Home Articles TV Recaps Hodgins and Angela Face Major Changes in the BONES Mid-Season Finale
Hodgins and Angela Face Major Changes in the BONES Mid-Season Finale
By Olga Kijāna
The Bones mid-season finale put us on the emotional roller-coaster of a lifetime with the tongue-in-cheek episode "The Cowboy in the Contest" and its tragic successor, the aptly called "The Doom in the Boom."
Initially, it was all fun and games as Booth and Brennan went undercover to catch a killer in the first episode, however the latter episode really blew us away by raising the stakes higher than we'd expected.
Did Brennan get the better of Booth in the west style shooting competition? Does Cam's budding romance with Sebastian have a future? Will Hodgins and Angela take a page from Booth and Brennan and extend their family?
It's time for a recap!
A Tale Of Two Episodes
"The Cowboy in the Contest" focused on the murder of Stanley, an accountant who added some excitement to his life by participating in the Frontier Games defined by Angela as 'role playing old west style shooting competition.' In order to find out what happened to the Frontier Games' best competitor, Booth decided to go undercover as Big River Buck, while Brennan confided in Angela that Booth seemed to be lacking excitement when it came to their marriage – why else the sudden interest in jet skis, motorcycles and, most recently, an undercover cowboy act?
Angela encouraged Brennan to join Booth as Wild Card Wanda and shake things up. As usual, both Booth and Brennan were at the top of their game, and ended up competing against each other as Brennan refused to pretend that she was anything less than excellent at shooting – not even for undercover purposes. However, Booth's impressive score (due to sniper training) was hard to beat even for her!
Meanwhile, Brennan flirted with a suitor as a way of being 'spontaneous' and fun, which, amusingly, was not to Booth's liking. Several mini-competitions, a Booth/Brennan dance and a full-blown bar brawl between Booth and another "contender" for Brennan's heart later, the investigation revealed that Stanley's killer was Sadie, who was having an affair with the organizer of the Frontier Games, Luke Nichols. Nichols used his wife's money to set up a construction company as a front for paying for his lover's ranch and horse, and Stanley, noticing it on the books, was about to expose them to Luke's wife Francine.
Meanwhile, Cam's dilemma about her feelings toward Sebastian grew stronger as she spent night with him when he was in town, but was still keen to avoid an actual date. Daisy realized that Cam might be afraid of getting hurt again after her break-up with Arastoo and encouraged her to take the risk with Sebastian in order to avoid "shrinking a little inside." Whereas Angela was in for a disappointment – Hodgins was clearly not ready to make room for another child in their family, and preferred for him, Angela and Michael Vincent to remain a family of three.
Finally, Booth admitted to Brennan that he actually loves their family routine, putting the kids to bed, cuddles, the works. So Brennan decided to make it a two-way street and give Booth what he wanted, a motor-cycle, or rather, a bicycle with a motor! Needless to say, he wasn't impressed. And Brennan only made things worse when she brought up the fact that she was the winner of the shooting competition because Booth was disqualified due to the bar brawl!
After the lighthearted banter, as expected, things took a dark turn in "The Doom in the Boom." The remains of the latest victim, a cop called Thomas Gallo, were rigged with a pipe bomb which was triggered at the crime scene, injuring Hodgins and Aubrey, who saved Hodgins' life by being his human shield.
Initially, and to our greatest relief, Hodgins was released into Angela's arms right away, while Aubrey underwent a difficult surgery, which he luckily also survived. When the second murder victim, a security guard Larette, was discovered, it became very clear that the team was dealing with someone with a problem with authority, but the pipe bomb pointed to an amateur criminal, not a gang member.
Karen, a behavioral analyst who could very well be an interesting case for behavior analysis herself (due to her amusingly neurotic demeanor), got called in to help out with the case. Having done some research, she suggested that the killer was most likely seeking notoriety for his kills, since Officer Gallo was interviewed on TV as a hero.
In an attempt to draw the murderer out, Aubrey took a risk and claimed on TV that he was now assuming the authority and would make it his mission to find the cop killer. However, it was not necessary to put Aubrey in harm's way again – the particles of a skateboard in the security guard's bones revealed the murderer to be a troubled teenager whose abusive father used to be a policeman.
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