home both Booth and Brennan agree that it seems nice only to have Booth get his butt pinched by a resident, Agnes (Maxine Weldon). They meet Frances (Jack Plotnick) who tells Agnes to keep her hands to herself.

Booth points out that Frances seems nervous and asks if he’s okay, but before Frances can answer Brennan states that given his job he should be used to being surrounded by death. Booth draws some unkind looks from some of the residents. Frances takes Booth and Brennan to James Felbeck’s room so they can talk without others hearing. Hodgins and Arastoo (Pej Vahdat) are working on the encased remains and complain about how little they have to work with. Hodgins mentions that Arastoo has a wedding (to Cam) coming up and when Arastoo asks what that has to do with kids Hodgins starts quoting the whole “First comes love. Then comes marriage….” Only to have Cam walk in and tells him that work comes next.

Back in James Felbeck’s room, Brennan starts looking for traces of blood. Booth asks Frances if he’s cleaned anything up in the room and is told it is exactly the way James left it. Yet, when he answered, he couldn’t make eye contact with Booth. When Booth asks Frances questions he answers them, but shifts away and looks very uncomfortable as he was doing so. As Booth continues to question Frances, Brennan tells him she got something on the bed. Frances asks if that’s where James died and Booth tells him that that is where he “went to Heaven.” Brennan tells Frances that he means James was having sex. When asked who he was sleeping with, Frances takes them to a lady named Barbara Baker (June Squibb).

Booth asks to speak with Barbara who says that she is eighty-four years old and playing bridge. To her, nothing can be more important than bridge, but Brennan says they want to talk about James. She puts her cards down and walks over to the side to ask them to tell her the truth if James is okay. Booth tells her she may want to sit down. She asks if he was murdered and when Brennan confirms that she drops a few choices words and marches over to Rufus (Edward Asner) who she starts hitting him with a cane and dropping some more choice words. Thankfully, an orderly comes and drags her away from Rufus.

When they get Barbara and Rufus separated, she tells Booth and Brennan that need to arrest him because he is a murderer. As Booth talks to them, he asks Barbara why she thinks Rufus killed James and her response is because Rufus was jealous to which Rufus scoffs at. When asked if she and Rufus were previously together she tells Booth and Brennan that Rufus “courted” her and asked her to “pork.” Booth asks where Rufus was the night of the murder and he says he was there watching TV until 2a.m., an albi which can be confirmed by the new guy Red Hudmore (Hal Holbrook).

Arastoo is working on pulling a bone out of its soak bath when Cam walks up and asks if they could talk. He tells her that he found the cause of death and she said that she wanted to talk to him about what she heard earlier about marriage and fatherhood. She tells him that she knows how much he wants to be a dad and that their chances become so little the in the near distant future. Arastoo says that, “When I look at you I see limitless possibilities.” This moment between the two is soon crashed when Hodgins comes in because Arastoo had sent him a text. Booth and Brennan find Red Hudmore sitting outside on a bench. He was able to say that Rufus was there watching TV and Booth finds out that Hudmore was a part of a special battalion that serviced in Vietnam.

When Hodgins asks Cam to sign off on a request sheet he notices what she’s looking at. Cam tells him that the hair is from five different dogs, stating that whomever they were used for therapy was probably the room that the victim was killed in. Booth and Brennan check out the common room where they hold the therapy sessions when Frances tells them that Sam (Johnny Glasser) would clear the room so no one would bother them. Aubrey calls Booth, but before he could tell Booth his info Brennan says she found blood.

As Booth is talking to Sam, Brennan finds that the cleaning supplies he is using has blood on them. Aubrey starts questioning Sam and he tells them that James spent a lot of time in the computer lab. While going through the computers, Angela finds someone was watching porn and someone was using a deceased member’s log in to sell prescription drugs online. When Angela says someone looked up naked pictures of Donna Reed, Brennan calls Booth. Rufus is brought in and questioned by Aubrey where he says that James needed money and asked Rufus to sell his medicine. Booth and Brennan bring Barbara back in for some follow up questions and she tells them that James served in the military. This causes Brennan to head back to the lab. The tests Arastoo ran shows no signs of James ever being in the Army or being a boxer and they find out that James lied about everything including where he lived. Booth tracked down the place James lived in Virginia and found out that Rufus was his roommate. They find James and Rufus were accused of running a scam on their previous nursing home, but denies knowing what he was going to do with the money.

Brennan has Angela do a test and it shows that the killer was struck by the cane and injured during the fight. Booth shows up at Red’s suite and tells him that Brennan looked at his x-rays and found that he was the one that killed James. When he was asked why, Red tells Booth that it started when he began talking about the war that he never served in. Cam and Arastoo talk and he tells her that he wants to adopt because there are so many refugee children who needs someone. In the car, Booth and Brennan agree that they shouldn’t close the door on any chances for the future regarding kids. When they get to the FBI, they see James was using the money to hire a P.I. to track down Barbara’s daughter who they see sitting with her and talking.