TV Review: BONES - SEASON FIVE - 'The Tough Man in the Tender Chicken'
A chicken-man's murder is investigated, and Angela copes with the negative effects of her celibacy.
Grade: B+ Stars: Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, Michaela Conlin, T.J. Thyne, Tamara Taylor, John Francis Daley Writer(s): Dean Lopata Director: Dwight Little Release Date: November 5, 2009
By MARY BRYAN, Contributing Writer
Published 11/6/2009
It’s been two weeks since BONES has graced our television sets, but it’s back and it definitely did not disappoint. “The Tough Man in the Tender Chicken” was not only filled with an interesting case, but also highlighted the negative effect celibacy was having on Angela, her friendship with Brennan (Emily Deschanel), and they even threw in a little bit of Booth’s (David Boreanaz) changed behavior since his coma. Considering that in the last couple episodes barely anything has been said on that matter, it was refreshing to see them address it again since it is a major issue, and must be very hard on Booth, as it would be with anyone in his position.
The “Chipmunks” – a group of young girl scouts who are focused on science (and idolize Dr. Brennan) – fish a partially decomposed body out of river. Of course, everyone at the Jeffersonian is impressed with these young girls except for Dr. Brennan herself. She chides the children on tampering with the crime scene, even after she was told that they secured the crime scene themselves and bagged and tagged evidence complete with GPS coordinates. Honestly, the “Chipmunks” just kind of seems like a breeding ground for Jeffersonian squints (because it’s the institute’s program). But whatever gets them in the lab, right? While normally you would think that a bunch of kids who saw a body like this would probably need therapy for the rest of their young lives, apparently idolizing someone like Dr. Brennan is a way to get yourself hardened to the world around you of death, post mortem mutilation, and really disgusting corpses.
At first glance, the overall theme of this episode seems to be animal cruelty. Look deeper though, and it will show you unexpected consequences and how people deal with them. The “chicken-man,” a man who’s worked at a chicken factory for so long that his nose became deformed to look like a beak, ended up dying from one of his own feather plucking machines. Not only that, his thumbs and toes made it into chicken nuggets, which of course would sabotage the company. The first suspect is the wife, who filmed what went on in the factory and gave it to the protesters in effort to get the company shut down. She motives for this was the desire to get her husband away from there and get his normal face back. But in the end, all it did was come down to a gas allowance: proof that people do kill for the most moronic reasons.
Angela’s celibacy had been a source of great amusement near the beginning, with her constantly flirting with anything on two legs, and finding the dirty interpretation in almost any sentence. But now it’s almost been six months (five months and 14 days, to be specific), and she seems to be coping … or is she? Sweets tells her that that she should probably quit celibacy a little earlier than intended because her libido is being rerouted , thus making her form inappropriate strong attachments to photographs of baby animals. No, that’s not as bad as it sounds. Angela decided to be on this mission to save one baby piglet from being slaughtered, and was trying to get everyone to donate to the cause. Brennan, who sees the world in a very rational and factual light, tells her that it’s pointless to save just one pig, and the two fight over it. I’m sure many of us have wondered how they get along in the first place when seemingly cut from different cloth, so personally I was glad that they decided to address that question. Of course in the end, Booth and Sweets tell Brennan to let Angela have the win on that one, even though it’s irrational, just because sometimes you have to do things for your friends, even if you don’t understand them.
Now, back to Angela’s celibacy. I hope I’m not the only one who found it unhealthy that Angela decided to jump on the first person that did something nice for her. While Wendell is cute and all. and it’s been clear that she’s was flirting with him a little bit prior to all of this. At the same time it’s also fair to say that she’s flirted with a lot of other people too, so it’s not like he’s exceptionally special or anything. It makes me wonder that if someone else was the first person to donate to her ‘save the pig’ cause, would she have just up and kissed them? Her celibacy and her inappropriate attachment to the pig picture seems to have made her vulnerable, so I’m weary on how this relationship – if it does turn out to be a relationship – will work out. Vulnerably is never a good way to start out anything like this.
Booth’s post-coma memory problems and personality changes are touched on again at the end of this episode, when he believes a suspect did accidently kill the victim, when actually he did it on purpose. He’s worried because he feels like he doesn’t have ‘it’ anymore – the thing that used to make him be able to spot things like lies – but also he’s worried about the small things, like how he couldn’t remember if he liked brown sugar. Brennan gives him a bit of a pep talk and does end up making him feel a bit better, but I have a feeling things will get worse for Booth before they get better in this matter.
BONES has some upcoming surprises for us in the next few weeks (including a special guest appearance by Emily Deschanel’s sister Zooey in the Christmas Special!) so stay turned to FOX every Thursday night at 8pm to see what they have in store for us for the rest of the season.
Reader Comments
Jonah from NYNY sez.... That was a pretty scattered review. You might want to pass these things past another set of eyes before you finalize.
Thanks for the news about Zooey!
11/12/2009 11:24:28 AM
Rory from sez.... The group of girls was actually woodchucks, not chipmunks =)
11/6/2009 2:52:18 PM
Chris from Chicago sez.... Angela used to flirt with Clark too. I think Wendell was just at the right place at the right time.
11/6/2009 12:55:58 PM
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Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) investigate a heavily protested chicken factory in BONES "The Tough Man in the Tender Chicken"
