By Faith McQuinn

Tonight’s episode, aptly titled “Soccer Mom in the Mini-Van,” begins with a woman getting out of her mini-van and longingly looking at a soccer field full of young girls. When Mom gets back in the van, she backs out…and BOOM! Mom’s leg comes flying towards camera.

Last week it was a skull in the windshield, and this week it’s a woman’s hands melted to a steering wheel. You’ve just gotta love the gore on BONES.

Turns out melted woman is no ordinary soccer mom. When Angela (Michaela Conlin) deciphers an amateur tattoo on the woman’s arm bone, we discover that Amy the soccer mom was June the National Liberation Army radical in a past life. Now it’s up to Booth (David Boreanaz) and Brennan (Emily Deshanel) to delve into a 30-year-old case and find out why someone wanted to blow up poor June.

While Booth and Brennan are off interviewing suspects, Hodgins (TJ Thyne) is left at the Jeffersonian with FBI bomb specialist Katherine Frost (Deborah Zoe) who just so happens to be “smokin’ hot” according to Angela. Hodgins--along with Zack (Eric Millegan--are usually the comic relief on the show, but this week was pretty much left to Hodgins as he becomes a blabbering idiot around the brilliant and beautiful Frost. Angela seems to be getting a kick out of her fiancé drooling on himself too, but warns him that whatever goes on in his pants just needs to stay in his pants. The funniest moment of the show is when Frost tries to throw away perfectly good evidence. As fast as you can say “particulates,” Hodgins has lost complete interest.  No woman is hot enough to be forgiven for ignoring evidence.

On the personal front, Brennan finally decides to spend some time with her dad (Ryan O’Neal) in prison. Over a card game of Blitz, she discovers that Max must definitely love her, no matter how much he’s tried to use her in the past. Aw, isn’t that sweet?


For Booth, he must deal with Special Agent Sam Reilly (Ron Canada), the agent who trained him and also the man who was the lead on the National Liberation Army case. The older man doesn’t like Booth taking his case, and he definitely doesn’t like Bones. In hilarious moment number two, Reilly exclaims, “She must be really good in bed because that’s got to be the only reason you keep her around.” Bones’ response: “I am good in bed, but Booth has no first hand knowledge of this fact.”   Yeah, I scared my cat laughing at that one.

I could go on and on about how Booth and Brennan solve the case and bring in the bad guy, but that’s not the most interesting thing about this episode. On procedural shows such as BONES, it’s usually pretty easy to figure out the culprit before the main characters do, but this week certainly took some unexpected turns. Twice, I thought I had the whole case figured out, but I was wrong…and I was more than happy to be wrong. Not only are Booth and Brennan two of my favorite partners on television, but also I now have the added bonus of a mystery I can’t quite figure out! Congratulations to Fox for finally having a show that requires some intelligent thought.