Bones Season 5 Episode 21 Review - "The Boy with the Answer"

SPOILERS: Tonight's episode and numerous references to the Gravedigger arc

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I love this show. Not that I think it's perfect, I've disliked episodes in the past, but Bones has the perfect mix of quirky, smart, lovable, and believable people combined with cases that are interesting and unpredictable. The Gravedigger arc, which came to a close (?) in tonight's episode, epitomizes all of that.

We first met the Gravedigger in the second season episode "Aliens in a Spaceship," my personal favorite episode. Hodgins and Brennan were buried alive, science saved the day, there was some romantic soul-barring, and in the end we're left with a killer who *gasp* DOESN'T GET CAUGHT!

And then....silence. It took two seasons before Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan (executive producers) decided it was time to revisit the story of "the one that got away." So they made the Gravedigger try to kill Booth too. Cause, we needed an even better reason to hate her (a woman, as it turned out). We got to see our enemy. Heather Taffet. And ohhhhh she would pay.

Which brings us to tonight's episode - the trial of the Gravedigger. She is defending herself, in all her psychopathic logical lawyer glory. She leads Brennan to another body. She slanders every single member of the Jeffersonian. She invalidates evidence left and right. She gets Max Brennan to try and snipe her because even he thinks Bones can't close the case. In other words, she makes Howard Epps (previous Bones nemesis) seem like a meager attempt at villainy, just a pitiful wimp.

And damn was she awesome. Evil, oh yes, really really evil, but awesome.

The whole episode had me on edge. Starting from Brennan's nightmare to five seconds before the verdict was read, I was freaking out. Taffet caught everything and threw it back in their faces in ways I could never have seen coming, making their emotional reactions all the more believable. Having to give up their right to prosecute their own kidnappings is used against Brennan and Hodgins, Angela is slammed for her credentials, and Cam is accused of falsifying evidence. Each one, I took as a personal offense, and I was shocked at how much it affected me.

When the verdict was read, I knew there was a small chance that, just to prove how "real" their Bones world was, the producers and writers would simultaneously give every fan a heart attack by letting Taffet get not guilty. But that is just not the Bones way. Instead, we got the happy ending, the celebration of Hodgins and Angela's wedding, and the satisfaction of hearing Taffet yell "this isn't over" in the pathetic Scooby Doo villian "I would have gotten away with it too..." voice.

So two thumbs up to Bones. Even after 5 seasons of procedural crime-of-the-week story telling, you can still punch me in the gut and make me really worry about your characters. You got me. Well played.

Now let's see some more!

~ Sarah