Bones: The Finger In the Nest (Episode 404)

Partners. Okay. So this is more like it. Parker and Booth are on a nature walk and talking about beauty. It is not truth, but a perfect spiral. Male bonding ensues. Parker sees a bird’s nest, and Booth gives him some good lessons: don’t knock it down, because someone lives there, and don’t touch the eggs in case the mama bird comes back. Parker instead pulls out a human finger. I’m pretty sure to a six-year-old boy, that is way more awesome than an egg.

Brennan’s en route, telling Cam that Parker wanted to put it in his pocket and keep it. Brennan’s newest grad student, Mr. Starret (Michael Badalucco), who is also sort of her oldest grad student, at least age wiser, confirms that boys love weird, gory stuff. He knows because he has four boys, which he will repeat every five seconds this hour. And I think the team finds him still less annoying than Daisy Wick. The finger’s already in the lab, but not giving them a lot to go on other than sap from a Japanese cherry, found by Hodgins. He remembers Starret for selling him a lemon of a hot rod back in his twenties, which pisses him off. Too bad he couldn’t afford to buy, like, fifty more. By narrowing the tree and the bird down, they’re able to figure out where the body is. Brennan is impressed. Hodgins: “I’d say King of the Lab, but that just depresses me.” Me, too. Cam tells Starret not to ask.

Booth wants Sweets to talk to Parker about the finger, in case it’s freaked him out. Sweets’ answer is basically, kids are resilient, he’ll be fine, and no. He thinks talking to Parker about the finger will bring up issues rather than helping, so he tells Booth to call him if Parker starts acting weird. Acting weird like killing cats? Booth asks. Sweets: “Yeah. Sure.”

At the crime scene, Brennan tells Booth that when she was five, she went to visit a neighbor and found the old woman dead, and she’s fine. Booth: You do know you’re the bone lady, right?  Booth thinks it is a matter of time before Parker freaks out. Brennan thinks he’s afraid of getting in trouble with Parker’s mom. They’re called over to the body, where an opossum is nibbling on what’s left. Brennan inefficiently shoos the opossum, and it is awesome. Some body parts are missing, so Booth calls for the search to be widened. Booth learns the definition of “playing possum” and calls himself Ranger Rick. I used to get that magazine when I was a kid, and a google search proves they still put it out. That makes me happy for some reason.

Starret and Cam work on the body: a male, dead four days from a puncture wound in the neck that made him bleed to death. Starret is ready to go to work, but Cam tells him that first they look for particulates. This is an excuse to segue to Hodgins, who is being weirder than usual and definitely meaner than usual; Sweets hovers at his station to tell him he’s there if Hodgins needs to talk, and Hodgins is like, leave me be with this freeze-dried bull penis I found in the victim’s fanny pack. No, really, he does.

Angela’s working on a facial reconstruction, and based on what she’s come up with against the missing persons files, Starret and Cam decide the victim is veterinarian Dr. Seth Elliot. The Bs bring his ex-wife in, and the cutest puff-ball of a dog pops out of her purse. Brennan is smitten: “May I hold your dog while you cry?” She’s impressed with how “compact” the dog is. Mrs. Elliot says she loved Seth and didn’t want to get divorced, but Seth had a serious gambling problem and she only filed to shake him out of it. It didn’t work. Booth asks for the name of Seth’s bookie, and Mrs. E tells them to ask Karen. At the woman’s name, the dog yips.

Karen is Dr. Elliot’s assistant at his veterinary clinic. The business was barely covering its overhead. Karen says Seth tossed and turned over it; when Booth asks if they had a sexual relationship, she reminds him that they were both single. “There was nothing enervating about it.” Brennan tells her that, for future reference, that word doesn’t mean what she thinks it means. She does confirm that Seth had a gambling addiction, but she doesn’t think he has a bookie. Mostly, he did online poker. There was one time when they had a druggie in his office who Seth tackled and called the police on, maybe he killed Seth for getting him busted. The Bs leave, and Karen calls after them that she doesn’t know how she’ll find the energy to go on. “Now that is what enervating means!” Brennan calls out. I love a good vocabulary lesson.

Brennan looks up the man arrested for stealing drugs from the vet clinic; his name is Tucker Payne. Cam calls to tell the Bs that Hodgins found saliva on the victim. Brennan asks why he was looking for it, and Hodgins snaps that he wasn’t, he just found it. Booth tells him to watch his tone. Cam explains that he was looking for particulates and found it in the wound. They ran a DNA profile and determined that Seth was killed by a dog. Hodgins is extraordinarily bitchy, and Booth says “ass” about three times, also. Cam adds that the dog had filed teeth.

Tucker Payne is in questioning, with his dog at his side. This dog is gorgeous. I’m not good at guessing breeds, but it’s a beautiful black giant that looks a little like a bullmastiff, and his name is Shatsi. Payne has filed the teeth to points because, as he says, he’s a drug dealer but he can’t get caught with a gun, so Shatsi is essentially his weapon. Booth hands him a warrant for the dog, which Payne thinks is cold. Cam and Starret have him caged in the lab to compare the mold of Seth Elliot’s puncture wound to Shatsi’s teeth, and the dog is innocent. While he’s been at that, Hodgins has been with Elliot’s car while the FBI forensic team goes through it. He continues to throw attitude around as he tells Cam about the tons of blood in the car as well as a vial of erythromycin. He reads the name off the vial and is horrible to Starret, causing one of the FBI techs to say that he feels better, since Hodgins treats everyone like crap. This week, he does.

The Bs arrive at the home of Don Timmons, the man whose name was on the prescription. There’s a pit bull in the yard, barking. Booth decides they should wait in the car, not because he’s afraid of the dog, but because that is what people do in the country. No, it’s not. He tells Brennan that Parker’s having nightmares about a singing frog, not dismembered fingers, but he’s also cutting up in school, talking back to his mom, and not flushing the toilet. Brennan thinks he’s just a boy. Booth knows Brennan thinks the finger is no big deal, given that she found an old lady corpse when she was a kid and she was fine. “Yes,” she says, “although, for some reason that I do not understand, I kept staging my own death: pretending that I drowned in the bath tub, faking electrical shock. It really freaked my parents out. And then once, when Russ found me hanging, he had to see the school psychologist.”

Excuse me. That. Is. AWESOME.

Timmons arrives and asks why they were sitting in the car. They ask about Seth Elliot, who Timmons says he went to high school with and was his vet. He calls out his son Robbie and tells him that Seth’s dead. Robbie used to work for Seth part time. He doesn’t know why Seth’s car would have blood in it. Robbie explains that the rX is his, just filled under his dad’s name for insurance reasons. When Seth died, Robbie was with his tutor; Timmons is set on his kid going to medical school, but Robbie wants to be a vet. Brennan plays with the dog, Gladys. Gladys is well-trained, but does not have sharpened teeth. The Bs explain that Seth was murdered by a person using a dog as a weapon.

Sweets is hovering around Hodgins again. He says he’s concerned because Hodgins is no longer his paranoid, conspiracy-theory-buff self. Hodgins thinks that’s probably good. He calls Cam to show her something. Sweets tells him, basically that’s who you were. Also, you look like a scrub. “These kinds of changes in a man’s life indicate intense distress,” Sweets says. “Would you like to discuss this with me?” Dude, I love John Francis Daly. I love him, I love Sweets, and I think more people should hug him. Sweets tells Hodgins that he needs to talk about his dark pain inside, to him or someone else. Cam arrives, all, ‘sup. Hodgins basically called her over to get rid of Sweets. Cam thinks THIS is inappropriate, at least.

Robbie’s tutor, Andrew Hopp, talks to the Bs. He’s a med student, and he shows them his practice stitches. He doesn’t hang around long and basically says that Seth Elliot was a meth addict and a bad role model for Robbie. He uses the word legendary. It is not awesome.

Angela has gotten access to Elliot’s PDA, which has photos of dog fights on it. She is grossed out, and Brennan points out how grotesquely wrong it is. They decide it’s always men who do these sorts of things; Booth tells them not to get all Xena Princess Warrior on him. False weird note in this otherwise good episode, so I will not use caps when I say: stop with weird sexist stuff, show. Both ways. Brennan recognizes one of Gladys’s toys, so Booth decides to get a warrant to search the Timmons home.

Meanwhile, however, he’s brought Parker in to see Sweets. Parker doesn’t think Sweets looks like a baby’s behind. Hee, and aw. Poor Sweets. Booth covers his son’s ears with his giant hands and tells Sweets that Parker’s not eating, he’s afraid to go to school, and he’s afraid of meteors. He thinks it’s all because of the finger. Sweets says that he is not Dr. Phil, and therapy, especially with kids, doesn’t work like this. It doesn’t sink in. Booth leaves, and Parker asks if Sweets is his baby sitter. Sweets says that is exactly what he is.

They haven’t gotten their warrant yet, because they need more evidence to link the Timmons place with the dog fighting. Angela pulls Cam and Hodgins into her photo lair; random particulates that Hodgins found are associated with Astroturf, which Angela has seen in the photos. He tells her she’s a genius, and Angela laughs that he’s a genius. It is awkward and sad.

The Bs have deputized the Dog Whisperer himself, Cesar Millan, to deal with the dogs on the Timmons lot. Cesar is pissed. You don’t send the ones you love to die for entertainment, he says. Brennan has found what equates to a mass doggie grave. Among the bones are betting slips; Booth says they’ll send everything back to the Jeffersonian and try to get IDs and warrants from them. Brennan says that would make her feel better. It’s things like this that make these characters so vivid: their empathy. Cesar calls out to the Bs that he’s found something in the barn. It’s the dog-fighting ring, as well as a whole stable of dogs. When Cesar opens the door on them, the dogs all rise up and start barking angrily. He sighs and silences them en mass with a few “tcchs” and, with a wave of his hand, gets them all to sit. And while it’s sort of implausible, I totally believe he could do it.

Booth has Timmons in questioning. He says he never goes to the barn; he rents it out, and as far as he knows, it’s used for storage. Booth stories that Timmons killed Elliot, but he explains that he’s a driller for wells; he was at a seminar in Chicago when Seth was murdered, and he can prove it.

All the dogs are kenneled in the lab, and Cesar helps Brennan compare their teeth to the mold Starret took. They are all quiet and docile with Cesar, though Brennan is not excellent with the tcching. I really feel like this episode should have come with a “do not try this at home” warning. They locate the dog used to kill Elliot, a huge shepherd-looking animal that is quiet and retiring under their hands. Cesar apologizes to the dog for what’s happened to him.

Starret and Hodgins are panning through the material from the mass grave. Hodgins bitches about that time a gajillion years ago Starret sold him a bad car, which Starret essentially says is Hodgins’ fault for not being a diligent consumer. “You’re not twenty anymore, Dr. Hodgins, so cut it out,” he says. Hodgins nearly loses his temper but apologizes, saying he’s having a lot of problems. His best friend got himself into a lot of trouble, and he misses him, he says, plus the lame break up with Angela. Starret says that’s a lot to bear, especially if Hodgins feels responsible. He says he does. Starret, who’s leaving for a dig the next day, tells him to confide in his friends, who are concerned about him. He finds an IDing microchip and asks what it is, though he already knows.

Booth lets himself into Sweets’ office, having gotten the message that his son is disturbed. But not by the finger in the nest, Sweets says. By a huge girl at school named Stephanie who likes to carry Parker around like a monkey on the playground. Parker doesn’t know what to do, since his dad taught him not to hit girls. Booth clarifies that he taught his kid not to hit anyone except in self defense. Sweets says that Parker wishes Booth had let him keep the finger he found, since it would make Stephanie barf. Booth asks why he doesn’t just run away; Parker told Sweets that his dad never ran away from anything. Sweets says they’ve all had girls bully them like that. Booth is like, uh, no, we haven’t.

The microchip Starret found belongs to the dog used to kill Elliot; his name is Ripley, and he was brought into Elliot’s practice to be put to sleep. Karen tells the Bs all about it. When they brought him home, his owners didn’t know he’d get so big, so they brought him to the clinic to be put down. Ripley was healthy, so Elliot gave him to someone else. He would have never knowingly placed Ripley in a dog-fighting camp, Karen says.

Brennan is bonding with Ripley in her office when Booth arrives to tell her that Timmons’ alibi checked out. Booth says the dog should be caged, since he killed Elliot. Brennan says it wasn’t his fault; he’s a very sweet dog. He reminds her of Booth, actually: “He’s got warm and reassuring brown eyes; he’s capable of great violence.” And it’s true, Booth has puppy dog eyes and will totally cut a bitch. Brennan’s been looking at photos of the dogs, and she’s noticed that the ones wounded in fights are stitched up and sent back in for more. The stitches are very distinctive, and she recognizes them.

Cut to the Timmons barn, where Brennan’s comparing photos of a stitched up dog wound to the pillow Robbie Timmons’ tutor, Andrew Hopp: they are the same. Hopp says stitching up animals isn’t a crime. He tells Timmons and his son to shut up. They bring in Ripley, as well as Cesar to help them figure out who is Ripley’s master. Booth claps his hands behind Hopp, and Ripley runs to him, waiting on his command. Timmons says that Ripley is a good dog who wouldn’t attack without an order; he tells Robbie to speak up. Robbie tells the Bs what he knows: he saw Hopp order Ripley to attack Elliot for photographing the dog fights. Poor dog, poor vet. Cesar, he looks sad.

Hodgins, in Sweets’ office, tells the shrink that he hates everyone. He hates Angela, because what they had is now dirt; Zack for being an idiot; Brennan for bringing them together; Cam for making them efficient; Booth for giving them a mission; and Sweets for picking at them. He hates everyone. He asks if he needs intense therapy and heavy medication. Sweets says he’s good with the hate; Hodgins is doing fine. Hatred is his coping mechanism. He’s working, and with his friends at that. He’s replaced his paranoia with misanthropy, and eventually, he’ll replace that as well. This hating is just his way of coping with all the crap that’s happened in the last few months. Hodgins doesn’t get it, but he accepts it. He asks if Sweets is his therapist now; Sweets says no, they work together. Hodgins takes off, and Sweets sort of laughs.

Brennan goes to see Booth for the rest of the story. Elliot was pissed that the dog he gave Timmons was being used for dog fighting, so he took photos to bring to the police, and Hopp, afraid of losing his lucrative business stitching up dogs, sicced his dog on Elliot. They’ve got warrants on the rest of the participants. Brennan is happy about that, as well as the fact that she’s adopting Ripley. She has a tag for him and everything. Booth quietly tells her they had to put him down for killing someone, even though it wasn’t his fault. She’s upset, given that she knows Ripley was a good dog. She asks what will happen to his remains.

Cut to the Bs burying what’s left of Ripley. Booth tells Brennan that he told Parker to walk away from the bully; his lesson was to stand up and fight for others, but walk away from a fight for himself. Brennan assures him he’s a very good father. He asks if she’d like to say something for Ripley. They argue, not for the first time, over the use of talking to something that’s dead and can’t hear. He tells her to talk to the universe or God or Ripley, because God spelled backwards is dog, after all; he tells her to speak from her heart. She apologizes on behalf of mankind for what happened to Ripley, that he was adopted by idiots who didn’t realize he would grow big, that he was made to fight. She tears up as she says that it wasn’t Ripley’s fault that his master was cruel and selfish and made him kill, and like all dogs, Ripley saw what was good in people. Kinda like the guy with the warm, reassuring eyes who always hugs Brennan when she’s down?