The death of the beloved John F. Kennedy is not something to be trifled with, unless you’re one of the Jeffersonian elite on “Bones.”
This week’s episode had the Squints working with a mysteriously anonymous skeleton that they were expressly told not to identify, seemingly counterintuitive to the team’s traditional purpose. Men in suits hailing from the GSA (apparently mere pencil-pushers) inform the Jeffersonians that they are not permitted to leave the building until they perform their “patriotic duty” and identify the cause of death for the body.
Strict rules and intense secrecy take over, and after Hodgins performs a test on fibers collected from the remains, he returns to Cam and Brennan with perhaps one of the most adorably gleefully geeky reactions ever. For Hodgins, ever the devout-conspiracy-theorist, this is a dream come true: pink cashmere, unique bullet holes in the skull created by a high-speed entry, and the specific dating of 1963 seem to confirm his suspicions that the skeletal remains they are examining are none other than those of President John F. Kennedy.
Booth is unfortunately outside the Jeffersonian when the lockdown occurs, but this clearly will not keep him from getting in and helping “his people,” as he affectionately refers to them. In a characteristically Booth move, he sneaks past the guards and simply shoots the glass entry door so he can enter, and after being tackled, is told that he must remain in the lab until the team performs their duty. It quickly becomes clear that Booth wants nothing more than to prove the Squints wrong, to secure his faith in the American government and the country he adores with near-religious fervor. Hodgins antagonizes him and they perform several tests utilizing Booth’s expert sniping training to prove that the skeleton they are examining would have had been shot by two gunmen instead of the traditional one the government identifies. Booth is crushed, and Brennan fumbles in her attempts to understand his reasoning.
Just as the GSA attempts to shut down the Jeffersonian’s investigation, Booth’s boss decides the FBI must intervene. Hacker tries to flirt with Brennan, but Booth yet again upstages him. Booth single-handedly immobilizes the guards so that Brennan can steal two suspicious bones and perform a “test” on them with pudding. She informs Booth that one bone is affected with osteomyelitis, a condition that Kennedy didn’t have, confirming that Booth was right to believe that the body wasn’t the late president and that the government was telling the truth. At the end of the episode, Cam takes her aside and mentions that it was quite possible that JFK might have had the condition due to a case of scarlet fever, but Brennan dismisses it, proving that she was trying to make Booth happy. Cam says, “You’re a good person. I’ll never forget what you did for him,” and I am yet again reminded why I love her: Cam supports Booth and Brennan almost as much as the fans do. Booth and Brennan share their standard moment of bonding and walk off arm-in-arm, just how I like to see them.
While the case itself is a curve ball and a unique twist on the usual cases, the real intrigue arises from a simple home pregnancy test found in the Jeffersonian’s bathroom. Cam questions Brennan and Angela and when both deny ownership she concludes that her adopted daughter, Michelle, has become sexually active and is with child. I was glad to see more of Cam in this episode, because she is quickly counteracting my growing annoyance with Angela. Cam continues to worry about Michelle and Angela eventually finds her alone and confesses that the pregnancy test was hers and the father is poor (both in the literal and the unfortunate sense) intern Wendell.
Angela decides to make matters worse and tell Hodgins that she’s pregnant. This is a potentially crushing blow following Hodgins’ confession last week that he still isn’t over her, but he handles it with unnatural grace. He congratulates her with saint-like sincerity and goes on to tell her that he loves her, and that he will be “her guy.” He promises that he’ll help her raise the child, move in with her, even marry her, whatever she needs. Eventually, Cam reveals that she tested the pregnancy test again and found that it was a false positive, creating a giant question mark as far as Angela and Hodgins are concerned, the show concluding with them walking off with arms looped much in the same fashion as Booth and Bones, leaving us wondering if a new love triangle has formed.