Bones - The Devil in the Details, S05E14

I said in my last posting about Bones that the show does not confront controversy, though it does often bring up potentially difficult issues. This week's episode, The Devil in the Details, was no exception, and, indeed, proved my point.

The victim, who was found burning on the alter of a Catholic church, was a schizophrenic who was born with a tail and had surgery to give himself devil's horns. Naturally, this brought forth the on-going tension of the belief structures of Bones (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz), one purely believing in science, and the other a good Catholic.

That confrontation, however, never goes on the path of actual belief. It is never about whether Bones or Booth is right, but about the fact that Bones never shows proper respect for the belief system of others. Like Bones' disregard for the use of psychiatry, which was also brought forth this week, the focus is that Dr. Temperance Brennan always says the most inappropriate thing based on societal expectations. But those societal expectations themselves are not questioned. Is she right or wrong in her thoughts? We don't know, but that is not the point. The point is that she expresses her thoughts at all the wrong times and in all the wrong places.

And again, the murderer was not one of the potentially risky choices we had to choose from. Neither the mental patient who thought she was an angel of the lord, nor any of the doctors of the institute were involved. Instead, the victim's brother killed him in what was possibly an accident involving anger that the insane brother was taking heroin on top of everything else wrong with him.

And maybe I should just accept that Bones is not about shocking us with the revelation of the murderer. I should focus on the character development and interaction, on Booth and Brennan's always simmering, never burning romance that has yet to happen. But I still would love to see the writers take that step and make a shocking choice. Would you?