In Roswell, New Mexico, a man chasing UFOs finds the remains of what he first believes to be an alien. Brennan wants to bring the remains back to the Jeffersonian, but the local sheriff, Jerry Bonds (Ben Giroux), refuses to turn them over to Booth, forcing Brennan to remain in Roswell and compare notes with her team via satellite.
The remains were identified as Ursula La Pine, a woman obsessed with finding evidence of real extraterrestrials for profit. Under examination with an older model MRI machine, Ursula’s remains appeared to sit up. Brennan reacted with a scream, and Booth reacted by drawing his gun, which flew out of his hand toward the magnet. Their reactions were out of character, but Booth recognized this, saying, “I won’t tell anyone about the scream if you don’t tell anyone about the gun,” to which Brennan replied, “Those terms are acceptable.”
The incident also advanced the plot, leading Brennan to find traces of metal in Ursula’s skull. The team didn’t recognize the metal as coming from any known bullet, and whatever ammunition was used didn’t cause the kind of damage consistent with bullets, so what kind of gun was used?
Bones has had many theme episodes. Sometimes the theme overshadows character development and plot, but I thought both were handled well here. I liked that the sheriff didn’t simply turn the body over to Booth. He had a keen knowledge of the law and a distinctive delivery, which made the questioning of suspects more fun to watch.
In her hunt for extraterrestrials, Ursula happened to get footage of a battery company secretly dumping chemical waste. It was plausible the woman in charge of the dumping (Penny Johnson Jerald) might have killed Ursula. That wasn’t how things turned out, but it’s what I believed for most of the episode.
When Brennan, Booth, and the sheriff confronted Ursula’s killer—someone who believed she had authentic alien footage—the sheriff stepped on Booth’s summation of how the murder happened. This again was a nice change from the usual.
On the personal front, Angela agreed to let Wendell (Michael Grant Terry) tell Hodgins they were dating. Hodgins appeared fine with it at first, but he later admitted to Sweets he wasn’t fine. I enjoyed seeing him try to work through it and remain “a good guy” about it. Near the end of the episode, Angela told Wendell she and Hodgins were in the past, but Wendell didn’t quite believe her. Hodgins saw them a restaurant window, and I thought he’d be so distracted he’d get run over by a car.
I haven’t mentioned anything about Brennan’s personal quirks because nothing she did annoyed me. She seems to be getting better at recognizing when her behavior is funny and learning to laugh at herself, which has really helped humanize her this season.
