TV Review: BONES – Season 7 – “The Past in the Present”

By RACHEL REITSLEFF / Contributing Writer

Posted: May 16th, 2012 / 12:01 PM

Stars: David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, Michaela Conlin, TJ Thyne, Tamara Taylor, John Francis Daley, Ryan O’Neal, Patricia Belcher, Michael Grant Terry, Andrew Leeds, Reed Diamond, Nadine Ellis, Annie Telesco, Nancy Linari
Writer: Carla Kettner, series created by Hart Hanson, based on the life and writings of Kathy Reichs
Director: David Boreanaz
Network: Fox, Mondays @ 8 PM
Airdate: May 14, 2012

“This time, it’s personal” is painfully overused as both a tagline and a premise, but once in awhile, it works. With the BONES Season 7 finale, “The Past in the Present,” the show runners – the script is credited to one of the executive producers, Carla Kettner – have come up with a scenario that involves all of our main characters in a case that tests their skills, their ethics and their emotions.

Christopher Pelant (Andrew Leeds), the bland-faced young homicidal computer hacker from “The Crack in the Code,” is back. He’s not just up to his old tricks – this time around, he deliberately sets out to mess with just about everyone Brennan (Emily Deschanel) knows.

At a parole hearing for Pelant, who is confined to his home with an ankle monitor (his previous killings were legally unprovable), Brennan, Booth (David Boreanaz) and District Attorney Caroline Julian (Patricia Belcher) succeed in keeping Pelant from being freed.

However, Brennan and Booth soon find that the ring tones on both their phones have been changed to wolf howls. This ties in to their latest case, the death of a man who was eaten alive by wolves after being drugged into paralysis and stabbed several times. Brennan recognizes the body as her genius-level but disturbed old friend Ethan Sawyer. Ethan unfortunately believed that Brennan and Booth’s baby daughter Christine was a disguised demon who needed to be destroyed. However, Brennan was unbothered by this, as it seemed impossible for Ethan to get out of the psychiatric hospital where he was confined.

Then surveillance tapes surface, showing Brennan at the hospital the night Ethan disappeared – even though she wasn’t there. When Booth gets a call from Brennan saying that Pelant has kidnapped her, Booth races to Pelant’s home and beats him up. Only then, at Pelant’s urging, does Booth call Brennan back and discover she never made the call – Pelant somehow recreated Brennan’s voice. The result of Booth’s visit to Pelant is that Pelant is freed after all and Booth is taken off the case, suspended from the FBI.

Angela (Michaela Conlin) wants Brennan’s friends and co-workers to falsify the evidence against Brennan, but lab supervisor Cam (Tamara Taylor) simply can’t do it. Good thing, too, as Caroline is also suspended from her D.A. job when it appears she’s taken a bribe from Brennan. This leaves Cam as the only person in authority who is both on Brennan’s side and still on the case.

Angela finds that Pelant has been using library books (checking them out and sending them back with the checkout codes altered to deliver computer viruses) to facilitate his hacking. She also finds a clue that sends Cam and Hodgins (TJ Thyne) to the late Ethan’s hospital room, where he has left a coded message on the wall written in his own saliva.

With evidence piling up against Brennan thick and fast, Brennan’s ex-con father Max (Ryan O’Neal) urges her and Booth to take baby Christine and flee. Brennan says she’s going to turn herself in and accompanies Booth to Christine’s baptism first, even though she doesn’t believe in the ritual. However, Max has pulled the wires in Booth’s car and supplies Brennan with a getaway vehicle. Brennan drives off into uncharted regions with baby Christine, leaving Booth behind.

This would be a miserable way to end the season if we didn’t know BONES has been renewed. As it is, we’re eager to find out what was in that saliva message, how Booth will find Brennan again (or vice-versa) and how it will all work out.

Boreanaz, who directed the episode, does a very good job of letting the emotion speak for itself without pushing it, and allows the romance between Brennan and Booth to advance in character. When Brennan tells Booth she loves him – she wants to know she’s not with him just because they have a child together – it’s a moment of startling sweetness. Taylor and Conlin are both affecting as they portray levels of frustration and despair more intense than is usual for their generally sunny characters, and Thyne beautifully conveys Hodgins’ astonishment, pain and fear.

“The Past in the Present” combines a genuinely challenging mystery with a viscerally involving story. Roll on, BONES Season 8!

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Related Link: BONES creator says it will be back for Season 8

Related Link: TEN THINGS WE WANT TO SEE IN SEASON 7 OF BONES

Related Link: AX’s review of BONES – Season 6 finale – “The Change in the Game”

Related Link: Part 1 of AX’s EXCLUSIVE HART HANSON Interview

Related Link: Part 2 of AX’s EXCLUSIVE HART HANSON INTERVIEW

Related Link: Exclusive EMILY DESCHANEL interview on BONES

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The season ends with engrossing, uncommon ethical dilemmas when Brennan is framed for a murder

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Article: TV Review – BONES – Season 7 – “The Past in the Present” – Season Finale

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