Bones - The Diamond in the Rough

And the season of increasingly quirky plotlines continues. (Seriously, I'm waiting for an episode that involves a ventriloquist dummy at this point.) In the latest episode Bones (David Boreanaz) and Booth (David Boreanaz) go undercover on dance competition reality-TV show to investigate the murder of a professional ballroom dancer just days before her audition. Sweets (John Francis Daley) is surprised and amused to learn Booth put himself through college as a dance instructor, making him the perfect choice for the case.

Suspects in the case include a rival dancer (Sarah Scott) and her overbearing mother (Marta DuBois), the victim's dance partner (Dmitry Chaplin) and the victim's replacement (Leslie Augustine). Meanwhile Wendell (Michael Grant Terry) asks Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) for help with removing the minerals and gems fused to the bones of the victim during its decay in the quarry where it was found. The problem turns out to be tricky, but the King of the Lab finds the solution which allows Wendell to discover the dancer was slowly poisoned over the course of a year.

In the episode's B-story Angela's (Michaela Conlin) mid-life crisis continues as her artistic soul cries out against the daily grind of solving grizzly murders. Hodgins enlists the help of Cam (Michaela Conlin) for a makeshift solution in the short term by reducing Angela's hours at the Jeffersonian under the excuse of budget cuts, thus freeing her to spend more time with her son and rediscover her art.

Bones feels very much like a show scrapping the bottom of the barrel as the odd situation of the week ("Bones for President," "Booth and Bones go dancing," "murder through the eyes of the victim," "a suspect glued to a dead body") are starting to wear increasingly thin. The predictable nature of Angela's subplot isn't carrying the necessary weight, either. I don't know if the show is incapable of delivering an old fashioned Bones story focused on the characters in the lab and a good murder to solve, but it appears the show has no interest in trying.