New Show Recap: Bones, Episode 8.24, The Secret in the Siege

Previously on Bones, Christopher Pelant killed a lot of people, framed Brennan for killing more people, and then stole all of Hodgins’ money. But Booth shot his face up pretty good. Now he’s back in a Batcave style setup, stalking them. 

While looking through presents and photos from Booth’s mom and her new husband, Booth starts to needle Brennan about marriage again. She maintains that she’s not ready to propose to him. He points out that she’s terrible at catching things, so Sweets would say that the catch of the bouquet indicates a subconscious wish to be married. Fortunately, a body discovery interrupts this discussion. The body was found on a trail that was closed for two months. Hodgins estimates the time of death as only five days ago and Brennan finds multiple gunshot wounds. It appears to be a hit job. The team also notes a few remodeled gunshot wounds from 8-10 years ago. Sweets points out that the body was left near where the victim was killed; he thinks it might be Pelant. More bad news: the victim is retired FBI agent Alan Friedlander, Booth’s old partner.

Booth and Caroline Julian speak at a briefing for the other FBI agents on the case and Caroline promises that the DA’s office will be behind them 100%. Booth sets an Agent Walter on command station duty, but Walter wants to be in the field.

Strange puncture wounds are found on the bones, and all date from around 10 years ago. They are similar to those that would occur during a dog attack. The man has nothing in his medical records about a shooting or dog attack ten years ago.

Sweets looks back on his paper about compensatory narcissistic disorder – an example he used is the exact same set up that Pelant used. The paper was never published. Sweets thinks he was hacked. Booth gets a call telling him that another agent is down, having been shot in the head. There’s a witness this time, a woman who was knocked down when the killer ran away. Booth asks what the man looked like. Se describes him as having a hat and a tattoo on his arm. Booth gives her his card and tells her to call him if she remembers anything else. Walter finds a hat in the trash as Booth gets a call from Pelant assuring him that Booth won’t find the victim. He tells Booth that he crossed a line when Booth shot him. Now the rules have changed.

The wounds on the newly deceased Agent Stone appear to be the same as those found on the previous agent. Brennan wonders why they’re not using burner phones and Angela says they need to work on the grid so that she can track him. Cam suggests that Booth recuse himself from the case, but Brennan can’t tell him to do this. The agent has the same dog attack wounds, too. Both agents were at a Crystal Creek, which sounds like a Waco-type situation. Apparently Booth was there, too. Sweets reveals that in his paper, which Pelant is using against them, the killer uses a surrogate to do his killing.

Hodgins again regrets not killing Pelant when he had the chance. He says these new victims are his fault. Angela tries to be supportive, but he closes off.

Brennan is not happy when she hears about the Crystal Creek connection. Cam, Angela, and Sweets work on trying to track the Crystal Creek survivors. They find one in the Blue Ridge mountains with a tattoo matching the woman’s description of the suspect, Zane Reynolds. Booth is on the scene to try and stop the guy, posing as a construction worker. Reynolds comes with a shotgun telling them to get off his land. When he realizes that he’s surrounded, he points the gun to himself, but Booth stops him before he can pull the trigger. Booth and Sweets don’t get much out of him except that he shows no remorse, but wishes it were him. His alibi checks out and he’s cleared. Sweets tries to assure Booth that they’re all safe: all of Pelant’s victims are outside the circle; if he killed them, he’ll have no one to play with. Booth snarks about that being from another of Sweets’ papers but apologizes when Sweets reacts strongly to that.

Brennan calls Booth to meet her outside the Jeffersonian and give him the beef jerky that she never buys for him. Booth wonders what’s up and Brennan asks him to marry her. Everything going on made her see things more clearly. Booth, of course, says yes. Pelant, of course, can see all this on his cameras and he keeps playing the proposal over and over. Brennan drops that news in the lab like it’s nothing and Cam and Angela congratulate her. Booth tells Sweets and Sweets congratulates him but warns him that it’s taking the attention away from Pelant and he won’t like that.

At the Pelantcave, we see that he’s using technology to make videos speaking his instructions to someone, but he’s disguised his face.

Brennan realizes that each victim was only shot 11 times; one bullet separated in each body. It’s a simpler pattern than they thought. Sweets thinks that the surrogate might be someone who was family of one of the fallen agents. One of the agents killed at Crystal Creek, Harris Samuels, was killed the same way during the siege. He had a kid: Anna, who he taught to shoot, and who was institutionalized for complex grief disorder a few years after the siege. At the Pelantcave, we see that he’s using technology to make videos replacing his face with Harris Samuels’. Anna Samuels is our surrogate and she’s the same girl who was the witness at the first scene (going by Allison Taylor). She calls Agent Booth, asking to see him right away.

Brennan calls Caroline to tell her about finding the surrogate. Booth and Sweets have both gone to meet the witness, who Walter recognizes as Anna. Brennan can’t get through to Booth and neither can the FBI. Walter goes to Anna’s house and, following Angela’s instructions, gets Angela into her computer. Pelant is messing with stop lights to try and keep Sweets from getting to where Booth is. Angela finds the videos. Hodgins realizes that isn’t really her father because of some bird outside the window. Angela finds encrypted instructions: BOOTH DECOY TARGET SWEETS. Booth finds a pay phone and calls in, which allows Brennan to update him. Booth decides he’s close enough to try and go after Sweets. He runs along the stopped cars, trying to find Sweets. Brennan’s out there trying, too. Anna spots Sweets and heads for him, but Booth sees her and shoots at her shoulder to stop her. Brennan yells for Booth and they have a running reconciliation.

Everyone seems remarkable well adjusted for Sweets’ having almost been killed. Booth, Brennan, and Christine go for a playdate in the park. Booth gets a call from Pelant: “You won’t marry her, Agent Booth.” He says that he’ll kill five innocent people if Booth doesn’t leave Brennan and Booth can’t tell her why. He says he’s read everything Sweets has written about them and knows that Booth would never trade five innocent lives for his own happiness. Booth promises Pelant that he will kill him eventually.

That night, as Brennan is looking through a bridal magazine from Angela. Booth says they need to talk. He doesn’t think they should do it. Brennan doesn’t understand. He blames Brennan’s proposal on the pressure they were under, reminding her it’s just a piece of paper. Brennan agrees with tears in her eyes. Booth asks if they’re okay, and Brennan says “of course,” but goes around the corner and starts crying.

The Verdict

For a season finale, this was actually possibly the lamest thing that Pelant’s done. I think even the Jeffersonian team agrees, judging by how non-plussed Sweets was about the fact that Pelant was targeting him. I mean, seriously, his big ending move was to keep Brennan and Booth from getting married? I’m speechless in a completely unimpressed way.

What did you think?