The Cinderella in the Cardboard

The Cinderella in the Cardboard
Season 4
Episode 20
Air date	April 15, 2009
Production code	4AKY14
Written by	Carla Kettner & Josh Berman
Directed by	Steven DePaul
Previous	The Science in the Physicist
Next	Mayhem on a Cross

The Cinderella in the Cardboard is the twentieth episode of the fourth season of Bones.

Plot

When an image of the Virgin Mary turns out to be a bloodstain at a cardboard recycling plant Booth and Bones find a flattened body inside a compressed bale of cardboard. The line of suspects grows longer when the team discovers that the marriage-obsessed young woman had a fiancé as well as numerous boyfriends from a cell-phone dating service. Booth and Bones must break the news to Sweets when they see his girlfriend Daisy trying on a wedding dress with another man, and Angela and Hodgins come to terms with their relationship.

Summary

Two sanitation workers at a dump. One admonishes the other that God doesn't appreciate lusty thoughts after seeing a new coworker, a young woman. He replies if God doesn't want him talking like that, he should send a sign. So they move to another bale of garbage, and there's his sign: a bloody outline of a woman on cardboard. They think it's the Virgin Mary.

Bones and Booth arrive. Even Booth crosses himself. But Bones runs a quick chemical test: not a miracle, dried blood. The onlookers, which include the priest, watch as the team unbales the garbage. Inside the pallet, they find a crushed body.

They can't pull her off the cardboard back in the lab because she's too mushed into it. The victim had her toes surgically shortened.

A plastic surgeon looks at the x-rays—definitely his work. Meriel wanted to fit into Christian Louboutin sandals for her wedding. This allows Bones to talk about how ridiculous the concept of monogamy is and Booth to defend it in a conversation fraught with subtext. Finally, the doc offers to leave so they can continue their lovers' spat.

Booth meets with the victim's fiance and her best friend, Genie. He thought it was silly she wanted to have surgery on her feet, but they knew how important the wedding was to her.

Angela finds Wendell, the eager lab tech, has borrowed an expensive piece of machinery from Egyptology without asking. Cam tells him it's something he could be fired for - but he cuts her off, saying he found something. Cam fishes a straight pin out of the victim's flesh. Angela deduces she must have just had a dress fitting.

Booth and Bones go to a bridal shop, where the owner tells them they're meant for each other. She remembers Meriel. She fought with Anya, their best bridal consultant. But she was not there, the conflict escalated, and Anya slapped Mariel, so she had to let her go. Booth tries to tempt Bones with wedding dresses, but she objects on principle. Then, they hear a woman trying on a dress and giggling with glee. It's Daisy, Sweets' girlfriend. She's hugging another guy (but we don't see his face). Booth explains to Bones they will be keeping the sighting to themselves.

Back at the office, she wants to tell Sweets, and Booth cuts her off at every chance. Instead, he asks Sweets if dealing with overenthusiastic brides all day could drive someone nuts. Sweets say violence in brides is rare, and infidelity is much more common. Booth jumps in and drags Bones out.

They meet with Anya, who said Meriel insinuated she didn't know what she was doing. Then Mariel threw pins at her. That's when Anya slapped her. She worked there for 29 years and prided herself on being a "gentlewoman," which, incidentally, is her alibi.

Cam and Wendell try to figure out how to get mushed Meriel off the cardboard. Finally, he suggests they scrape her off.

Hodgins reports his maggot findings: the bugs were sauced on tequila, which means Mariel was, too. He also found glycerin on Meriel's clothing, which the bridal shop uses to preserve bridal bouquets.

The team approaches mush Meriel with a giant plastic slab as Wendell talks about removing a pizza from the oven. They slide it under her and remove her from the cardboard, squishy sounds driving home the point.

Over lunch, Bones asks Booth if he thinks Anya did it. He's not sure. She notes he's usually certain, and he says no, that's her, declaring she's never getting married. He suggests she has issues and should bring them up with Sweets. But she doesn't think taking relationship advice from a man cheating with an engaged woman is a great idea. And then Sweets and Daisy walk up. Up jumps Booth, dragging Bones away before she can speak her mind. But he's too late. Daisy sits, and Bones remains rooted to her chair. As Booth pulls Bones away, Sweets suggest they get dinner. Daisy has plans, Bones asks with who, and Booth finally succeeds in getting her out the door. "If they want a healthy monogamous relationship, they should be open and honest," Bones tells him. "Yea, well, that's not the way a relationship is supposed to be," he says.

Angela does a test on the cardboard as Bones blurts out that Daisy is cheating on Sweets. She tells Bones to keep it to herself, but Bones says a psychological expert should be able to handle it. They find the name of a club on the cardboard.

Bones and Booth walk into a club with bubbles floating everywhere. They're made of glycerin. The bartender remembers Mariel as the woman who sent her drink back three times - even vodka on the rocks. Booth suggests he go through the credit card receipts. They track down the boxes being recycled in the back alley. There's gravel possibly matching what they found in the victim's hair. Bones does some inspecting with black light. Booth finds a woman's cell phone covered in sparkles. Bones finds blood on the ground.

Back at the lab, Angela gets numbers out of the phone. She fixes it, and it starts ringing. She answers. A photo of Hodgins pops up.

Bones, Booth, and Angela confront him. He says it's because his phone was nearby. He was signed up for a dating service called "Date or Hate." When you're within a certain distance, both peoples' phones ring, and they get to pick "date" or "hate."

Bones and Booth visit the dating company. The slightly nerdy young man running it tells them Meriel has been getting hits during the last month. The last one was the night she was murdered. Booth talks to Meriel's fiance, who doesn't believe she was cheating.

Observing in the next room, Bones asks Sweets if he wants to know if his girlfriend is cheating. He says he'd see, and he's trained to recognize the subtleties of human behavior. Bones keeps her mouth shut.

The night Meriel was killed, her fiance was at dance classes.

Bones can't take it anymore. She tells Sweets that Daisy is engaged and is sleeping with him behind her fiance's back. He doesn't believe it. Bones says maybe he can't read clues as well as he thinks. She tells him what they saw. Sweets start to hyperventilate a little and asks for a moment alone.

Cam, Angela, and Wendell look at photos of mushed Meriel's face, looking for imprints on her body. Instead, they find a tire tread.

Bones tells Booth she told Sweets about Daisy. He's gotten nowhere with Meriel's last dating match. Booth asks Bones why she told Sweets he's going to come in and cry and stuff. Sweets walk in, looking deflated and upset, ready to cry. He feels like an idiot. She's been canceling a lot lately, and their "intimate relations" have dropped. He thinks he's a failure as a lover and a psychologist. He asks Booth what the manly move would be. Sweets decide to confront her.

Angela runs a scenario involving the car. It shows her getting hit and the driver backing up to run over her again.

Wendell invites Hodgins to the bar with some of his single lady friends.

Bones and Wendell track down SUVs matching what they've found. They find stains that could be blood. The bumper height matches too. Wendell lifts a hair from the tire.

Booth meets with the owner of the SUV, who says he used to be engaged to Meriel. She broke it off when she met her current fiance but kept his grandmother's ring - sold it to pay for her wedding. He asks for a lawyer.

The lab tests come back on his SUV - he hit a dog last week.

Bones is shocked that everyone thinks she shouldn't have told Sweets the truth.

Angela and Hodgins go through Meriel's Date or Hate matches, including the final one, Owen Smith, a gorgeous surfer-looking dude. However, Angela thinks he looks too good to be true, like the photo was faked.

Daisy comes to meet Sweets and has no idea why he's acting cold. He then confronts her about having a fiancee, which she denies. She then explains that she was at the shop with her cousin's fiance, trying on dresses because her cousin was out of town, and they're the same size, and taking advantage of that day's sale. Finally, they make up with each other, having sex on the floor of Sweets' office.

Angela shows Bones and Hodgins what she found about Owen Smith: he's a composite of four of Meriel's other Date or Hate matches.

Bones and Booth meet with the website's nebbish founder. He drives an SUV. He says it was an accident. She said she wanted a "funny, smart, successful" guy, and that's him. But she gave him the finger when he drove down the alley to talk to her. So he ran her over - twice.

After work, Hodgins walks to the bar where Wendell drinks with his ladies. His phone rings. It's Date or Hate - with Angela's picture. Separately, they both look at their phones and contemplate. Hodgins goes into the bar.

Bones bang on Booth's door late at night. She saw Sweets and Daisy - she realizes she wanted to spare him pain but caused it instead. Bones feels like a drink and helps herself to his excellent Scotch. She intellectually knows jealousy is pointless, but she experiences it herself, of Angela and Hodgins and Booth. Because they all want to lose themselves in another person, they believe love is transcendent and eternal. She wants to believe that, too. Booth sits next to her on the couch and promises she will someday. They toast.

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

• Wendell Bray - Michael Grant Terry

Recurring Cast

• Daisy Wick - Carla Gallo

Guest Cast

• Kurtis Rossi - Kevin Christy
• Lucia Bertolino - Linda Hart
• Bob Caverly - Eric Matheny
• Anya Pertel - Patricia Lentz
• Joe Fillion - PJ Byrne
• Genie Gormon - Mayim Bialik
• Dr. Marcus Scheer - Matthew Yang King
• Juan - Jerry Zatarain Jr.
• Barney - Rene L. Moreno
• Bartender - Brandon Scott

Featured Music

"Life Boat" - Miranda Lee Richards

Notes

• At the end of episode Bones and Booth drink Demer’s scotch, a fictional brand of unknown origin.
• During the episode Bones continues to argue that telling the truth is her duty as a scientist, however what she does is neither logical nor scientific, because concluding that Daisy has an affair because she saw her wearing a wedding dress is a theory almost completely based on a hypothesis since she had no other proof. This action is definetely unusual for Bones, since she refuses to make hypotesys when she is on the job.
• This episode marks the last appearance of the Angelator.

Tribes and Societies Mentioned

• Mosuo
• Amazonian women (who spit on men to express their love)