TV Review: Bones Episode 1.12

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

From FOX: FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth enlists Dr. Temperance Brennan’s help when a decomposed body is found in a local alley and the cause of death is unknown. As Brennan tries to assess if a murder has been committed, the details of the case draw her in deeper, and she’s determined to help Booth find the teen’s killer. As their investigation reveals the body is that of a teenage boy who had only comic books for friends, Brennan finds she may have more in common with the lone teenager than she thought.

My Rating: 4 out of 4

On tonight's episode titled The Superhero in the Alley, Booth enlists the help of Bones once again to help him identify the decomposed body of what appears to be young man in an alley. The body is found in such a horrid state that identifying the body might be difficult, and it also makes cause of death a bit hard to determine upon a cursory examination by Bones and her team.

They soon do find out the boy was killed, but his death was made to appear like a suicide. Hodgins also finds bits of a comic book on the body. Dental records help the team identify the body as teenage Warren Granger, and the two head to his house to look through his room and interview his family.

Once there, they discover a whole separate sub-culture surrounding comic books that the young man is a part of. In order to learn more about him, they then venture to the local comic book shop. When there they find a group of his friends that all appear to live their lives as superheros, taking their fantasies a bit further than most would.

The young man that died had even gone so far to create his own superhero and comic book. Angela goes through and recreates his text, and Dr. Goodman makes his own theories about the young man based on his writing. This then leads to a discussion with Brennan about what her own writing shows about her own personality.

Angela and Goodman dive further into the teenager's comic book, trying to figure out more about him in order to help find out who killed him. Once they find a blue girl in the comic, Bones and Booth pull in one of his friends in the superhero club for an interview, but it is quickly determined that it wasn't her Warren was referencing. However, the girl does given them more insight into Warren and what he thought about his comic and superhero role. He took the whole thing very seriously.

Bones determines the cause of death was a severed spinal cord. When Zach cleans the bones, he discovers the teenage boy was sick. In fact, if he hadn't been murdered, he would have died of natural causes by this point. Booth and Bones learned from his parents that he suffered of leukemia. This leads to more theories to be made by the team, but it also leads to another discovery regarding his comic book. He wrote the text, but the man that ran the comic book shop he frequented did the artwork. This leads Booth to return to the comic book shop, and he learns the artist and Warren had fought over the comic book before Warren's death. This made Stu Ellis the prime suspect in the case.

Zach also makes another discovery when looking at Warren's bones. An extra bones that doesn't belong to Warren, but more than likely belongs to his killer. Bones discovers that the bone belongs to a female, and it is from her arm. They return to the bowling alley Warren worked at, and they discover that the woman that works there is the same woman from the comic book, and her husband might relate to the bad guy in the comic. The team tries to figure out what killed Warren, and in the meantime it appears the husband and wife flee. Booth and Bones catch up to them at the bowling alley. There they find the bevel knife used to kill Warren Granger.

Another great episode that shows more about Bones and her character through the use of the case involved. This series is definitely one of the better ones on television, but it is a bit on the underrated side, and with its time slot putting it up against another all-new Lost this week, that may also pose a problem. This episode was also a bit more on the sad side than previous episodes, especially the ending of the episode. I found myself tearing up just a little. We have another all-new Bones next week.