A priest and altar boy discover human remains burning on a church altar. The remains show indications of horns made of real bone. It turns out the dead man, Neil Lowry, was born with a vestigial tail, leading him to believe he was marked by God as a son of Satan.
I had a hard time empathizing with a delusional victim. I could only feel sorry for Neil, his mother, and brother, who were at a loss to do anything but institutionalize him. Investigating the sanitarium where Neil was being treated, Brennan, Booth, and Sweets found any number of suspects who might have killed Neil out of delusion.
I was most drawn in by the regular characters’ differing reactions to the “devil” aspect of the case. Booth was creeped out, but took comfort in his faith as a practicing Catholic. Brennan, as usual, was ultra-rational. Cam and Hodgins were basically reasonable, and Muslim intern Arastoo Vaziri (Pej Vehdat) believed in the devil, along the same lines as Booth.
Some of the language Vaziri used led Cam to question whether deep down he viewed America as “The Great Satan.” I thought this was a bit of a regression to episodes before Vaziri revealed he could speak English without an accent, but it gave him a chance to say how much he loved America. He also revealed that he had to kill an insurgent while working as a translator in Iraq. Though his action was necessary, he saw it as a victory for the devil.
This episode also tested Brennan’s scornful view of psychiatry. In fact, the doctor who had treated Neil (Joshua Malina) confronted Brennan, saying, whatever she thought of his profession, he had devoted his life to helping people live, which some might consider a lot more worthwhile than what she did, identifying the dead. Brennan blurted out something that wasn’t quite an apology, and the doctor confronted her on that, too. It’s good to see Brennan put in her place now and then. Kudos to Malina. (Ironically, I last saw Malina on Psych, playing a man who believed he was a werewolf.)
In the end it was discovered Neil’s own brother killed him and burned his body, angry at God for his family’s predicament. Not very understandable, in my opinion. Again, I have to ask why Booth didn’t suspect Neil’s brother sooner.
I liked how Brennan and Booth recovered from the horrific crime. Booth admitted it shook his faith, but he was pretty sure he’d get it back because the sun would come up, the world would go on. Booth sees God at work in nature while Brennan sees logical, physical laws, but I think they realized they just use different avenues to reach the same hopeful phenomena.
Maybe because my grandsons watch Angel in the mornings before they catch the bus, but I kept seeing the humor in this episode which made Booth the polar opposite of Angel. And the final nod to Angel with Booth wearing a black leather coat in the final scene was just frosting on the cake for me.