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The Shot in the Dark

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The Shot in the Dark is the fifteenth episode of the eighth season of Bones.

Synopsis[]

When Brennan is shot while working late at the Jeffersonian lab, she is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. While at the hospital, she struggles with visions of her mother that defy her usual logic. Meanwhile all evidence suggests that Brennan's attacker may be linked to the Jeffersonian.

Summary[]

The Jeffersonian staff is ID-ing the corpse of a man found underneath a very, very tall high bridge. As Cam proceeds to de-flesh the body, Bones heads home to put her daughter to bed. "Perhaps she will enjoy Humpty Dumpty," she quips.

Bones and Booth argue over her lack of spontaneity at home because she isn't spontaneous enough. Bones angrily storms out, heading back to the lab to finish her work. As she is examining the remains, the Jeffersonian security guard Hal Bennett enters her lab. She tells him the victim was pushed from the bridge.

Later, Bones is alone, examining the bones with a pair of magnifying headgear, when she is shot in the stomach by a projectile fired by a blurry intruder figure and collapses. Booth and Christine arrive at the lab and find their wife/mom unconscious. He frantically calls an ambulance as Bones drifts into unconsciousness. "Bones, stay with me!" Booth yells. "You have to fight!" Bones is rushed to the hospital. We then go inside Bones' head, where she dreams of her old family home and is greeted by her mother Christine. In this dreamscape, the two are about the same age. "I'm hallucinating," Christine asks Bones to tell her about her life but Bones says that because she is just a projection of her imagination she would already know everything about her. Still, Bones tells her all about Booth and Christine before trying to flee. "You're still the most stubborn girl on God's green Earth," her mom says. Bones yells "I don't believe in God!"

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Cam and the doctors are operating on Bones and are struggling to bring her back to consciousness on an operating table save her life. It looks very dire. They cannot find the bullet inside her with the x-rays, and there is no exit wound. Her heart stops, and she is shocked back to life. Camille, in her scrubs, goes out to the waiting room and explains to Booth that Bones is stable. "Her heart stopped... twice," Camille says. When Cam asks Booth if there was any word on the shooter, she is told that they haven't found the shooter and Hal was found dead on the second floor stairwell. Back at the lab, the team, including former-intern Clark Edison, gather to examine the crime scene and hunt for Bones' attacker. As with Bones, Hal's body has a large entrance wound, no exit wound, and no bullet. None of it seems to make any sense.

At the hospital, Bones wakes up and tells Booth that she felt cold at the wound site where she was "shot" but not from blood loss. Max arrives, joins Booth and his daughter, too, and tells his daughter that she flatlined. Booth then informs her that she was dead for two minutes. They explain that she was shot, but there was no bullet, and she attempts to struggle out of bed to help the investigation before agreeing to rest. At the lab, Hodgins suggests an ice bullet. "It's technically possible and would explain why no bullet was found in her body," he explains. Back at the Jeffersonian, Sweets is working with FBI Agent Olivia Sparling. Unfortunately, the security guard's card was used to access the lab, and the cameras were disabled. Sweets and Sparling interview everybody who was inside the Jeffersonian at the time of the attacks but they find no leads.

Clark and Cam discover that the murder victim Bones had been working on was shot with a taser weapon. It turns out that marks on the dead body found under the bridge match those of the same model of taser carried by Hal. So did Hal kill the man on the bridge? "Ok, but then who killed Hal?" Clark asks. Angela's facial reconstruction helps identify the bridge victim as Johannes Groot, a sales rep for a jet leasing company. Sweets and Olivia search and examine the dead man's apartment. They find evidence that the man had costly tastes -- far too expensive for his salary -- and that there is evidence of a struggle. Olivia finds numbered confetti on the floor near the broken coffee table.

At the hospital, Angela tells Bones that the confetti was discharged from Hal's taser. So Hal went to the apartment and tasered the man, who had a heart attack and died; before he was tossed from the bridge. Just then, Bones flatlines. Once again, she sees her mother. They recall the last time they saw each other; when Bones was 15. She went to bed and never saw her mom again. "We had a fight, you and I," Bones says. "We fought the night before you disappeared." It turns out that they argued over a boy. They'd fought as Christine felt her daughter was changing herself too much for a boy. When Bones woke up the following day, her parents were gone. Christine had told her daughter to not be so emotional. "You took my advice and never changed yourself for another person ever again, so you'd never be hurt," her mom observes.

Back in the hospital, Bones' heart is back to beating. When Bones' comes to, she's surrounded by Booth and her father. "Will you stop scaring us like that?!" Max says. A doctor explains they'd used the same blood they'd matched to her during surgery, however, she had a bad reaction to the antigens. Bones then tells Booth that she saw her mother but that it feels like Booth keeps calling her back. "I went to another place," she says. "You really think I could actually be seeing my mother?" Booth says: "Yes, I do." Hodgins tests the ice bullet theory back at the lab, but the bullet shatters without puncturing the silicon. He next tries a blood bullet -- frozen blood that would mix with the victim's own which would not be noticed as no one tests the blood on a crime scene. It works and leaves no exit wound. It would also explain why Bones had a bad reaction to the blood administered by the hospital. Camille is so excited that she kisses Hodgins on the cheek. "You're welcome!" Hodgins calls as Camille exits.

Cam heads to Clark, who is taking another look at Hal's body. Clark has found a small cranial fracture on the left side of Hal's head. They shave away the hair and spot what looks to be a small infected puncture wound behind the security guard's ear, several days old. They find several flecks of shiny splinters, which Hodgins determines are gold paint and wood flakes from a 12th-century artifact gold icon of the archangel Gabriel in the Jeffersonians' collection. It looks like Hal, the dead man, and the shooter were all in on it together and after the artifact. Booth and Sparling posit that Hal, the security guard, informed the shooter that Bones was working on Groot's remains and turned off the cameras. Knowing she was the only person smart enough to put it together, the killer then attempted to murder Bones. The Jeffersonian staff examines the artifact used to bludgeon Hal and finds that it has been replaced with a fake. Booth and Olivia head to the conservation department where the relic is and begin to interview Dr. Batuhan, the only person on staff capable of restoring antiques of the icons' calibre. They find the equipment needed to create a blood bullet among his things and test fire it using a pencil. The doctor says that he knows his rights and will not say anything more.

Booth and Olivia interview Dr. Batuhan. The doctor has been stealing original artifacts and paintings for some time and replacing them with carefully crafted fakes. Hal would give the artifacts to Johannes Groot, who packed them in his private jet to avoid customs. Then Dr. Batuhan would fly with Johannes Groot to authenticate them before selling them. While a good theory but they lack proof -- a smoking blood gun, if you will. When she finds out about the blood bullet idea, Bones volunteers to have surgery to see if they can find evidence of the killer's blood inside of her. Under sedation, Bones sees her mom one more time to see if they can find Dr. Batuhan's blood in her. Back in her dreamscape, Bones sees that her mother is about to leave to go to work. "We're never going to see each other again," Bones says but Christine tells her that they will. She encourages Bones to lower her guard and find that impulsive little girl again. Following her head allowed Bones to survive, but following her heart will allow her to flourish. Christine tells Bones to tell her father that she always knew the first gift he ever gave her was stolen.

Bones awakens to find that the blood matched, and Batuhan has been arrested for murder and attempted murder. As Max goes to tell everyone that she has woken up, Bones stops him and tells him her mothers message. Max pauses with a surprised look saying that nobody knew that other than him. Bones looks at Booth wondering if she truly had seen her mother, saying that it's crazy to think it could be true. Booth tells her that it's okay to be a bit crazy, and they embrace.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Intern of Week[]

Recurring Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Featured Music[]

  • Can you help me - Hannah Peel

Notes[]

  • Clark Edison reveals his middle name is Thomas.
  • Angela informs Cam and Hodgins that Bones had woken up, which was their first time hearing it. Cam says that Bones had said the area around the wound was cold, however, Angela had not mentioned that, although it's possible she told Cam in between the two scenes.
  • This is the second time Bones and Booth got into an argument as couple, the first being The Partners in the Divorce.


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