This week's episode of Bones (in case you missed it)

COLD OPEN

We open at a TRASH DUMP in the FOREST, where a YUPPIE COUPLE is hunting for antiques.

YUPPIE LADY: I’m picking a fight with you, because picking fights is a prerequisite to stumbling upon horrible bodies in the Bones cold open!

YUPPIE GUY: I’m trying to put a positive spin on the situation! I have a good, healthy outlook on life! Karma will surely reward me for my sunny disposition!

Something vaguely corpse-looking tumbles down the hill.

YUPPIE GUY: There does not appear to be anything sketchy about this!

YUPPIE LADY: No indeed!

YUPPIE GUY runs toward said totally un-sketchy object, trips on a toilet bowl (I’m not making that up) and lands face-to-face with a skeleton (and associated fleshy goop) wrapped in plastic.

YUPPIE GUY and YUPPIE LADY scream their yuppie heads off.

FADE TO:

BOOTH, BRENNAN, and SWEETS getting coffee in a park in “WASHINGTON, D.C.,” where the November weather appears to be incredibly mild—as mild as, say, Los Angeles. There seems to be some sort of DISAGREEMENT occurring.

BOOTH: Sweets, I do not approve of your getting a gun, despite the fact that you will be in the field with me facing horrible dangers.

AUDIENCE: I do not approve of the fact that the FBI apparently finds it appropriate to send a PSYCHIATRIST out into the field. Didn’t Booth have to fight just to get Brennan into the field, when she arguably had much more job and weapons experience than Sweets? Couldn’t Booth easily put a stop to this?

SWEETS, to distract both BOOTH and the AUDIENCE, changes the subject.

SWEETS: Let’s talk about your living arrangements.

BOOTH: No.

BRENNAN: Okay. I want an acre of land, he wants a man cave.

BOOTH: Yes, two weeks ago I wanted a family-friendly home, now I want the exact opposite of that.

BRENNAN: It makes no sense to me.

For once, AUDIENCE and BRENNAN are on the same page.

BRENNAN: Anyway, back to Sweets and guns. If we arm him he’s a prime target for a shooter, so he’ll draw fire away from you! I don’t want to be a single mom!

AUDIENCE: Classic Brennan! Comedy! Guffaw!

BOOTH: Irrelevant, Sweets isn’t getting a gun.

SWEETS: Fine then, you’re not getting a man cave.

AUDIENCE: How could you possibly follow through on that threat given that—

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS OF BONES: Scene change! You can’t ask questions now! La la la, can’t hear you!

CUT TO: The Jeffersonian. CAM and BRENNAN are examining a PLASTIC-WRAPPED CORPSE while DAISY looks busy in the background.

CAM: Look, here’s our gross body of the week!

BRENNAN: I’ll explain to you things we already should both know, given our professional backgrounds, almost as if you were the average 18-35 year-old viewer of a primetime television show.

CAM: Sounds perfectly logical to me.

DAISY: Don’t forget me! I’m quirky but I’m also smart, and in this scene I have an air compressor!

CAM: Why?

BRENNAN: To help us pressurize the interior of the plastic so we can drain the remains.

CAM: Ah, right, I should have known that!

BRENNAN and CAM both stare at the camera and wink knowingly. CAM cuts slits in the bottom of the plastic-wrapped corpse so the goop can drain out.

DAISY sums up the show with the following line (again, not kidding with this one):

DAISY: This is revolting…but kind of fun.

CAM, BRENNAN, and most of the AUDIENCE concur. Portion of AUDIENCE that was stupidly eating dinner while watching cannot weigh in because they are too busy trying not to vomit and/or recovering from doing so.

CAM cuts open the goopy, plastic wrapped remains. She, BRENNAN, and DAISY are unfazed.

BRENNAN: It’s a good thing all three of us have apparently lost our sense of smell.

CAM: Indeed.

DAISY: I had mine surgically removed for this very reason.

CAM finds a Ken doll in the remains, but for copyright reasons (and as fodder for some jokes later on), this doll is called PRINCE CHARMINGTON.

CAM: Look, a plastic doll.

DAISY: PRINCE CHARMINGTON!

BRENNAN: Who’s Prince Charmington?

CAM: Let me explain, since we need some exposition and you’re totally ignorant about pop culture. Prince Charmington is the best. Toy. Ever.

DAISY: It’s so sad!

BRENNAN: That seems like rather a strange reaction.

CAM: Nah, I’m fine with it. Seems plausible.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS OF BONES hope the AUDIENCE agrees so we can all LAUGH together at BRENNAN’S SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS. AUDIENCE looks dubious. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS try again.

DAISY: OH MY GOD! Whoever killed Prince Charmington will PAY!

CAM: I’m mildly befuddled, but otherwise that seems like an appropriate reaction to a grisly murder scene. I’m so glad I hired you.

DRAMATIC ZOOM on PRINCE CHARMINGTON with the HUMAN CORPSE relegated to the BACKGROUND of the shot. CUT TO: OPENING CREDITS

COMMERCIAL BREAK in which we see car commercials for every vehicle that’s ever been driven on Bones.

ACT ONE

At the JEFFERSONIAN, CAM, HODGINS, and DAISY search through what remains of the…remains. (See what I did there?)

HODGINS: I study bugs and slime and dirt and stuff, none of which is relevant to this particular murder. In real life I’d go work on some research or write a paper or work another case or something, but my contractually mandated screentime requires me to be here sorting through flesh goop like a lowly intern. And providing exposition. And reminding everyone of my real area of specialization.

CAM: That’s great, but what can you do to help move the plot along?

HODGINS: Well, I found a lung. Coincidentally, it’s the only organ that will be relevant later in this investigation.

CAM: Oh, cool. We can just forget about examining the other twenty-odd internal organs in the human body, then.

HODGINS: And here are bone fragments for you, Daisy.

DAISY: Phalanx, patella…awww! Here’s a socket from the late Prince Charmington’s royal patella.

HODGINS: Are the executive producers trying to imply that I can’t tell the difference between human bones and plastic doll bits or that I have a weird sense of humor and professionalism?

DAISY: Don’t care; too busy being bummed about Prince Charmington.

HODGINS: Whatever. Did you guys hear about the B-plot of this episode in which Sweets is trying to get certified to carry a gun?

CAM: No way!

DAISY: I fully support my boyfriend’s right to shoot people, largely because he is a decent human being who would never hurt a fly. Oh, by the way, the x-rays I did show that the victim was apparently beaten right before her death and may have been beaten as a child.

CAM: Sad.

BEAT. (No pun intended.)

CAM: Moving on…

Coincidentally, ANGELA enters with KEY INFORMATION.

ANGELA: I found fingerprints, bitchezzz! All the ID’ing you’ve been doing up until now is irrelevant! Our victim was vice president of a toy company!

AUDIENCE: I sense a theme coming on….

ANGELA: Anyway, her name is Debra Cortez and her brother reported her missing two weeks ago.

CUT TO: INTERROGATION ROOM. BOOTH and SWEETS are talking to the victim’s BROTHER.

MR. CORTEZ: My sister is dead? I’m so sad! She was such a quiet, shy, wonderful person.

SWEETS: She was quiet and shy? That fits in with the childhood abuse she suffered.

MR. CORTEZ: Um, what now?

SWEETS: The abuse. It’s totally understandable you have no idea what I’m talking about, since most children are abused by their parents and you two grew up in the same household. The fact that you seem confused does not cause me to doubt this hypothesis at all.

MR. CORTEZ: Debbie wasn’t abused, she was the sole survivor of the plane crash that killed our parents.

AUDIENCE feels a little sorry for MR. CORTEZ, since he wasn’t invited along on this little childhood jaunt across the sky, and then remembers that he was LUCKY because the PLANE ended up CRASHING.

BOOTH: I see that you also worked at the toy company.

MR. CORTEZ: My sister got me a job at the company, but I only worked there a month because it was too humiliating working for my more successful sister.

BOOTH: What do you do now?

MR. CORTEZ: Still looking.

AUDIENCE: Who quits a job in this economy? Think, man, think!

CUT TO: JEFFERSONIAN LAB. BRENNAN is examining stuff. It doesn’t really matter because the casework is simply a segue into BRENNAN COMEDY. ANGELA enters.

BRENNAN: Did you have a Prince Charmington doll as a kid?

ANGELA: Everyone did. I dressed mine like Sid Vicious Charmington, because I’m edgy and bohemian!

BRENNAN: I didn’t like toys. They distracted me from science.

ANGELA: Playing is important, too. Anthropology is on my side. You should play with that Prince Charmington doll!

BRENNAN: You mean the evidence?

ANGELA: It’s completely appropriate!

BRENNAN: Okay…

BRENNAN adopts a funny voice, so things are already delving into the realm of COMEDY, and picks up PRINCE CHARMINGTON, whose outfit is remarkably clean considering it was covered in liquefied organs mere scenes ago.

BRENNAN: Hello subjects! My name is Prince Charmington! My arm and leg have been torn asunder but my cervical spine is intact!

We can tell from ANGELA’S FACIAL EXPRESSIONS that BRENNAN is definitely DOING IT WRONG. BRENNAN laughs at her own cleverness. ANGELA laughs awkwardly and worries that BRENNAN’s future child will be a serial killer or something.

CUT TO: DILLIO TOY FACTORY. BOOTH and BRENNAN walk with BIANCA, the president of the company, who shows them around. She seems TRUSTWORTHY and COOPERATIVE, so there is NO WAY she can be the MURDERER.

BIANCA: These are our Bouncing Bears.

BOOTH: Parker loves those!

BRENNAN: Why? Children should not be playing with bears! Do you know how many fatal bear maulings occur in the United States every year?

BOOTH: Are you going to talk to our daughter like that?

BRENNAN: No, but I’m certainly not going to let her play with bears.

BIANCA shows BOOTH and BRENNAN the IMAGITORIUM, where the company tests prototypes on kids.

BIANCA: …and these are “Love Mutts.” Their heads and bodies are interchangeable so you can make an endless array of combinations!

A LITTLE GIRL holds up what looks like a Frankenstein science experiment gone wrong.

LITTLE GIRL: I made a bull-poodle!

AUDIENCE worries that these children will all become mad scientist serial killers. BRENNAN, BOOTH, AND BIANCA seem unconcerned.

BRENNAN: I can see how this would teach children about dominant and recessive genes!

AUDIENCE: Um, I can’t. I’m pretty sure my sister doesn’t have blue eyes because my parents ripped off the head of a blue-eyed person and attached it to my sister’s body.

BIANCA: Moving on, here’s Larry. He was Debra Cortez’s professional competition, except his ideas suck.

LARRY, who seems frazzled and lame in a COMEDIC WAY, is attacked by children who don’t dig his toys. He exits the IMAGITORIUM in a huff.

LARRY: I wanna wring those little bastards’ necks sometimes, you know?

BEAT.

LARRY: Was that not an appropriate way to greet strangers? Okay, let me try again. I hate Debbie Cortez.

BEAT. LARRY looks about for a shovel with which to dig himself an even deeper grave. BOOTH puts a stop to it by pulling out his badge and deciding to interrogate LARRY.

CUT TO: EMPTY IMAGITORIUM ROOM. BOOTH, BRENNAN, and LARRY sit around a child-size table on child-sized chairs.

LARRY: Here’s all the useful info you need for this scene. I didn’t like Debbie, but I didn’t kill her. I think she had a secret boyfriend. I was at home watching the game the night she was murdered, but my wife and kids were conveniently in Florida so no one can corroborate my story.

BOOTH: We’ll be in touch.

This is a prime opportunity for PREGNANCY HUMOR, so BRENNAN gets stuck in the child-size chair. BOOTH helps her out and they exit.

CUT TO: JEFFERSONIAN LAB, where HODGINS and DAISY are doing important lab-related tasks.

HODGINS: Here’s Prince Charmington’s leg!

DAISY: Gimme!

HODGINS: It appears to have been burned with some kind of acid.

DAISY: The horror!

HODGINS: Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.

BEAT.

HODGINS: Remember that “King of the Lab” joke we started like five seasons ago?

DAISY: Kind of…

AUDIENCE: YES.

HODGINS: Well, I’m bringing it back. King of the Lab!

CUT TO: ANGELA’S OFFICE. ANGELA is trying to assemble a toy, which leads to COMICAL HIJINKS. BRENNAN enters.

BRENNAN: What are you doing?

ANGELA: I’m assembling a toy for Michael. Remember, that son I had at the end of last season?

BRENNAN: Vaguely.

ANGELA: Right. He’s never onscreen and I immediately lost all my pregnancy "weight,", so I’m assembling this toy in my office instead of at home so I can remind everyone of his existence.

BRENNAN: Right. Why are the instructions in Chinese?

ANGELA: That’s just the diagrams. The instructions should be in clear, easy-to-understand English.

Clearly ANGELA has never assembled anything herself before. AUDIENCE chuckles in anticipation.

ANGELA: “Insert to parts for assemble which toy can have immediately.”

AUDIENCE: Told ya!

BRENNAN: What if you try…?

ANGELA: DO NOT BACKSEAT DRIVE, SWEETIE! I hate toys. They suck.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: And there’s the theme! Toys! The theme of the episode is toys! Did you get it? Did you?

BRENNAN: Well, anyway. On the topic of relevant stuff, did you construct a scenario for what happened to the victim?

ANGELA: Sure did. Let’s go!

CUT TO: The ANGELATOR room. ANGELA pulls up a schematic on the screen.

ANGELA: She was lying facedown on the concrete and she was struck with an incredible amount of force.

BRENNAN: This seems redundant, since we already knew she had fractures and her lung was collapsed so she suffocated to death, but I’m sure you’re going somewhere with this.

ANGELA: Right. Just reminding you of the details. There has been a commercial break since we went over all that the first time, you know.

BRENNAN: Oh, right.

ANGELA: Anyway, the person who did it must have been really angry to hit her so hard.

BRENNAN: No, if it were rage the blows would be all over the place. These are concentrated to her arms and upper back. Move her right and left arm?

ANGELA makes the image of the victim splay out a little more, then draws a line connecting the injuries. Nevertheless, she waits for BRENNAN to explain what this means.

BRENNAN: She was hit only once with great force, and the blow fell along this line!

ANGELA: Cool, I drew that line! Now I know why it’s significant!

CUT TO: BOOTH and DAISY in the car.

DAISY: I’m so excited to be going into the field!

BOOTH: Don’t get too excited. You’re only here because Bones wasn’t available.

AUDIENCE wonders where BRENNAN is. Presumably helping ANGELA assemble that toy?

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: We actually don’t know where Brennan is, we just wanted to put Booth and Daisy at the scene together. You know, for comedy!

AUDIENCE: Sure. Okay.

DAISY: When I’m field-tested and Lance has his gun, we can go on murdery double-dates with you and Brennan!

BOOTH: Let’s never do that. Also, don’t talk when we get there.

DAISY: I’ll agree now, but I will undoubtedly disregard this agreement as soon as we arrive at the crime scene.

BOOTH dies a little inside.

CUT TO: DILLIO TOYS FACTORY. BIANCA is showing BOOTH and DAISY into the PROTOTYPE LAB.

BIANCA: Before we go in, I need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

BOOTH: Ha ha, don’t think so.

DAISY, not to be outdone in BADASSERY, jumps in despite her promises to keep silent.

DAISY: If you don’t let us in, we’ll come back with a warrant and the press will have a field day.

BIANCA: Oh, fine. Whatever.

BIANCA, DAISY, and BOOTH enter the PROTOTYPE LAB.

DAISY: This plastic could be the same plastic the body was wrapped in!

BOOTH: Interesting.

DAISY: There’s blood on the floor over here!

BOOTH: That’s suspicious.

DAISY: This sliding vertical door could have been what crushed our victim!

BOOTH, not to be outdone in USEFULNESS, makes a discovery of his own.

BOOTH: This door looks like it’s been broken into.

BIANCA: Impossible!

In the background, FACTORY EMPLOYEES continue working, not expressing the least bit of interest in the MURDER CASE unfolding beneath their very noses. CASTING DIRECTORS pat themselves on the back for their choice in extras.

DRAMATIC ZOOM on the characters’ faces and the crime scene.

COMMERCIAL BREAK in which Fox plugs at least three shows that will be canceled by February sweeps.

ACT TWO

SWEETS is at the FIRING RANGE, where he is practicing for his test to carry a weapon. He does well. DAISY appears behind him.

DAISY: Good job! You’re hot when you’re firing a gun.

SWEETS: Daisy! God! I’m trying to concentrate!

SWEETS fires off another three rounds and misses the target each time.

DAISY: Pretend that target is someone trying to hurt me. Don’t let him hurt me, Lance!

SWEETS fires three shots almost straight through the target’s heart.

SWEETS: At first your presence made me suck, but now it makes me awesome!

DAISY: What’s that? I was too distracted by wanting to have sex with you.

CUT TO: JEFFERSONIAN LAB. HODGINS is doing science-y things. CAM enters.

HODGINS: Hey Cam, guess what? I found metal embedded in the victim that matches the door at the factory, so we have our murder weapon!

CAM: Great!

HODGINS: AND I discovered that someone used a carjack to break in! Multimillion dollar security system and all it took was a cheap-o carjack.

CAM: What dumbasses.

CUT TO: JEFFERSONIAN LAB. BRENNAN enters and sees DAISY.

BRENNAN: Hold up. Are you doing an autopsy on Prince Charmington?

DAISY: Yes. That makes total sense, right?

BRENNAN: Um, sure. Explain, please?

CUE intense “we’re solving a mystery” music.

DAISY: There was a struggle. Someone grabbed Prince Charmington and our victim pulled back, and Prince Charmington was pulled apart in the struggle. This is an original doll from the 1960s and it’s now worth $10,000. Someone wanted to steal him!

CUT TO: ANGELATOR ROOM. ANGELA is examining the victim’s computer files.

ANGELA: There’s nothing suspicious on here, except for that little email interaction in which she accuses someone of stealing from the company and they write back telling her to stay out of it.

CAM: Well, who was the other person?

ANGELA: I traced the IP address and get this—it’s her brother!

AUDIENCE: Couldn’t you have just checked the email address?

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Never mind that! Quick! Scene change!

CUT TO: BOOTH and SWEETS on a stakeout.

BOOTH: It’s not that I don’t want you to have a gun. I just think you’d end up, like, shooting yourself in the foot or something.

SWEETS: You think I’m incompetent?

BOOTH: No. I never said that.

BOOTH sees the perp arrive and exits the car.

SWEETS: Oh, so now you’re just gonna leave?

BOOTH leans in through the open window.

BOOTH: No, Sweets, the perp’s here. God, pay attention. You suck at stakeouts.

AUDIENCE wonders whether people who leave their windows open while having conversations at a normal volume during a stakeout should really through stones in the incompetence arena.

SWEETS and BOOTH confront the perp, MR.CORTEZ.

BOOTH: Open your trunk.

MR. CORTEZ: You got a warrant?

BOOTH: Nope. But you’ve been stealing vintage toys. You should probably cooperate.

MR. CORTEZ: In that case, okay. You really have me cornered here, since it’s not like I could have emptied my trunk in the time it took you to go wake up a judge and get him or her to sign a warrant.

BOOTH opens the trunk. It is full of STOLEN VINTAGE TOYS.

SWEETS: I’m guessing you don’t have a receipt for those.

BEAT.

SWEETS: See? I can be snarky and badass, too!

BOOTH: And a carjack! Since one never finds carjacks in the trunks of cars, this is clearly the carjack used to pry open the door at the factory!

COMMERCIAL BREAK, at which point the AUDIENCE members turn to each other and complain about how there have only been like four minutes of the episode since the last commercial break, and what is television coming to these days?

ACT THREE

MR. CORTEZ is being interrogated in the FBI INTERROGATION ROOM. As the chairs are all regular-sized there is no potential for PREGNANCY HUMOR in this scene, so BOOTH and SWEETS conduct the interrogation while BRENNAN remains absent.

BOOTH: Your sister was pretty mad you were stealing from the company.

MR. CORTEZ: Whatever. I have a criminal record anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal or anything.

AUDIENCE shakes head and mutters derisively about recidivism.

BOOTH: She was going to turn you in.

MR. CORTEZ: Debbie would never do that!

SWEETS: She’d lose her job if you got caught.

MR. CORTEZ: I’m her brother, she owes me!

BOOTH: You squashed your sister with the factory door because she caught you stealing THIS!

He throws PRINCE CHARMINGTON down on the table rather roughly. Poor PRINCE CHARMINGTON is going through rather a lot in this episode, and the AUDIENCE feels a little sorry for him until they remember that he is a DOLL.

Anyway, there is a DRAMATIC PAUSE, and then:

CUE sappy sad piano/violin music.

MR. CORTEZ stares at PRINCE CHARMINGTON, then reaches out to pick him up. MUSIC stalls on one suspenseful violin note.

MR. CORTEZ: Oh my God.

PIANOS resume.

MR. CORTEZ: This was the last thing our mom gave Debbie before she died.

BEAT.

MR. CORTEZ: “She” being our mom in this case, not Debbie. The grammar skills of this recap are questionable.

BOOTH has time for neither META-COMMENTARY nor SCHMALTZ.

BOOTH: This doll is valuable. I think you stole it.

MR. CORTEZ: Go ahead, lock me up for stealing. But I didn’t kill my sister!

AUDIENCE: He’s probably right, we are only like forty minutes into the episode.

CUT TO: BOOTH’S APARTMENT. BRENNAN is sitting on the couch eating when BOOTH comes home from work.

BOOTH: How are you?

BRENNAN: Baby’s kicking my spleen. You?

BOOTH: Work sucks.

BRENNAN: We’re both having bad days. But tomorrow I’ll have my lab minions solve the case for you.

BOOTH: Cool. Let’s cuddle.

BRENNAN: Yeah. Okay.

BEAT.

BRENNAN: I’m not good at playing with toys. What if I’m a bad mom?

BOOTH switches into PEP TALK MODE.

BOOTH: You’re gonna be a great mom!

BRENNAN: Okay, I’m convinced. Hey, maybe when our daughter’s motor skills develop, we can dissect a frog together!

BOOTH: Maybe!

BOOTH, unlike most other characters on the show, does not seem to harbor any secret fears that his daughter will turn out to be a serial killer. This bodes well for his relationship with BRENNAN, but it remains to be seen whether or not it will benefit their UNBORN CHILD.

CUT TO: HODGINS and CAM in the JEFFERSONIAN LAB.

HODGINS: I’ve discovered a fake nail, and there’s DNA trapped between the glue and the nail!

CAM: Cool! Let’s solve this bitch!

CUT TO: ANGELA’s OFFICE, where ANGELA is still trying to assemble the toy from earlier. She has made some progress…but not much. CAM enters.

ANGELA: “Gently forward piece for coupling together with warning about many danger.” What. The. HELL?!

CAM then makes a ROOKIE MISTAKE.

CAM: It looks like that red piece might fit there.

ANGELA: Oh, does it? DOES IT?!

CAM: You’d think the store would offer some sort of assembly service.

AUDIENCE agrees with CAM.

ANGELA: Oh, they do, but this toy cost thirty-three bucks and they want thirty-five to put it together.

AUDIENCE abandons TEAM CAM to side with TEAM ANGELA. Those thieves! Who do they think they are?!

CAM: Seems like money well spent.

ANGELA: Are you calling me stupid? “Baby Walker” will not beat me!

HODGINS chooses an unfortunate moment to enter.

HODGINS: Hey, are you ready for lunch?

ANGELA: He’s your son, too!

HODGINS: We have a son?

BEAT.

HODGINS: Oh, duh, that’s right. It’s just that he never appears on screen so sometimes I can’t remember if he’s real or if the season six finale was all a hallucination.

CAM: No, that was season four.

HODGINS: Oh, right. What was up with that?

ANGELA: Hodgins!!!!

CAM: See ya.

We leave a befuddled HODGINS to his fate and

CUT TO: SHOOTING RANGE, where BOOTH has pulled come strings to administer SWEET’S test on the theory that if SWEETS is distracted by BOOTH’s presence, he won’t be any help in the field, with or without a gun. It sort of makes sense, but AUDIENCE wonders how BOOTH manages to pull all these strings and still be unable to block SWEETS entirely from gun ownership.

SWEETS enters a dark room for his test. Suddenly—FOG! FLASHING COLORS! OBSTACLES! LOUD NOISES! STROBE LIGHTS!

SWEETS looks around and tries to focus. AUDIENCE waits, half-expecting BARNEY STINSON and ROBIN SCHERBATSKY to appear in laser tag gear.

SWEETS performs admirably until a bullet ricochets off a target and hits him in the arm. AUDIENCE wonders why this kink was not worked out prior to the test.

BOOTH: You’ll have a scar but you’ll be fine.

And on that anti-climactic note, we

CUT TO: JEFFERSONIAN LAB, where CAM and DAISY discover that the DNA from the fingernail has gotten a hit in the FBI database.

CAM: So it’s this guy. He was in the military in Iraq. That fact is irrelevant to the storyline except that it explains why the FBI has his DNA on file.

DAISY: Yeah, it’s funny how many suspects and victims on this show turn out to have military or government backgrounds.

CAM: Pretty convenient for us though.

DAISY: For sure. Hey, that’s the guy who plays Prince Charmington in all the commercials!

CAM: And wasn’t our victim in a secret relationship? I wonder if there’s any connection!

DAISY: The prince is evil?!

COMMERCIAL BREAK, during which there are so many Christmas ads the AUDIENCE begins to feel guilty that they haven’t already finished their holiday shopping.

ACT FOUR

FBI INTERROGATION ROOM, where BOOTH and an be-slinged SWEETS question THE REAL PRINCE CHARMINGTON, whose name I forget.

SWEETS: Were you in a relationship with Debbie?

PRINCE CHARMINGTON: Yes. I can’t believe this could have happened to her. She always said she’d found her prince…but I was really the lucky one. I felt like the frog the princess kissed.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: See what we did there with the Prince Charmington thing? Worth the payoff, right?

AUDIENCE: Oh. Yeah, sure.

BOOTH: Wow, you’re really into this whole prince thing. That’s not at all odd or potentially homicidal.

PRINCE CHARMINGTON: I didn’t kill Debbie! We had to keep our relationship a secret because of company policy—Bianca was really strict. I was encouraging Debbie to leave Dillio and strike out on her own. When she stopped calling me, I thought she’d tried to leave and it hadn’t worked out.

SWEETS: You thought she blamed you?

PRINCE CHARMINGTON: Yeah.

SWEETS: Psych degree for the win!

CUT TO: JEFFERSONIAN LAB. HODGINS is explaining things to CAM and oh hey! BRENNAN, who has been kind of MIA this episode.

HODGINS: The acid that burned through the plastic was from a car battery.

CAM: But car batteries are stored in the hood, you can’t fit a body in that part of the car!

HODGINS: But some Mazerati models have the battery in the back, and I found fibers from the trunk of a Mazerati, too!

BRENNAN: I’ll have Booth see what cars the Dillio employees drive!

CUT TO: DILLIO PARKING LOT, where BIANCA is just getting into her car. BOOTH and BRENNAN walk up. AUDIENCE wonders why SWEETS, after all the work he put in on this case, doesn’t get the satisfaction of collaring the REAL KILLER.

BOOTH: Open your truck.

BIANCA: Why?

BOOTH: I think you know why.

Faced with this INCONTROVERTIBLE LOGIC, BIANCA opens her trunk. BRENNAN finds traces of blood.

BIANCA: Without Debbie, our stock would have plummeted. It was an accident!

BRENNAN: Don’t care, you’re an evil bitch.

BIANCA has no response.

CUT TO: SWEETS’S OFFICE. DAISY enters.

DAISY: Can I see your gun?

It's not an innuendo. SWEETS shows her. They MAKE OUT.

SWEETS: No more sex in my office.

DAISY: Whyyyyy?

SWEETS: Okay, but this is the last time!

CUT TO: BRENNAN’S OFFICE.

BRENNAN, after a long day of not really doing any work (she’s pregnant, cut her some slack!) is doing work in her office. ANGELA enters with MICHAEL, her baby (in case you’d forgotten).

ANGELA: I’m giving up. Wanna come to the toy store with us so someone there can assemble that toy for me?

BRENNAN: Uhhhh…

ANGELA: Bassinets! Mobiles!

BRENNAN: As a soon-to-be parent, those things interest me now! Let’s go!

CUT TO: BOOTH’s APARTMENT. BRENNAN is reading a serious-looking book. BOOTH comes in.

BOOTH: Hey!

BRENNAN: Freeze, copper!

BRENNAN has a gun that shoots foam balls, and she is happily attacking BOOTH.

BRENNAN: Today at the store, I realized that this is fun! And the baby thought it was funny! So now I understand what play is all about!

BOOTH: You’d think as a brilliant anthropologist, you’d already understand what play is all about.

BRENNAN: Apparently not.

BOOTH fishes another gun out of a shopping bag.

BOOTH: You bought two of these?

BRENNAN: Duh.

BOOTH and BRENNAN proceed to have an ADORABLE FOAM-BALL SHOOTOUT, and even though the AUDIENCE can’t help but wonder how their guns seem to magically never run out of foam balls, it is a pretty cute ending.