New Show Recap: Bones 9.24, “The Recluse in the Recliner”

Bones ended season nine with a bang, and by that I mean, shit blew up. Let’s start at the beginning!

The Case

The beginning is actually the end, as the episode starts with Booth being wheeled into an emergency room. He is covered in blood, and phrases like “collapsed lung” and “get him into the OR stat” are tossed around, so you know it is Very Serious.  Brennan is pleading for information but to no avail.

And how did we get to this point? A flashback two days prior finds Booth and Brennan at home, with Brennan doing her best to coax Booth into learning a few German words in advance of the promotion she’s sure he’s going to get. A call on Booth’s phone interrupts the lesson. On the other end, a mysterious man promises to reveal secrets about the McNamaras (they of the Ghost Killer family) if Booth will meet him in secret.  When Booth has the call traced, it turns out to have originated from a small trailer that just so happened to have caught fire. At the scene, a burned body is discovered melted into a recliner.  What’s left of the body and the trailer are hauled back to the Jeffersonian where Angela’s computer magic reconstructs the skull and discovers the victim’s identity. He is Wesley Foster, a former journalist turned conspiracy nut. Because he promised information on the McNamaras and because Booth already suspects someone in the FBI helped the McNamaras cover up the Ghost Killer murders, Booth automatically thinks Foster was actually on to something, especially since the guy ended up roasted so soon after calling Booth.

Hodgins, Conspiracy Nut Numero Uno, is less than impressed when Angela discovers the hard drive missing from Foster’s computer and suggests the guy would never have kept anything significant on something as obvious as a computer.  He’s proven correct when Fisher finds a piece of skin that turns out to be a ripped off nipple (ouch) with a nipple ring still in it, and a computer chip is discovered in the nipple ring.  Angela is able to recover documents and photos that contain damning evidence of various wrong-doings by movers and shakers in Washington DC. Sweets suggests blackmail but Booth thinks the blackmail was about power and influence, not money. He swears Caroline Julian and Sweets to silence until they know more about what’s going on. For good measure, he coaxes Brennan into lying in her report and saying that her examination showed Foster’s death was caused by drinking too much, falling asleep with a lit cigarette and setting himself on fire.

Booth and Brennan

Booth is due to speak before a congressional subcommittee about his promotion.  Before that event he meets Deputy Director Stark and Congressman Hadley, who sits on the committee, for lunch.  Hadley basically tells Booth the hearing is just a dog-and-pony show and that he’s sure to be approved based on his military record and his exemplary FBI career.

Unfortunately, things don’t go so smoothly. When Hadley is given the chance to question Booth during the hearing, the congressman attacks Booth with an accusation dredged from Booth’s secret sniper files, specifically that he assassinated a US citizen in Pakistan. Booth refuses to answer, but the damage has been done. Stark puts him on “administrative leave” (i.e., Booth is fired from the FBI) and he and Brennan race out of the building chased by a horde of reporters. When Angela finds a compromising photo of Hadley in the stash from the nipple ring, Booth knows what happened. He waits in Hadley’s car and confronts him with the truth: that someone blackmailed him based on the photo. Hadley tells Booth to go away and let it rest but Booth refuses. Instead, he tells Hadley that he has all the evidence and that he’s not going to keep it to himself.

With the trap for the FBI mole now neatly set, Booth goes home and sets about turning the Mighty Hut into a Mighty Fortress, complete with explosives and enough weaponry to keep the Branch Davidians happy.  He orders Brennan to take Christine and leave while he stays home and holds off the Delta Force soldiers they’re both sure are coming.

Brennan leaves, but not before she says “I hate you” and they both say “I love you.” While she’s driving away, Fisher calls with evidence that the coming soldiers include two who are right handed and one who is left handed. She thinks that’s information Booth should know.

In the meantime, sure enough, the bad guys come calling, guns a’blazing. Stuff blows up, the walls are sprayed with bullets, glass breaks, etc. Booth kills two of them (I think), and gets shot before he finds himself on the wrong end of the crosshairs, which is the exact moment Brennan returns and kills the guy herself. She aims for another baddie, realizes the gun is empty and gets kicked aside by the bad guy, who only wants Booth. As it so happens, he gets Booth, who spin kicks the guy to the ground and then breaks his neck.

Alas, Booth is more injured than he appears and voila… we are back in the emergency room, where he’s in surgery and a wan Brennan is sitting helplessly in the waiting room. The whole gang arrives to comfort her and wait with her for news.  When the doctor finally appears, it is to tell them that Booth is out of surgery but not out of danger. Before the doctor can tell Brennan anything else, she barges past him and finds Booth in a recovery room, sitting up and in miraculously good health for a guy who just had major surgery. He’s also handcuffed to the bed, and I don’t mean that in the fun way, either.

She is horrified and demands that he be let go. Deputy Director Stark is also there, however, and he informs her that Booth is under arrest for killing three FBI officers.

Brennan is hauled off under the auspices of the FBI, Booth is lying handcuffed and under arrest for murder and that, folks, brings season nine to an end.

The Intern

Fisher is the intern of the week. He’s under the care of a new therapist and calls everyone a bastard and is generally as awesome as he always is, regardless of which therapist he’s seeing.