TV Review: Bones Episode 2.17

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

From FOX: While on vacation in the desert, Angela contacts Brennan to ask for her help in identifying a skull - she’s afraid it’s her boyfriend, Kirk, who left on a photo shoot and has been missing for several days. The skull is sent to the lab, where Zack and Hodgins confirm that the victim died of a gunshot wound, had traces of peyote in his hair, and, sadly, is Kirk. Booth thinks the murder is drug-related, but the investigation leads them to a counterfeiting ring in the middle of the desert.

My Rating: 3 out of 4

Angela goes off to vacation in the middle of nowhere in the desert, and leaves everyone back at the Jeffersonian wondering, 'Angela has a boyfriend?' Yes, she does, and it is in the opening minutes that Angela calls Brennan in, needing to talk to her in private. A skull has been delivered to the sheriff where she is staying, and she has a fear it might actually end up being her boyfriend. He has been out of sight since a photo shoot five days before. She tries to talk herself out of it actually being him, but Bones ends up dropping everything to make her way out to where Angela is. Upon looking at the skull, she soon ascertains that it is the skull of a murder victim that had been shot in the head.

Once Angela has gone to bed, Brennan makes a quick call to Booth and asks him to come help her with the sheriff and the case of Angela's missing boyfriend. He arrives on a flight by the next morning. Booth and Brennan go off to the home of the guide and model that was last seen with Kirk. Once there they find the woman's boyfriend, and the man is not all that friendly when he first sees the two on his priority. While there, the two find a picture of the sheriff with the guide, turns out she is his half sister. While with the sheriff, Bones receives a call from Zach and Hodgins, the skull does belong to Angela's boyfriend. Peyote is found in his hair, so it looks to be drug related.

bones and Brennan need to tell Angela about Kirk's death, and they need to interview her about the peyote, which to her isn't really drug use since it is used in a Native American ritual. She gives them the name of the man that gave Kirk the peyote. They interview him as well because peyote is only legal if you are Native American. It also appears the guide's boyfriend might be the man's contact in respect to peyote. However, he has been beaten up and is now unconscious, so any hope of questioning is now impossible.

Bones puts a call into Goodman looking for naturalist. They use this woman to help them find a group coyotes that might have eaten off the body of Kirk. Bones learn more about Angela and the relationship she had with Kirk. Even though the two only spent three weeks a year together, their relationship was quite real. The group then goes out looking for Dani, the guide Kirk had been with when he went missing. However, instead they find the rest of the man's body and his camera. Angela takes his camera because as Bones points out he might have photographed his killer.

However, the sheriff does make the point that Angela might also be a suspect in the case. This point is quickly put aside though after a touching sequence between her and the sheriff. Once Angela develops some of the pictures available in the camera, the sheriff takes them. Bones and Booth go to question him, and he tells them he took the pictures to show Dani's boyfriend because of rock cropping in the pictures. The boyfriend tells the sheriff where the cropping is, and he takes Bones and Brennan there. Angela joins them, and once there the sheriff tells them he is off to look for his sister, but instead he leaves them stranded there. They soon find Kirk's truck and the kill site.

The sheriff does return for them, and it appears their main suspect is now Alex Joseph, the boyfriend. Seems he has recovered from the beating and now he has disappeared. The evidence starts to point to the fact drugs were related because the kill site is near an airstrip, and Kirk's body could have been taken to a plane and dropped off of it. They also soon discover there might be more than drugs involved but illegal counterfeiting. The group returns to the kill site and Angela is able to somehow point out the direction Dani went in, and they find her soon after. The case is solved. The shooter is the man that Bones and Booth had gone to about giving Kirk peyote. The counterfeiters are also caught.

This episode of Bones titled The Skull in Desert is probably one of the best episodes of Bones in the last few. It had some great character development in regard to Angela's character and also back at the Jeffersonian, Zach also had some growth as it appears Goodman is trying to push him from the nest so he can work on his own, instead of under the thumb of Brennan. Good news here is that Bones has been picked up for a full second season for next year, so we will be seeing Brennan, Booth and her team for some time to come.