Bones Episode Recap: "The Critic in the Cabernet"
This week on Fox's Bones, as the team investigated the death of a wine critic, Bones found herself intoxicated by the idea of having a baby — and tapped Booth to be her create-a-family guy! His reaction was quite animated, to say the least. Here's our recap:
A group of friends are wrapping up a tasting at Sean Mortensen's winery when they stumble upon a cask with an extremely full body — meaning, a decomposed corpse lay inside. Gives new meaning to the term "mouth feel," though truth be told probably none of the vic's mandible could fit through the spigot.
Cut to Booth and Bones in a session with Sweets, who suggests a round of word association to "get to the root of your emotional issues."
Booth starts with "hunger."
Bones: "Sex."
"Whoa."
"Cowboy."
"Child."
"Baby."
"Booth."
Booth from baby?!
"I want a baby," Temperance announces, clearing up any doubt from viewers that this rumored yen to procreate would literally arise from nowhere. "I should have a progeny." OK, but who would insert Tab A into Slot B to... ? Turning to Booth, she says plainly, "You'd be a very good donor, potentially."
Booth questions his partner on this sudden ringing of her biological clock. "All I want is your sperm," she maintains.
This unexpected conversation is interrupted by a call, as they start to work the case. At the vineyard, B&B are introduced to its owner, Sean Mortensen, as Bones fishes the wine-stained bits of vic out of the tainted cask. "Looks like a purple Smurf," Booth notes (as Ausiello somewhere nods in assent). Back at the Jeffersonian, it's deduced that the victim, wine critic Spencer Holt, had been in his grape grave for at least eight months. Taking stock of Holt's parts, Bones says, "Tibia.... I've decided to have a baby." Cue a collective, "Wha?!" "And I'm going to use Booth's sperm." Wha-wha?!
Guest squint Fisher offers up his own seed, touting his brilliance and good stock: "I'm kind of a catch." But Bones ain't interested, while Angela is astounded.
As Temp analyzes the remains, Angela questions her gal pal's decision. Coldly, Bones says, "Statistically, I could expect to have an exceptional child." Ang counters that babymaking is supposed to result from two people devouring each other intimately, but Bones suspects that Booth "would think that would create an emotional bond."
So why recruit Booth's boys at all? Bones cites empirical data about his cranial structure and what not, which Angela sums up thusly: "So, it's because he is hot."
Bones argues that "emotional ties are ephemeral," and insists she has thought through her insemination plan "rationally."
Camille, meanwhile, pays Booth an atypical in-person visit. When he questions the face-to-face, she gets to the facts of the matter. One short chat later, Seely is committed to helping Bones conceive.
The investigation turns up the usual red herrings - the widower with the domestic disturbance report, the rival vintner with a bitter past. Said bargain-basement rival, though, steers B&B toward Mortensen, who he claims was bedding Holt's wife!
Driving together, B&B have a heart-to-heart about what they are the precipice of doing. "I know you think I'm empathetic," Temp says in a moment of rare self-awareness. "But I would love my child. I would." When Bones hints at Fisher's swimmers being up for grabs, Booth bristles at the notion of her carrying the spawn of Satan's spawn. "I'll do it," he announces.
Next stop: the fertility clinic, and a room full of porn ... accompanied by an unexpected interlope. "Why are you here at the bank, Booth?" The Family Guy's Stewie asks, from the TV set. "You've got a hot doctor friend. Go to her and make a direct deposit, like a man!"
Seely shrugs off this experience as "impossible," but neither shutting off the tube nor unplugging it silences the animated imp. "What's your problem? Threatened by a cute harmless baby?" Stewie taunts. "Grow a set!"
Stewie asks Booth if he is actually prepared to just walk away after making Bones her baby. "It's what she wants!" the fed argues.
Later, talking to Sweets (which by the way is nearly an anagram for Stewie), Booth reveals that he has made his "deposit." Sweets says he's there for Booth should he need to talk about any emotional changes. "I'm a former sniper," Booth rebuffs. "This is not a life-and-death situation."
Or is it? Words to ponder later in the episode.
Booth reveals to Bones that he got anxious at the clinic, and asks if it's normal to have "imagined" things. It'd be odd if he hadn't, she says. At the Jeff, Temperance announces to Fisher that Bones delivered "28.8 million viable sperm in a mere three milliliters of ejaculate." Humbling words for any man, let alone a squirrely squint.
Meeting with Mortensen's wife, Bones notices that her child must have been sired by someone else. Mrs. M confides that, "One night after a little too much wine," she and Holt uncorked a little somethin'. She cops to her hubby having a temper, but says, "Sean would never hurt anyone."
Confabbing again about baby, Angela suggest to Temp that Booth could be the best father in all possible ways. "If you keep living trying to protect yourself," she says, "nothing will ever touch you."
The team deduces that discount vintner Dunwood was producing counterfeit bottles of Mortensen's $100-a-bottle drink, got caught, and offed the critic. When B&B confront Charles, they are joined by Stewie, who sharks that the suspect "makes wine a homeless person wouldn't cook with." Pestered by the 'toon tot, Booth is prompted to blurt out, "If I can't be involved, I don't want her to have the baby." To Bones, he asserts, "I have to be the father."
In private, he confides his visions of a Family Guy character. Turning serious, Bones says, "Trust me, something is wrong. Trust me."
At the hospital, when Booth's CAT scan results come in, Bones tells the team he has a "brain tumor," a kind that is "usually benign. They're prepping him for surgery."
Choking up, an obviously and atypically emotional Temperance adds, "Statistically, he should be fine."
In his hospital room, Seely looks around, hoping to see her. Eventually, that adorable crooked smile crosses his face. "Come in there with me?" he asks Temperance. She balks, claiming she's not that kind of doctor. He argues, "You're a genius, and that's good enough for me."
One long gaze later, Temp turns to the doctor in charge, and moments later they are all in scrubs, wheeling Booth down the hall to surgery. In a final pre-op heart-to-heart with the woman he hearts, Seely says, "If I don't make it ... I want you to have my stuff, for a kid. I want you to." He adds, "You're gonna be a really good mom."
Booth is wheeled into the glow of the operating room, as doors close behind him.
Other memorable lines:
Bones: "I was thinking how exciting it would be to expose my own child to early pattern recognition."
Booth: "You know, they like singing, funny faces...."
Bones: "Of course. I will make a diverse schedule."
Stewie: "Ooh, look, a pile of porn. Give me just a little peek at a boobie?"
Bones: "Phalanges! Dancing phalanges!
