Note: Duuuuude, they were really stingy with the commercials here so this one's really long. Thanks for all the encouragement. You guys are awesome. To the anonymous reviewers, I'm sorry I can't respond to your specific comments. To the person who asked about the logistics of this thing, hulu is my friend. Also, if nothing else, being a waitress gives me a super-power memory and good attention to detail.
[4] Punch-drunk Judge
"So this all happened a year before the Cleo Eller case," Sweets prompts, returning from, where, the bathroom? Sure, Sweets. I mean Booth and Brennan were totally happy to pause in the middle of this kind of awkward session for your bathroom break. Thanks for returning at your earliest convenience.
Also, thanks for reminding us of the timeline. Commercials are long and you had to pee and it's not like we've been waiting to hear this story for so long that we're, like, hanging on every word or anything.
"Almost to the day," says Booth.
"Actually it was thirteen months, minus a week," corrects Brennan.
And that's them. Right there. They might round things differently, measure with different systems, but they both know precisely when they first met.
But Sweets is all stuck on the way they're correcting each other while they sit in his office, here and now. So he can't really believe that they didn't argue back then. He reminds them that they did some really offensive things. Like calling evidence crap.
Brennan calmly points out that she was forcing Booth to deal with things way beyond his experience and usually that makes people react badly. Sometimes they act rudely. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they just develop potty mouth.
But Sweets is really agitated. He keeps baiting them like they might change their minds, like maybe they really were angry back then and they're just covering for each other. Which is totally something they would do. So Sweets is really pushing the issue because he's watched the tension between them for years now, the passion of their arguments, and if they weren't fighting, then ….
"We were feeling each other up," Brennan tries again. Like honeymooners.
"Out," Booth can't help smiling. He corrects her (even though he doesn't really want to). "We were feeling each other out."
And that's why Sweets can't quite believe they didn't fight back then. Because they still argue (a little) and she still can't do idioms (sometimes) and parts of them are still who they always were.
"Would you like to hear the rest of the story?"
Most of Sweets's body is completely exhausted by this whole thing and sinks into his chair but his hands are on our side, wrists snapping impatiently. Obviously, they say and, duh.
So Brennan narrates Hodgins for a while. She didn't know him well and … it's all in the way she says, "spores." Which is already a gross word and she really tortures it. Spooooores. That's how difficult he was, that's how much she didn't want to work with him.
"But," she says and Hodgins hops up like a kid to stand next to this giant vat of acid where Zach's dunking the parts of a skeleton. "He was the one who figured out that the remains were in a landfill …." And Hodgins is grinning and showing off a sliver of maple. He's already starting to be that guy. The one who's her best bet in a buried car. The one who's honored to have worked with her.
I know I mourned my fudgsicle before and all but here I have to point out that usually paradigm shifts are just what you need and most of the time, people are better for Booth coming into the picture.
Zach and Hodgins bicker and it's vicious. It hasn't become funny yet. They're still mostly who they've always been.
The three of them talk about the possibility of maple and boyfriends and baseball bats. It's an idea, says Zach, but it's probably wrong. Hodgins snaps a rubber band. "Doubts!" He proclaims like a diagnosis or a revelation. "I have doubts! I am doubt-full."
So, Brennan suggests (getting all saucy about it) they do an experiment. Hodgins and Zach, she suggests. Together. Brennan is their Camille Saroyan. (And, okay, whether you love her or hate her or don't harbor any feelings in particular toward her, now might be a good time to offer up a little prayer of thanks that Cam is a better judge of character than Brennan. Booth and Brennan aren't exactly in the throes of bliss maybe, but at least neither one of them has become a serial killer. So. It could be worse is what I'm saying.)
"Whoa!" Says Hodgins. Zach makes that face. Brennan smiles, still saucy. And it would all be funnier if I wasn't so distracted by the fact that no one is wearing goggles next to the giant vat of acid. Seriously. There could be splashing! This is not like touching skulls with your bare hands, which, however yack-worthy it may be, doesn't put you in immediate danger of losing an eye.
So I'm pretty relieved when we leave the lab for the FBI bullpen (even though it's a place where random old-guy extras do things like try to make copies with the copier lid open). Brennan's hair is down because both things have happened: time has passed and she's moved forward. Already. A little.
Booth's brought Gemma's "baseball-playing boyfriend" in for questioning because he likes alliteration even though he knows the guys didn't kill her. And you're right Booth, if police only questioned the actual killers and no one else it would be very practical and save everyone a lot of time. Also, one of the requirements for FBI school would be "being psychic."
"Feeling isn't knowing," Brennan explains. "When you know something you can argue facts. Not merely make insupportable claims in a passionate tone!" Which is hilarious because Booth does that all the time. And it usually works for him. And there's no distracting vat of acid.
"You said that in a passionate tone," Booth says, somehow managing to turn it back on her without sounding childish. Brennan's face does all kind of aerobics. She's totally confused. What facts was she supposed to have? The fact that he doesn't have any facts? They already established that and he still insists on talking at her passionately. So … whatever. She'll let it go. And that's why passionate speech works for Booth. It's usually easier to just go with him.
"Then why are you interrogating the boyfriend?" Brennan asks.
Booth steps closer. "Because I want to convince you." Suddenly it's very sexy in here.
He's like the guy in the bar who finally found the girl his usual line won't work on.
Do you believe in fate?
Absolutely not.
"Ahh," she drawls, staring at his mouth because she heard the Freudian slip. Convince said quickly like that, heard with enough anticipation, sounds a heck of lot like kiss. "That's very kind."
She wants to come in with him and he agrees and they're inching closer the whole time, debating cooking terms that are really interrogation terms, fighting which is really flirting.
They have Gemma's boyfriend in the interrogation room. You'd think they could have brought him to that nice wood-paneled one since Booth knows he didn't do it. But they have him in one of the standard dark and scary ones. He talks about falling apart when the woman he loved was murdered. He speaks passionately but also factually. His proof is in his father, three uncles, and four cousins. He's got his whole family there to back him up.
Also, he did great at his try-outs which is the part Booth really wants Brennan to hear. He kind of grins about it while that poor guys starts falling apart all over again. And Booth you're really lucky that Hodgins's maple sliver called for this interrogation because if you put this guy through all of this again just to prove something to Brennan, I'd be tempted to say you used to be kind of a shitty human being.
Booth talks psychology. Brennan agrees from her own angle. "Anthropologically, males are programmed to feel like the protectors of their mates." It's a principle, a generalization she's comfortable with. It's not right in every case but it's right in this case.
Brennan tells the boyfriend that this emotional torture was completely unnecessary. Which, of course, is the kind of thing that makes emotional torture even worse. But the boyfriend is a positive thinker and a very reasonable guy and we're very sad for him and for poor Gemma because they probably would have been a really nice couple. He would have gone pro and she would have sung the anthem at his first game with proud tears in her eyes.
Instead he's here crying in an interrogation room. And it's not even the nice wood-paneled one.
Yep, things are feeling really tragic. But Hodgins and Zach are to the rescue with a special scientific fat suit and a baseball bat. Hodgins clubs Zach across the chest and shoulder which, Brennan points out, would totally have done some bone damage. And they would have noticed that. Duh.
She wants to hit Zach in the liver even though Booth's convinced her it wasn't the boyfriend who was responsible for the maple sliver. So maybe be just figures Gemma pissed off some other guy who carries around a wooden baseball bat. Or she also wants to hit Zach in the liver.
So she whacks him and knocks him down then stands over him and talks about how the hit would definitely have killed him if not for the fat suit. Because of the fat suit, Zach lies there helplessly like a flipped turtle (which is still a step up from dead) while they debate the merits of whacking him in the head.
Deciding against it, Brennan and Hodgins walk away. In payment for passage from his position on the floor, Zach offers something interesting he found on the x-rays. And that's why Zach is the irreplaceable intern. In the lab, you only get somewhere with Brennan if you can find valuable clues and offer then in a timely manner. Zach gets that.
Having been rescued, Zach shows Brennan which bones aren't there: the three itsy-bitsy ones that are supposed to make up the inner ear. Brennan whips out a black light to check out the bones some more and I guess that's what the vat of acid was about since now that the bones are all bleached she can see a pattern of bones bruises. Ouch.
She asks Zach to measure the bruises. Zach goes to do what he told and he's down again. Poor Zach.
Then Booth and Brennan are at the scene of the crime and it's a different world for Brennan. It's all vaulted ceilings and chandeliers and whirling, frothing decor. "Gemma sang here for a group of hoity-toits," Booth says. Brennan doesn't know what that means. This place, this cathedral even has its own language.
Booth explains that it means Judge Hasty and asks what they're looking for. Brennan says to keep his eyes peeled for something maple and regularly spaced and capable of walloping a young woman almost to death.
He's like,got it. And: "You know, I'm really enjoying working with you, Bones."
So he has to explain nicknames to her and out of the explanation she surmises that she should call him, "Shoes." Except she says it, "Shoooes."
And he says it, "Shooooes?!" Both of which are awesome and hysterical and way better nicknames than "Bones." Yeah. If you couldn't tell, I'm really sad that the name didn't stick.
But it does leads to a conversation about individually which is, like, really long. It is. It takes them three different staircases and the length of a theater just to get it started and by the time they get to the meat of it they're sitting, pretty much on each other's laps … somewhere. I guess they're tired from all those stairs.
She tells him about about mavericks and leaders distinguishing themselves from the herd. They're both leaning in and their eyes are lighting up. He's hanging on her every word with relish. They both want him to be that guy. "I'm a free thinking rebel." He is, he thinks he is. And so does she. But she has to see it.
So that conversation ends and they decide to take a stroll in a dark hallway. "Are you seeing anyone?" Brennan asks.
Booth's not all afraid to let her know how surprising that question is. It's, "Wow, right to the point." Plus, aren't they supposed to be looking for something? Crime scene maybe?
He's seeing someone casually but she doesn't like his hours. And this could mean that she doesn't like him out gambling at all night or she doesn't like the hours it takes to get from D.C. to New York. Or maybe both. "You?" he asks.
She talks about a physicist who's been asking her out. She says, she's been thinking of saying yes. Like she doesn't really see a reason not too. And like she hopes Booth will give her reason not to. And that's something different. She's just met him and she's already thinking about choosing him, not alongside, but instead of someone else. Prepositions.
He might keep bad hours. He might disappear for a long time to a dive bar like that other guy went to dive down to clean oil rigs but you don't get the impression here that Booth would be the guy on the side she fools around with when she's not out being intellectually stimulated by a sexless, Cold Play-loving scientist.
"I'd ask you out if I could," Booth says unabashedly.
He can't because of the rules. And he's still wearing a black belt, black tie, and black socks. There's no proof yet that he's the guy who bucks the system. Without proof that he's that guy, he's not that guy.
They're both adorably glad that the other regrets it a little--the fact that they can't be together. They can just say it, boldly, openly. It's not a secret or something to fear. It doesn't mean that much to them yet. It's not heart-crushing.
But it will be.
They find the very last set of stairs that they haven't been up or down yet. And this set is maple. They put the crime together quickly. She's really good at estimating things in the metric system. He's good at finding exits. Ta-da!
So I make these sketches to show what happens because other people are not as good at exits or the metric system. This includes Caroline, I guess, because she makes a random assumption about Judge Hasty swinging Gemma into a wall.
I correct her. Politely. And she wants to know who I am so I introduce myself. Politely. And then Booth introduces her. And if you think this is a weird time for introductions, you have no idea. Basically Booth snatched me up and told me to make a flip book and then had me flash it in the face of this woman at a desk. Meanwhile I've no idea who this woman is, I've never seen her before. Do I have to say it again, Booth? Manners much?
Brennan tells Booth to defend me instead of just defending me to Caroline herself. And Caroline just notices then that Brennan's in the room. She forgets people like Brennan almost immediately.
"Why?" Booth asks and that's something else he does a lot. Like talking passionately.
Caroline describes a squint on the stand and we all picture a fish or a worm or something else that might wriggle on a hook. Caroline's totally aware and unapologetic about the fact that she's going to forget Brennan. It's almost like she already knows she'll have to be introduced again in a year when Brennan gets into trouble in New Orleans. Maybe "being psychic" is also a requirement for Law school.
I'm a little flustered by Caroline's hostility. I'm really not used to people just being mean on principle. Usually they're only like that if I actually draw their noses to look like yams.
I continue with the flip book. We all see how the judge tackled Gemma and she fell. Booth says he must have thought she was dead. Because most Federal Judges are not smart enough to check to see if someone's breathing before loading that someone into a trunk.
"Why was he chasing her?" asks Caroline.
"Who cares why?" says Brennan. And if we were at the college the bell would ring. It'd be inconvenient because then we'd all clear out of Caroline's office before the conversation was over but at least we would know something important has been said. Brennan's not good at "why."
Caroline lists all the people who really, really care about why. And, sheesh, Booth just wants a warrant already.
"Maybe," Caroline says, "If this little stick figure thing was a computer …."
And I just stand there making faces, wondering why Booth didn't just say so because, um, I actually have a secret degree in computer programming.
No one knows cause of death either, as Caroline points out. And we really need to whip out the big guns to go up against the judge. She accuses Booth of jumping through all these hoops and stretching the case thin so he can have her office. "I'm not committing career suicide because you're cute and want a window," she says.
Booth hustles us out, all embarrassed, even though she's only right about one of those things. Well, maybe two. With his hair like that, Booth does kind of look like the sort of guy who could use a mirror but just wants a window.
I only have time to whisper to Brennan about the cute part before he rains on our parade with his plot to question the judge. Manners, Booth. Manners! He totally interrupts my girl talk with Brennan and then doesn't even invite me to the grilling.
Whatever.
They go back to the cathedral and meet the judge. Brennan spills about the murder scene right away. And the judge is a little sleazy the way he says, "I'm a very nice man."
Booth's all over that. He really doesn't like this guy. But the judge doesn't budge. He told Gemma she had a nice voice in front of a hundred witnesses.
"What didn't you do in front of a hundred people?"
Brennan translates his question to one about sexual impropriety which really annoys the judge because he already figured that out. So he already doesn't like Brennan and he doesn't even know that they think he's too stupid to check if someone's breathing or not.
They go through details of the crime and the judge kind of panics very calmly. He tells Booth that Brennan is making him look like an idiot. And Brennan really doesn't like that. That's her Booth. She's the only one that's allowed to sometimes think he's an idiot.
"Actually, I'm very intelligent."
"You could have fooled me," the judge says.
It's not just Brennan's eyes that narrow, it's her whole being. That's not the last straw for her, it's like every straw all at once. He's attacking her intelligence and it's the part that makes up most of her sum.
So she punches him. Whacks him right in the face with the blow she decided Zach didn't need. And Booth's all, "uh-oh" and concerned about the judge for a whole second. But by her second punch he knows it's already over so he just enjoys it.
"Is this very bad?" Brennan finally catches on.
But it's already over. Milk spilt. And Booth's not going to cry about it. "I've been wanting to do that for years," he says. So he's glad she just went for broke. "You are so hot."
He's right but he sounds kind of ridiculous to us. We haven't been living with this thing growing in our guts for years now. Not like him. Judge Hasty isn't some sinister, vile being to us. He's just kind of sleazy. So we might know, but we don't really feel, that he deserved two punches to the nose.
So, "That's greeeeaat," Booth sings, rocking on his heels.
And we're like, "We'll get back to you after the commercial break. But no, honey, it's probably not."