Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Written by	Janet Lin
Directed by	Gordon C. Lonsdale

Summary

When human remains are found at the site of a block party, Brennan and Booth are called in to investigate. Sweets is called in for help when the politics and scandals of the neighbors link everyone with some type of motive. Meanwhile, Booth's son Parker tries to find him a girlfriend and Arastoo is caught faking his accent.

Synopsis

The episode starts in the suburbs -- a perfectly manicured cul-de-sac where well-dressed neighborhood folks enjoy a luau. Suddenly, popping noises begin to come from the luau pit, where a pig is being roasted. The partiers hoist up the pig and find a roasted body underneath.

At the Jeffersonian, Booth has brought Parker to work. Parker exclaims that he wants to see the barbequed body, but Booth won't allow it, though, so Parker goes with Angela while Booth, Brennan, and Cam head to the burbs. Bones notices that the dead man is wearing reflective glasses and looks to be 30 to 35 yeas of age. Booth, meanwhile, interviews the neighbors. They identify the glasses as belonging to Kurt Bissette, who lives just across the street. Brennan and Booth look up and see the dead man's widow staring through a window. Suddenly, the blinds slam and Booth states that it was creepy.

Moments later, Kurt's wife Kelly is being questioned by Sweets. It turns out Kurt put up a solar panel and windmill, prompting neighbors to complain that they "ruined the neighborhood." When a dog owned by a gay couple in the neighborhood peed on the windmill, Kurt gave it a laxative -- nearly killing it. "Neighbors don't forget something like that," Kelly says. Meanwhile, Hodgins is in the luau pit examining the inside of it. He notices small stones which might have caused the popping noises. "They might be decorative," offers intern Arastoo in his strong accent. Hodgins eyes light up -- and then focus on the decorative rocks surrounding Kurt and Kelly's windmill. A little digging through Kurt's rock pile reveals a fatal amount of blood and a .44 caliber bullet.

Back at the lab, Arastoo gets fed up with Camille's continued questions about his religion and explodes in frustration, in which the outburst reveals he actually has no accent, then he hastily exits the room. Booth questions reluctant suburbanite Elliot. They find out Elliot owns a .44 caliber handgun. However, he claims to have legally shot the pig at a nearby farm on an ill-advised hunting trip. The body shows evidence of three distinct injuries -- one being sawing -- but none of it adds up just yet. So, the pair head back to the barbeque. Hodgins is there to meet them with news: the sawing in the bones shows evidence of plants from three different yards in the neighborhood. In other words, the same saw that sawed Kurt also trimmed bushes outside more than one home. All eyes go to Trey Jordan, a young and attractive gardener currently wielding a trimmer.

Moments later, Trey is being questioned. He denies having a sexual relationship with the recent widow. He does, however, admit to having sex with Paula, Elliot's wife, and Paige, a churchgoing couple's 18-year-old daughter. Booth and Brennan decide to question Paula, who admits to sleeping with the young man. She says Kurt found about it, but just "smirked." He never threatened to tell Elliot because Kurt was sleeping with Paige. "If I were you, I'd be looking at Paige's father -- not me and Elliot," she says. Moments later, Paige admits to sleeping with Kurt before he died. "It's possible someone who cares about you, killed him," Booth says. Paige claims neither her father nor Trey knew about Kurt. That said, we're all beginning to get the feeling just about everyone in the neighborhood knows just about everyone else's business.

Back at the Smithsonian, Sweets questions Arastoo about the phantom accent. Arastoo acts like a rube because it's easier for his scientific colleageus to accept his deep religious devotion. In other words, the intern is playing into everyone's stereotypes. "I don't need a scientist to tell me who or what I am -- and neither should you," Sweets said. Arastoo accepts the assessment and advice. Later, Camille calls Booth and Brennan. Saltpeter was found in the victim's blood. Booth theorizes that could have been to dampen the man's libido, which Bones claims is just an old wive's tale. Either way, it could have acted as a blood thinner, leading to heavy bleeding after trauma. "We just need to find out who fed Kurt Bissette the saltpeter," Bones says. So they bring in Kelly, who explains, yes, she slipped her husband the saltpeter so he would "remove his stump from her garden." They are then shocked to discover Kelly is talking about a different theoretical garden then originally thought. Kelly reveals Kurt was ALSO sleeping with Mary Kay, Paige's mother. Now Bob Sayles, whose wife and daughter were both Kurt's conquests, really has motive.

But before they confront Bob, they question Mary Kay. She is shocked and saddened to discover Kurt was sleeping with her daughter. She is even more shocked and saddened to discover Booth and Brennan suspect her husband Bob of killing the prolific lover. Arastoo, meanwhile, admits to everyone he doesn't have an accent. "When I speak like I just got off the boat, people accept my religious convictions," he explains. The team quickly accepts their suddenly accent-less intern and gets back to work. Angela theorizes a crack in the victim's skull could have been made with a golf club. Moments later, Bob Sayles is in the hot seat. He appears SHOCKED to discover his wife and his daughter were sleeping with Kurt. "If I had known any of that, I would have killed the son of a bitch with my own bare hands," he exclaims. Bob didn't know until after his neighbor had been barbequed. Bob also explains he had a side business with Kurt -- one that won't benefit from Kurt being dead: Sex toys sold over the Internet. Booth and Brennan head to Bob's garage, where they find stacks and stacks of pleasure-enhancement devices and blow-up dolls.

Back at the lab, the team searches through the confiscated sex toys for a possible murder weapon, which Hodgins has determined isn't a golf club because there was no titanium in the wound. Angela, in particular, seems to enjoy the process. But Arastoo notices something non-sex related matching the puncture wound in the skull: a neighborhood watch sign -- one of dozens distributed by the programs organizer, Bob Sayles.

The team descends on the cul-de-sac to look for blood on the watch signs when Brennan notices Mary Kay is wearing bike-riding shoes -- the curved metallic heel of which matches the mark on the victim's skull. She says Mary Kay kicked Kurt Bissette in the head while he was lying in the pebbles, but that's not all. Booth notes Mary Kay had been biking with Elliot and James, one half of the gay couple, the morning of the murder. "Anyone of you could have taken the saw from the gardeners' truck," Bones says -- or a bloody neighborhood watch sign found outside Kurt's home. Three suspects for three distinct injuries. They are all arrested -- Elliot after trying to make a break for it on his bike.

Later, Sweets wonders if the neighbors motives (sick dogs, cheating wives) are strong enough for what appears to be a premeditated strike by three killers. He then concludes it was the windmill pushing all the angry neighbors over the edge. It was the final straw, so to speak.

The episode ends with Booth and Brennan eating lunch with Parker. He wonders aloud why Bones isn't Booth's girlfriend. Brennan explains that it's because they work together, but Parker thinks that it's a stupid reason.

Cast

Main Cast

• Temperance Brennan - Emily Deschanel
• Seeley Booth - David Boreanaz
• Jack Hodgins - T.J Thyne
• Angela Montenegro - Michaela Conlin
• Camille Saroyan - Tamara Taylor
• Lance Sweets - John Francis Daley

Intern of the Week

• Arastoo Vaziri - Pej Vahdat

Guest Cast

• Parker Booth - Ty Panitz
• Nate Grunenfelder - Leonardo Lam
• James Perry - Reggie Austin
• Bob Sayles - Billy Gardell
• Mary Kay Sayles - Cheryl White
• Kelly Bissette - Paula Newsome
• Paula Lindbergh - Josie Davis
• Elliot Lindberg - Conor Dubin
• Paige Sayles - Amy Gumenick
• Trey Johnson - Rob Mayes

Featured Music

• "Liliko'i Lover" - The Rising Tide
• "The Good Life" - Frank Sinatra

Notes

• The neighbors at the luau first notice something is wrong when they hear popping coming from the pig-roasting pit. We later learn that the popping sound was decorative stones exploding when moisture trapped inside of them turned into steam. Hodgins says that the stones were thrown into the fire along with the body (outside of the body, not inside). The temperature needed to pop the stones would be the boiling point of water, 212 degrees Fahrenheit. If the pit was indeed hot enough to cook a pig and incinerate human remains in a few hours, the stones would have reached the 212 degree point and began to pop within minutes or seconds of being throw into the fire.
• When Cam goes up to the platform (while on the phone with Booth and Brennan) she swipes her card through the reader to enter. It can cleary be seen that the magnetic strip of her card does not go trough the reader though, as she swiped it the wrong way, but she is still allowed access to the platform.

I don't know what that means

N/A

Quotes

• Arastoo: [Irritated without Jordanian accent] I am a scientist! Okay? Just like the rest of you. I can deal! So please just back off and let me do my job!
  Cam: Wow.
  Arastoo: [With Jordian accent] I apologize for my outburst.
  Cam: Oh, you aren't even going to try to unring that bell are you?
  Arastoo: [as he's leaving] I have to pray.
• James: Oh my God! You won't let that go. Even the FBI thinks we killed Kurt for poisoning our dog...We don't think that he poisoned our dog.
  Brennan: He does.
  Nate: Now that I think about it. Rocky totally died of cancer.
• Booth: You seriously believe all the hoo-ha?
  Brennan: It's anthropology, so yes.
  Sweets: Wrong-ology. Keep your grubby anthro hands off my psych.
• Parker: Couldn't you be his girlfriend?
  Booth: Buddy, you're gonna have to quit that.
  Brennan: That would be inappropriate.
  Parker: Why?
  Brennan: Because... we work together.
  Parker: That's a stupid reason.