The Proof in the Pudding is the twelfth episode of the fifth season of Bones.
Synopsis[]
Mr. White and his team of government agents put the Jeffersonian Lab on lock down and demand that Brennan and her forensics team determine a cause of death for an unidentified, but highly classified set of remains. As the team gets to work, their findings lead them to suspect they are investigating one of the most famous presidential assassinations in history. Meanwhile, Booth's boss, Andrew Hacker, helps him break into the lab and determine the motive behind the mystery investigation, and a frustrated Cam worries that Michelle may be keeping a big secret from her.
Summary[]
Booth and Bones share a pizza, and Booth points out that he can see the face of Michael Jackson in the toppings. Bones says that seeing patterns where none exist is a sign of schizophrenia. Later, Cam discovers a pregnancy test, and asks Bones about it first, but Bones says the test isn't hers. Cam's daughter Michelle was in her office earlier, so Cam worries whether the test is hers.
The team discovers that the Jeffersonian has been placed in lockdown by Agent White, who is from the General Services Administration. White and his team of agents brings in a coffin and asks Bones and her team to find out how the man inside the coffin died. The team aren't allowed to harm the body in any way and the team will be watched during their investigation. Booth is outside, speaking with White and wondering why he can't join the rest of his people in the institute. White points out that he isn't technically a part of the team and he should just head home. The agents are very arrogant to the whole team.
Booth successfully contacts the team via phone. Cam says that the victim was in his late 30s and had spinal degeneration. Bones tells her that they are there to find the cause of death of the body and nothing else. Cam sees that the skull was shattered and then distracts the agents while Bones takes a tiny bone sample without anyone noticing. Booth speaks with Andrew, wondering what he can do. Andrew says he can't help Bones until after the case is over. But Booth is insistent that he has to get inside.
Sweets gives Booth an update on what's happening inside the building. No one trusts White. After pondering the identity of the mystery victim, Hodgins suggests that Angela reconstruct his face. The man must have died in the 1960s, was shot by a bullet which nicked his rib, and Hodgins finds that the sample contains fibers of pink wool.
Booth gets inside the building and shoots at the door get into the lab, and he's taken down by White's agents. White tells Booth he can't leave the building. As Booth calls and speaks to Andrew about the case, White is eavesdropping. Bones informs Booth that Hodgins and Cam think that the body is John F. Kennedy, the President who was assassinated on November 22, 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald. Later, Angela and Cam talk about Michelle, and Cam worries that her daughter lied to her about being sexually active because of the pregnancy test. Angela says that the test was hers and that she hasn't said anything to Wendell.
Angela tells Hodgins about her pregnancy, and she confesses that it's completely the wrong time for this and that Wendell was not the man she really wanted to father her child. But the baby gives them a link that connects them for the rest of their lives. Hodgins wants her to keep the baby.
Angela has reconstructed the face, and it is indeed Kennedy. White is livid but the team tries to downplay the victim's resemblance to the former president. Booth wants Angela to reconstruct the assassination. The team watches the computer animation, and Hodgins thinks that Oswald couldn't have been the only shooter. Booth says he could recreate the fatal shot if he had a replica of the rifle Oswald used. Hodgins informs Sweets and Booth of a secret passage in a closet. They slip inside to sneak past the agents. Sweets thinks that this situation might be a test for the team.
Hodgins asks White to leave, but White ends up punching him, which distracts White enough to not notice Booth and Sweets returning with the rifle. The bullet wound on the body is consistent with the caliber to Oswald's weapon. Bones requests that Booth be able to shoot a cantaloupe with his issued weapon to test out a theory they had. White agrees, but when the test occurs, Booth brings out the rifle and fires within the allotted time. The gun could be the weapon.
White threatens Booth after that stunt, saying that he won't have a job after this is all over. Bones has found two bullet wound entries on the body, so there may have been two shooters. Booth believes that this isn't Kennedy's body and doesn't like to think that the government lied to cover up a conspiracy. Booth takes a call from Andrew, who says that Congress is looking into trying to push a mandate to exhume Kennedy's body. He then asks Booth whether he is being held against his will. Booth says yes.
Hodgins speaks to Angela about the baby, telling her again that she should keep it. Wendell's not ready for that kind of responsibility because he's only a grad student and too young, but Hodgins says that he's more than ready. He still loves her and wants to help her. Meanwhile, Bones and Cam finds out that there is calcification on the left radius of the body. Sweets and Cam discuss Booth's reaction to the body, and Sweets thinks that Booth is fooling himself if he believes that the government doesn't have secrets it wants to keep from the public.
White tells the team that they're done, but Bones wants to do one more test. Cam says that the team wants to be completely sure of their findings.
Cam has retested the pregnancy test and tells Angela that she isn't pregnant. The test gave a false positive. Meanwhile, as White readies to take the body back, Booth suddenly puts White in handcuffs and goes after the rest of the agents. Bones takes more samples from the body to test. Andrew comes into the lab with a team but finds out that Booth didn't really need rescuing.
The bone samples are dropped in pudding to see if they sink. If the bones don't sink, which they do, then the victim had osteomyelitis. Kennedy did not have that bone disorder.
Later, the team has breakfast together, and Booth thinks that they were being tested because of his brain surgery. Angela thinks they all failed their tests, while Bones is insistent that they weren't working on Kennedy. Angela tells Hodgins that she isn't pregnant, but she appreciates what he offered and will remember it. Bones finds out from Cam that Kennedy suffered from scarlet fever when he was a boy, which may have caused the osteomyelitis they saw in the sample, but it is quite clear that she was already aware of this fact and lied to protect Booth, as he does not believe the government ever lies. Booth is pleased that they weren't really looking at Kennedy's body, and the news reports that the remains of Kennedy won't be exhumed.
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
Recurring Cast[]
- Andrew Hacker - Diedrich Bader
Guest Cast[]
- Mr. White - Richard T. Jones
- Mr. Jones - Scott Connors
- Mr. Smith - Dylan Kenin
- John F. Kennedy (mentioned)
Trivia[]
- In the commentary extras of this episode, John Francis Daley who plays Dr Sweets explains this episode was filmed on St Patrick's Day and so he was a little bit tipsy during the filming of this episode.
- Angela's top in this episode is an homage to New York graffiti.
- The Jeffersonian carpark is the FOX studio parking lot.
Notes[]
- Booth is confirmed to be a descendant of John Wilkes Booth.
| When Booth confronts Hodgins (spoiler) |
|---|
| about bringing up the shoe-throwing incident involving President George W. Bush, he tells Hodgins "You're lucky he didn't paralyze you for life." This jest is in poor taste in context of later events of the show. |
I don't know what that means[]
- Brennan is completely unaware of who Michael Jackson is.
Quotes[]
- Angela: Wait a minute, why are you asking me?
Cam: [waving around the home pregnancy test] Well, it isn't mine, and Dr. Brennan doesn't make life choices without a Boolean flowchart, so I hoped it might be you. [pause] I'm not crazy.
- Booth: Hey, I'm going to need some science jibber-jabber to distract these guys.
Bones: Oh, you know who can do jibber-jabber?
Booth: Who?
Bones: [brightening up] Me!
- Mr. White: This experiment is essential to cause of death?
Bones: Because you have forbidden us from taking samples in order to estimate the osteoconductivity of the oblique taphonomic remodeling pertaining to the mid-sagittal plane, encelphalametric transaction--or translation, if you will--of the intermatrix can be deduced by correlating the force-displacement values with the osteogenic and geogenic-hydrogel nanocomposite we placed inside the surrogate.
Mr. White: Which is the cantaloupe.
Bones: You understand me perfectly.
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