my dear street brawler

Baby Girls Need Grills

Another week, another recap!

Gunk in the Garage was like a hidden gem to me. I was not expecting anything of it, at all, and it turned out to be utterly delightful to me, and more enjoyable the more I watched it.

Due to said enjoyment, I ended up having a lot more to say about this episode than I thought I would. Thankfully, it’s still not nearly as much as the past two weeks’ have been. (Still longer than I would have liked, though.)

So, read more under the cut for some unabashed loving of Show, and almost everything it chooses to be this season.

Read More

Yay! I actually really liked this episode—like you said, it was a hidden gem, or a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t that I thought that I’d dislike it; it’s just that, as it was a bonus episode focusing on Sweets, I didn’t really give it a lot of thought. I thought it would be a throw-away episode, at most. Instead, I found it to be really enjoyable and light, everyone doing what they do best, a good example of what makes “Bones” so great. The interactions between the characters, the dialogue; even the case wasn’t that bad.

You know my feelings about the whole money issue between Booth and Brennan, but yeah, the whole conflict sort of rankles me. Like you said, Brennan went from being a foster kid, carrying her clothes around in garbage bags, to a millionaire; she worked hard to make her money. Which is why Booth’s line about how “that’s what rich people say,” annoyed me. But all in all, I’m impressed that they were able to put a fun spin on it. And I’m with Booth on one thing—I thought that “Cerise” was the name of the stroller too. Hell, they give bras girl names, so why not strollers? And baby equipment costs a ridiculous amount of money in general. My sister and her husband just had a baby, so I’ve been learning a lot about that. Like, a baby backpack carrier can cost up to $200! Those trailers that attach to your bike cost, like, $400. It’s crazy shit.

Hodgins blew up his science lab in middle school and that was the first time he made it onto a watch list. OF COURSE HE DID.

I loved that. He was on the wrong side of the law from an early age. (At least, to a degree. I mean, he works for the FBI now. So I don’t know.

Oh, naive Brennan and her thinking that the Big Gulp cup narrows down the suspect pool. She’d be horrified if she knew how many people actually drink those.

It was a nice, coincidental tie-in to that recent “Parks and Rec” episode where Leslie pushes a bill to outlaw big gulps. (The kid size cup is called so because it weighs as much as a two-year-old! If the two-year-old were liquified.)

Seriously, Sweets buys Daisy a gift every time she leaves town? (Well, I’d buy her a gift for leaving town, I suppose.) I guess that’s, well, sweet in its own way. I’m with Booth, though — Baby Duck is overcompensating. I’ve thought that for awhile, and have even at times mulled writing a post with all the hints through seasons 6 and 7 about how wrong Daisy and Sweets are for each other, but that would imply caring about their relationship, which I don’t.

I think that’s weird. I mean, I love gifts, and wouldn’t mind getting a gift every time I came back from somewhere (especially if it were from my adorable boyfriend), but I would also probably give him the side-eye after a while. And wonder if he was over-compensating for not being happy in the relationship, or cheating on me or something. But at the least, I would seriously question his motives in doing so. I kind of feel like Sweets and Daisy went wrong after they got back together in season six. Like, okay, you break up with your significant other, and there’s a possibility that you two meet up again and have sex. It happens. But you probably shouldn’t get back together afterwards. It’s like having an addiction—chances are, at some point, you’ll fall off the wagon. But then you get back on the wagon. Daisy and Sweets never got back on the wagon. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but yeah, do not want.

“Someone went boom at the Baird. Find out who did it and bring them to justice. Easy peasy!” Oh my God, just when I think I couldn’t love Caroline more, she does that.

Oh, if she’d only added “lemon squeezy”, then I would have lost it. Caroline is the goddess of “Bones” anyway. She has exclusive rights to my heart.

I would have thought that as the Special Agent In Charge of Major Crimes that Booth would be very familiar with budget meetings and stuff, but what do I know?

I don’t remember Brenda Lee Johnson ever having to go to budget meetings on “The Closer”, so that might not be the case. (And yes, I am using another television show to back myself up. I lead a sad, sorry life.)

If Booth gets a promotion after this, he won’t have to run around getting shot at anymore! (OH MY GOD WHAT IF IT’S ANOTHER ANVIL?! I’m joking. Maybe.)

Oh god, please don’t say that. (Brennan also mentioned that in the beginning of season seven. So I don’t know, man.)

Ooh, snazzy chandelier in that hotel.

Lol, I noticed that too. It was nice! Whoever directed this episode was location-scouting and saw it and was like, “THIS IS THE PLACE. I NEED TO FEATURE THAT CHANDELIER ON MY SHOW.”

You know, Booth has a point though, in that he won’t be able to remain a field agent forever. (I always saw him more as going down the Quantico Instructor road rather than Deputy Director road, though.)

I second that. It would make sense for him to teach at Quantico, seeing as how he’s a man of action and all.

(Fun fact: my sister and I were driving through Virginia and had to stop for gas. Afterwards we had trouble finding the highway again, and somehow ended up right in front of Quantico, at, like, nine o’clock at night. My sister was like, “Let’s ask the guard for directions!” I nixed that idea. I felt like I was in an episode of “The X-Files”, man.)

(Also, this makes me laugh, because one of my friends’ favourite sayings for when she’s mad at people is that she’s going to kick them in the shins and run away… And this is what happened.)

Apparently my preferred form of self-defense (and, hell, I’ll admit it, entertainment in general) when I was a kid was kicking people in the shins. Apparently a lot of the kids I went to grammar school with still harbor some resentment about how hard I used to kick them. Apparently. So this made me laugh too.

So, when I first saw this episode, I thought the lady was kicking Sweets because she was mad that he made her think her husband was dead because she was a loving wife. Now, obviously, it’s because she’s mad that he gave her hope that her husband was dead, only for him to turn up very much alive. I hate when that happens!

Lol, I didn’t even think about that! I’m dense. Now I want to watch the episode again (for a third time) to see that.

I have to say, all the talk about twin studies makes my formerly first year university student self geek out, since we talked a lot about those in my classes. Sweets is right about the stats about how separated-at-birth identical twins are freakishly similar.

I’ve seen TV specials about it, and it is freaky. I didn’t know that it was all that common among separated-at-birth twins though. I thought it was, like, sort of a freak occurrence. That’s interesting.

CAM IS A CORONER FROM NEW YORK! DRINK!

Whoo! I love New York/Bronx shout-outs, even though, when she was first introduced in season two, they were sort of annoying. I like passing references to it though.

God, Clarice acts about 12. And not in the hilarious way Sweets does. She actually looks like she’s 12.

Maybe that’s the attraction? That they both look like twelve-year-olds? If they had a baby, it would come out looking like a zygote.

“I’m feeling a way I don’t want to feel. I’m feeling… apologetic.” Oh my God, that line could have so been uttered by Brennan in season 1, it’s not even funny. (It kinda reminds me of the whole “contrite” speech in season 6.)

Yeeees. That was so season-one Brennan. As was the “Your husband’s dead,” line.

AND BRENNAN IS JUST AS EXCITED AS HE IS TO BLOW SHIT UP! Oh my God. I love them and their unabashed love of science and ownership of their geekiness. FUCK YES.

If this were set in high school, they’d be the chemistry partners who always blow up the classroom, and staying after school doing experiments for extra credit, and having grades of, like, 110 and just being the most enthusiastic nerds ever. Aw. AWWWWW. I love them together.

“Where did you get that?” “Hodgins requisitioned it from the Hall of Patents.” “Requisitioned?” “… I left a note!” “Dr. Hodgins, you promised!” HEE! Oh my God, I love that running joke so much. THIS IS WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE! Is the Hall of Patents going to steal the Mass Spec as payback? Or is that strictly an Egyptology tactic?

Didn’t Egyptology also steal Brennan’s tape measurers in “Cinderella in the Cardboard”? I’d love it if they mention the Hall of Patents stealing something of theirs in a later episode. I love those rivalries.

As soon as I saw Shuffly Pete at the construction site, I knew he was the killer. Why else would Shuffly Pete be shuffling? (No one on TV has a disability unless it’s a plot point.)

That’s so true. And I didn’t even realize that there was anything wrong with him either times that I watched the episode. I was not at my most observant, I guess.

Angela uses Magicky Magic to zoom in on grainy surveillance video to read a name tag all crystal clear! Drink!

SHE’S BLOWING UP THE MICRO-PIXELS!

“Look! You’re all red! And blotchy! And horny!” HEE. Angela, you are fantabulisticulous.

That might’ve been my favorite line of the episode. She’s such the big sister, making fun (and looking out for) her baby brother.

Oh Sweet Pea, wanting to bring new girl a latte. Bet he doesn’t bring Daisy lattes. (Daisy probably drinks Red Bull to keep up with herself.)

Red Bulls and cokes. And the glasses are rimmed with crack cocaine.

Not-Dead Twin was going to give all his money away to his self-help cult and move to Colorado with them? Word of advice, dude, don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

I still don’t understand what that cult was all about. Self-actualization? What does that even mean? Is it like “The Secret”?

Oooh, Clarice uses Freud against Sweets! Well played.

I love the running jokes dissing Freud. Freud is lame.

Those are a lot of shiny medals on Booth’s wall.

Booth is a Shiny Medal type of guy.

The guy fractured his stapes! Aw, stapes. Who knew a bone could be so cute? (Except for when it belongs to Shuffly Pete.)

I think it’s a scientific fact that the stapes is the cutest bone in the human body.

Er, are the FBI agents supposed to whip their weapons out like that in the middle of a crowd?

I think that, if there’s a chance of innocent people being injured by the bad guy, then it’s okay. Actually, when cops shot and killed a gunman in front of the Empire State Building a month or so ago, seven or so innocent bystanders were hit by stray bullets fired by the cops. (The gunman only shot one person, his intended target.) I think it really comes down to how many people are around, and what the layout of the environment is, regarding buildings and everything. NYPD cops tend to shoot first and ask questions later, so they probably aren’t the right people to look toward for this sort of thing. But I think since Shuffly Pete had a bomb and couldn’t have taken a lot of people out, Booth and Co. probably made a good call.

Sweet Pea got shot! Man, first he gets kicked in the shins, then he gets grazed by a bullet. Today has not been his day.

I wonder if that’s who David Boreanaz was referring to when they were filming the end of season seven, when he said that someone gets shot. (Did he say someone gets shot, or that someone gets killed? That was such a long time ago, man.)

I tried to think of the contrast between her wanting to buy Booth things here, and Sweets wanting to buy Daisy things, and why her reasoning is sweet, while his is overcompensating. All I can think of is that Sweets seems to feel the need to buy Daisy things to prove he still cares; I don’t think Daisy necessarily cares about the material things, nor does he, but I think Sweets knows there’s something missing and he figures maybe this is a way to prove that they still have what they used to have. On the other hand, Brennan doesn’t need to buy things for Booth, but she wants to, and asks him, because she wants him to have things he’d like and have use for. Or something. Whatever, Brennan’s adorable, alright?

I think it’s a question of context. That’s what I’m going with. Booth and Brennan are in a committed, solid relationship, and while things were rocky leading up to it, I don’t think anyone can accuse Brennan of over-compensating for not loving Booth enough or whatever. (Well, I mean, there are trolls out there who try, but they’re trolls, so fuck them.) Sweets and Daisy—their relationship doesn’t seem to have that solidity, and seems mostly physical. That’s how I’d justify it. I’m sure there are Sweets-and-Daisy shippers who would disagree with me though.

I also love how you can see Booth totally coming around to the idea of Brennan being his sugar mama if it means he gets that new Binford-sized grill. Since we all know how much he loves his barbecue. You know he’s gonna get one of those grills the size of an aircraft carrier that’s got, like, gas hookups (no mere propane for this boy) and sinks and extra satellite grills and a mini-fridge and the works. (One of my friends’ parents used to have one of those suckers.)

Holy crap, that sounds like the Hummer of grills.

I just really enjoyed the balance in the episode. It felt very old school, and I felt like I was watching something from season 2… or 4, or 5.

Agreed. Season two or season four. Perhaps more like season four, since by season four they’d seemed to have hit their stride and were more like a well-oiled machine. This episode was just awesome, in that respect. Loved it.

I also like how they’re using (or not using) Christine. I was a bit worried that “Bones” would become “The Baby Show”, but it really hasn’t. Hart said that they would put her on the back-burner, and he seems to have stayed true to his word. She’s still mentioned, and she’s still a big part of their lives, naturally, but it isn’t all about her. She hasn’t even physically been in these past two episodes. And while she’s an adorable baby, I’m rather satisfied with that.