TV Review: Bones Episode 1.21

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

From FOX: Booth and Brennan investigate the apparent suicide of a protester in Arlington National Cemetery. But Brennan and her team discover this was not suicide, it was murder, and the victim was a soldier who had served in Iraq, not a war protester as originally thought. Booth and Brennan pursue the murder investigation and interrogate the American soldiers the victim served with in Iraq. Their investigation leads to many unanswered questions about the victim's military unit in Iraq and the actions they took while on patrol there. As they uncover more information about the case, all clues point to a potential military cover-up. Meanwhile, Booth laments the horrors of war and his own shady past as a military sniper.

My Rating: 4 out of 4

This episode titled The Soldier on the Grave opens with Booth and Bones walking through Arlington National Cemetery as they are called there to see about a body burned and left resting on the grave of a man that was going to be paid tribute to that day. The death first appears to be a suicide. We can definitely see the difference's in the characters this week with there differences in opinion when it comes to the War in Iraq. This is a topic that is bringing a lot of debate in this nation at the moment, and this episode shows that a bit here in the early moments of this week's episode. As Bones and her team works to find out the identity of the victim and exact cause of death, it turns out to be someone that served with the man in the grave the body was found. Even more unsettling, the death doesn't turn out to be a suicide but murder.

The differences in opinion first come to light when Bones and Booth are investigating the murder by interviewing various individuals. First, the family, then another man that the two men served with and then the man's commanding officer. The two have distance in their beliefs when it comes to the War. As having served himself, Booth has his own beliefs based on that. Bones hasn't truly been in a war situation herself, so her views come from that. The team also has their own debates that occur while they work on the bones. After Bones speaks to everyone, she decides she has to have the soldier from the grave the current victim was found on exhumed. Booth is immediately against it, but the exhumation does take place. This earns Booth a slap in the face from the mother of the dead soldier.

Kent is brought to the lab, and it is uncomfortable for Booth. He is still against the man having been exhumed. in an odd twist, the one that understands him the most is Hodgins. Angela and Hodgins don't see eye to eye, and this causes some tension between the new possible couple forming there. Angela tries to explain to Hodgins that sometimes you don't have to be so loud in order to get your point across. She tells him that how he went to Booth and let him know he understood was a good thing. He was heard without having to scream.

With more interviews and investigation, Booth determines that it looks like the group is hiding something. They all use the same phrase to describe the shots head, pop pop pop. Bones pulls out the bullets from the first soldier's body, and she says the way the blood pooled around the bullets they didn't kill him. She also finds two different types of bullets, and the ones that did kill him came from the gun of one the man's fellow soldiers. The two are then off to arrest the man they think committed the murder, but they find the man has just committed suicide saying he shot Kent. That and the fact that he was out of town the night the second victim died makes him innocent. The killer is still on the loose.

The team continues to work, and the longer they work it turns out there was a conspiracy. Someone fired more bullets into Kent to cover up the friendly fire incident. This leads Booth to speak a friend from his past. It seems there is a similar incident in Booth's own past, and that is why this whole case bothers him so much. When Booth returns to the lab, Bones and Angela have discovered the team of a year ago hadn't gone in to a home full of insurgents but the home of an unarmed family getting ready to sit down at dinner. Their weapons were placed after they died. This leads Booth to have the commanding officer arrested for covering up the shooting of innocents and obstruction of justice. He still isn't a killer. The female of the team is. When they arrive to arrest her, she confesses. At the murder victim's funeral, Booth turns to Bones about the events in his own past.

Next week is the season finale for this series. FOX has already picked up the show for a second season, and I am glad to see that. This episode took us into the mind's of the team, Booth and Brennan, while dealing with a very sensitive topic currently affecting the people of this country. Debate on this topic is happening everywhere. I especially enjoyed the deepening of Booth's character in this episode. Him going to Bones and telling her about that event in his past really showed how close these two have become.