Bones- 6x23 “The Change in the Game”

So I know this is super late. I realized I forgot to post this recap ages ago! Better late than never right?

Bowling with Kids: Just so you know, the most direct way into my heart is television and bowling. That is why, when Bones opening scene was a bowling alley birthday party, I was gleeful beyond belief. If bowling alone was not enough to get me hooked, the mother of the bratty birthday boy is Libby from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It takes .2 seconds for Libby’s Westbridge High bitchiness to come out as she threatens her son to behave. Next thing you know the 8 and 10 pin, along with a dead body, descend from the pin setting machine; a split so difficult not even a dead body could spare it.

Baby Drama: Hodgins and Angela are at the Royal Diner and Angela complains that she is 2 days overdue. If memory serves me correct, last episode Angela had a month until her due date which means this episode takes place a full month after last week’s. While discussing how to handle the possible blindness of their baby to be, Angela drenches her fries with hot sauce in hopes to induce labor.  She begins chowin’ down those fries like it is nbd. Feeling his manhood fade away with each fry Angela puts in her mouth, Hodgins adds a splash of hot sauce to his own plate. Unfortunately he is not able to handle the heat and begins to choke.

Behind the Pins: Bones and Booth go behind the scenes of the bowling alley in order to investigate how the dead man got into the pin setter. The only other time I have been given the privilege of seeing the back of a bowling alley was during Ed. I was very happy. My awe of the machines that make bowling happen was cut short after seeing a mash-up of body parts, blood and bowling pins inside one of them.  They determine that, due to some scientific jargon (which Booth simplifies for the cop as well as the audience), this  was a murder.

Religious Offering : Back at the lab Wendell and Hodgins continue their always entertaining bromance with some lovely banter. They discover that, due to specific wear and tear in the victim’s body, he used to perform a repetitive motion where his arm started behind his back and swung forward and into the sky. The two geniuses (which sadly they probably are) think that this motion is a ritualized praise to some sort of god. Angela walks in and says what every American on their couch is thinking “Boys, you’re bowling.” She then gives Hodgins a look which reads: “Wow, you are a dumbass. I can’t believe you are the father of my child, but I still love you to pieces.” Angela reveals more tidbits she found about the victim’s identity, such as his name was Jeff “The Closer” and his bowling team was named “Thunderballs”. All the while Hodgins stares at her in disbelief that the hot sauce that almost put him into cardiac arrest didn’t cause her to go into labor.

Thunderballs: Sweets and Booth are walking around the FBI offices and I can’t stop wondering how it took so long to have our first Sweets appearance!  As usual Booth has no interest in what Sweets is saying and interrupts his psych profile with the epiphany that the victim and Bone’s dad are on the same bowling team. Seriously what a small world! They decide that the next logical move would be to meet with the infamous Max Kennan to get some inside dirt (Side note:  Max Keenan is in a wheelchair after falling out of bed during “relations” with “a lady friend.”) Max tells them the only way to get any info from these hard core bowling types is to immerse themselves into their culture. They would have to go undercover. SWEET! I loved when they went undercover as carny’s, so this should be awesome! It turns out that Booth is as talented a bowler as he was a knife thrower, so they should be good to go.

After entering the alley, we are quickly introduced to the two other Thunderball teammates. First there is a little brat named Amber who chastises Booth (whose alias is Buck) for wearing rental shoes. Next is Hercules who immediately hits on Bones (alias Wanda). Once the game begins Booth/Buck is the first to bowl. He hits a strike on his first frame and Bones/Wanda cheers with joy. Two seconds later she gets hit on by Tina, a member of the opposing team. Bones, you are on FIRE tonight!

There is a nice prolonged scene of bowling with a song about bowling in the background. Booth hits more strikes, and Tina keeps hitting on Bones. At the end of the bowling montage Amber shows Wanda her computer program where she records every tidbit about every game she has ever bowled.  The program even predicts her to be the “World Champion of the World” in 2026. (She’s so good they have to say it twice!) Unfortunately, after the Thunderballs lose the game, Amber loses her cool and some hard core investigating ensues.

First Bones starts questioning Hercules who called The Closer a fool for believing in luck and superstitions. Instead, Hercules believes god caused The Closer’s death in order to create an opening for him to join the Thunderballs.  Maybe his good ole’ dad Zeus helped him go from zero to hero just like that.

Back at the Lab: Wendell and Hodgins continue their cute banter while examining Jeff the victim’s bones.  After hearing a rattling in the brain, they discover that somehow Jeff actually did die from a broken nose and something dislodged causing him to die a sad, sad death.   Angela enters the room and Hodgins has another father-to-be labor freakout. The trio next goes into Angela’s visual art technology lair to determine the weapon used to kill Jeff. While the boys stare at the skull, her water breaks and she channels Oprah yelling out “It’s Showtime”. Wendell takes the opportunity to excuse himself from the madness while counting his lucky stars that his pregnancy scare with Angela last year ended up being just a scare.

Child Birth: At the hospital, Angela is in pain, moaning and groaning and calling the nurse “a rotten old bat.” (After viewing that scene over 4 times, I still laugh). Angela begins to demonstrate the emotional rollercoaster that is child birth only to be interrupted by Wendell, in the lab, on the webcam. There is nothing better to get your mind off of a baby coming out of your vagina like a murder investigation. Cam pops her head on the screen next to Wendell to join in on the fun.

Bowl-a-Rama: Back at the ally, Amber storms off to the arcade again. (This girl must carry around a ton of quarters with the amount of arcade games she plays!) Bones gets hit on for the third time that day by the opposing teammate, Blake. As Allison Rose, the elderly lady on the opposing team, is trying to hit on Booth (seriously can ANY of these bowlers keep it in their pants?) she lets it slip that Blake was a car thief which would make him and Dead Jeff natural enemies. Bones gets caught using her pocket sized blacklight to search Blake’s bag and he gets all defensive. Apparently being a car thief is a bazillion times more acceptable to him than being a cheater.  The Raven, an official who sits on a lofted lifeguard-esque chair, comes over and is all like “No cheating. The Closer cheated. The Closer deserved to die. I am trying to make myself look as guilty as I can.” Booth and Brennan find out that The Closer once played a prank on The Raven where he super glued the holes in his bowling ball at a bowl-a-thon. After that incident, The Raven never played again. Hercules adds that if we ever want to see the clip we can find it on the “inter-webs computer.”

A Sweet Interrogation: Sweets used his technological skills to find the video of The Raven’s super glue incident on the “inter-webs computer.” It is actually quite sad to watch. The Raven approaches the lane and, instead of the ball releasing from his hand, he and the bowling ball go flying into the lane and slam onto the ground. After the video is over, Sweets launches a bunch of shrinky questions to get into the Ravens head. The Raven is actually a pretty optimistic guy for the hand life dealt him. He tells Sweets that even though his chances for being a pro bowler were cut short, he still has a fulfilling life.  Sweets continues to try and break The Raven but The Raven is like “Dude, I know you are being an ass just to get a confession.  I was bowling when that dude was killed. Someone had to notice me; my name is stitched into the front and back of the shirt I wear every day. It is also on my hat. If they didn’t notice there is a good chance they are blind.”

Cam and Wendell: Cam and Wendell are playing around with Angela’s imaging equipment. They are all like psh, Angela’s job here is easy, all she has to do is push random buttons. They soon discover that they spoke 2 seconds too soon as an image of the earth explodes on the screen. Next a series of videos begin to pop up and play in front of their eyes. The videos appear in this order: Eisenhower giving a speech; a virtual kitten playing with a virtual skull; Twitch (from So You Think You Can Dance) break dancing; and finally a video of Hodgins and Angela getting dressed after a little Afternoon Delight.  I am sorry but I am not buying that. I am pretty sure that Angela is smart enough to not record a sex tape at work on a work computer that is part of the FBI; but maybe I am alone in thinking that though.  Back to the case, the lost puppy that is Wendell immediately goes back to his computer to ask for help from the woman in the middle of labor. It turns out Wendell pushed the “purge” button and may have screwed everything up.

After being banished from Angela’s office for pushing the “Do Not Touch Me No Matter What” button Wendell and Cam try a different route to solve the case. Wendell is pacing around the lab talking to himself about ball weights and force while Cam leans against the wall and observes.  Literally as I wrote down in my notes “Cam and Wendell are the only two people in the lab” the camera zooms out and we see a bunch of squint extras walking around in the background. Apparently they are not the only ones in the lab, but they are definitely the only ones staring at a couple dozen bowling bowls.

Back to Bowling: It is the last frame of the game and instead of hitting a final strike Booth gets a 7-10 split. Bones informs everyone that this is the hardest split and that statistics prove that Booth is s.o.l. Tina responds with the funniest line of the episode if not season: “Sometimes when you speak it’s like you watch PBS on purpose.” The best part of the line is she stutters the “you” while trying to think of a single thing in her life she could compare Brennan’s eccentricity to.  It was great. Can we have her as a recurring character please? Anyway, Booth somehow makes the spare for his team. While everyone is cheering for the win, Bones is all like “something was wrong” and keeps repeating the word “improbable.”  In order to prove the improbability of Booths spare, Brennan snoops around Ambers “World Champion of the World” computer program and comes to the following hypothesis: Lucky Lane 12 has been tampered with.

A Murder Is Solved…:  Wendell calls Bones who discreetly keeps her cover by screaming into the phone “This is Wanda. The bowler, at the bowling tournament. Bowling.” The funniest part of that whole line is the fact that Bones has not bowled ONCE the entire episode.  Hodgins tells Wendell via webcam to tell Brennan via cell phone that bowling balls don’t flake they chip.  Obviously Hodgins couldn’t call Bones himself because then we wouldn’t get the product placement of webcams and the Microsoft logo placed so perfectly on the screen. Hodgins continues to explain that the cause of death was a bike helmet that sparkles and not a bowling ball.  It turns out the only person in the entire bowling alley that owns a motorcycle is the shoe rental guy. He killed The Closer because his smelly feet in the rental shoes caused Shoe Rental guy’s fingernails to fall off. Sorry, I just gagged a little thinking about that statement. That was by far the grossest thing I have seen, or heard all, episode; that  includes maggots crawling in human remains.  Sweet lil’ Amber flips out at Shoe Rental guy and her whiney screams seamlessly cut to Angela’s baby pushing screams. 

And a Baby is Born: Just as Angela is about to push she looks into Hodgins’ eyes and says she wants to really discuss what they are going to do if their baby is blind. Soft music starts playing and they begin to list all of the things they love about each other (smell, voice etc.) which sight is not needed to appreciate.  Although it was cute and all, it was a bit too mushy for my liking. Luckily these worries do not materialize because Angela gives birth to a beautiful baby boy whose eyes work just fine.  About ten minutes after Baby Michael is born, Hodgins brings him to meet the gang in the waiting room. Hodgins is beaming cheek to cheek looking down at his son and I start to tear up.  While everyone else goes to crowd around the new bundle of joy, Bones steps out to see how Angela is doing.  She asks Angela what child birth was like and she answers “it was wonderful and beautiful… it was a dream.” What is so interesting about this interaction is that, as an anthropologist, Brennan has studied childbirth in many different cultures and knows how people describe it. Angela is the only person whose opinion and experience matters to her though because she is one of the few people she has emotionally connected with in her life. She is asking Angela for personal reasons, not professional.

The Change in The Game: Bones and Booth are walking home from the hospital and Bones can’t get over how drastically one’s life must change after having a baby.  Booth turns to Bones and says “They had a healthy baby, alright, they love each other; this is the happiest days of their lives.” Bones just stares at Booth, eyes full of emotion, and goes “I’m pregnant.” WHAA?!?! Where did this come from? Wait is this another dream sequence? So they slept together in that scene last week? Have they been sleeping together since? Do they not use protection? Okay so many questions. It is okay because what happens next is my favorite scene of Bones ever. Booth stares at Bones wide eyed and confused. The camera cuts to Bones as she shockingly reveals that Booth is indeed the father. And now it happens. The camera cuts back to Booth who is staring at Bones.  Slowly you see his expression change. Dimples begin to form in his cheeks as the corners of his mouth slowly start to rise. His eyes light up and he is just beaming. He could not be happier. That alone, that reaction alone, should get David Boreanaz Emmy nomination. 

What were your thoughts? Love? Hate? Was this season too baby centric? Do you still miss Zach Addy? Let me know below!

APB