Tonight's season finale of Bones is, coincidentally, airing on David Boreanaz's birthday. Happy birthday, David. Have some cake.
Booth and Brennan's case for the week involves a child's body found in a shopping cart in a drained sewer.
Angela and Hodgins discuss their upcoming nuptials. Max Keenan shows up and Booth arrests him under Brennan's protest. Our favorite lawyer Caroline points out that it'll be hard to charge Max with anything because his concocted identity is practically bulletproof. Booth checks out his prints and attempts to rile him up to justify keeping him in jail, but fails.
Angela's reconstruction of the victim's face is an old woman, rather than the expected ten-year-old girl. It's not entirely clear to me why Angela came to this conclusion, though she said the markers "felt wrong." I think that was just a way to get to the line about art making science her bitch, which was funny, but I could have used a bit more forensics here. Anyway, she asks Brennan to be her Maid of Honor. Brennan agrees. There is hugging.
Max came to bring Brennan a ring that belonged to her grandmother. Brennan invites him to stay at her apartment. Booth is unable to trace Max in any way, not even with his fingerprints. He's apparently been disappeared by the FBI. Caroline says they need DNA to prove his identity.
The victim continues to be mysterious--some markers say she's ten, others say she's 80. Brennan postulates progyria, while Angela has found a 22 year old, Chelsea Cole, on the NCIC database that matches her reconstruction. Hodgins asks Zack to be best man. Booth and Brennan notify Chelsea's mother Cynthia. Chelsea had Werner's disease. She appeared to be elderly, but had the mental capacity of a six-year-old. The mother suspects a man who was Chelsea's caretaker, who had been under investigation when Chelsea disappeared. Booth questions the caretaker, who insists he's innocent. He says things weren't going well for Cynthia at the time of Chelsea's disappearance.
Brennan and her dad have more bonding time. Max says the ring will help Brennan find her mother's three sisters, and that her mother wanted her to have it, but Brennan is still prickly because of that fifteen years of abandonment thing. Booth shows up with an order for a DNA sample.
Hodgins asks Zack to be his best man, but the president has asked Zack to go to Iraq, so Zack declines for various Zack-like reasons related to that. Hodgins asks Booth, instead.
During questioning, Cynthia gets worked up and, while taking her AIDS medication, says stuff she probably shouldn't. This is leading toward the mother as the killer, so I hope it doesn't end up there.
Hodgins suddenly realizes he forgot about Angela's father, and goes to talk to him. I still haven't figured out if he's supposed to really be the guy from ZZ Top, or if it's just a big coincidence. Although they did play a lot of ZZ Top tonight... Either way, he's amusing, and obviously understands his daughter.
Hodgins and Zack use sea chimps and spam to determine the cause of death. Chelsea was killed by an overdose of AIDS medication. Suspicion of course falls on the mother, and she's arrested. If she had AIDS, and the daughter died from a medication overdose, why did she spread her meds all over the table earlier? Not very smart. Booth finds enough evidence to arrest Max, and does so, but not after a bit of fisticuffs. In the end, Max goes willingly, knowing if he leaves Brennan again, she'll never forgive him. As an aside, Boreanaz really knows how to hit people hotly. And the segue from hot to dork who's just been clocked in the nuts can't fail to amuse.
Brennan watches a video from her mom. Good thing she still has a VCR. It's all a bit cheesy, but seems to provide Brennan with some closure regarding her mother. I think it's nice that they closed this season with an episode about Brennan's parents, mirroring last year's finale.
Brennan talks to Cynthia. Cynthia is, indeed, the killer, but her motives weren't quite what we'd assume. The parallel between Brennan's mother's abandonment and Cynthia's decision to kill her daughter rather than leave her a ward of the state after her own impending death is somehow strained and poignant at the same time. While the mother-as-killer is far too obvious, and disappointing in that I once again guessed the killer, this scene made up for it in a lot of ways, because the mother's motive added a twist I wasn't expecting. Also, this episode is really focused more on Brennan's issues with her father and the impending wedding, so a thinner plot for the murder case makes sense.
The wedding commences. Booth shoves his foot down his throat regarding Brennan's dress, but he looks so hot in a tuxedo that nobody cares. Angela's middle name is "Pearly Gates." Zack asks Booth what he should do about going to Iraq, and Booth tells Brennan about Max's decision to allow himself to be arrested.
But at the last minute, the ceremony is interrupted by somebody from the state department. Turns out Angela's first marriage was actually valid. Hey, at least she doesn't have her syphilitic husband hidden in the tower room back at the Grange (literary joke!). Caroline tells them to run away, and they do, after sending everybody off to the reception.
And that's the end of Season Two. Season Three starts... um.... sometime next fall, presumably dependent on the baseball schedule. And hopefully at some point they'll go ahead and air "Player Under Pressure," the episode pulled due to the VA Tech shootings, but the network hasn't released any definite information on that yet.
ZZ Top--Give Me All Your Lovin'
ZZ Top--Blue Jean Blues
