TV Review: BONES – Season 11 – “The Promise in the Palace”

By RACHEL REITSLEFF / Contributing Writer

Posted: December 14th, 2015 / 06:58 PM

Jay Thomas, Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz in BONES - Season 11 - "The Promise in the Palace" | © 2015 Kevin Estrada/FOX

Stars: David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, Michaela Conlin, TJ Thyne, Tamara Taylor, John Boyd, Eugene Byrd, Gil Darnell, Jay Thomas, Kevin Fonteyne, Zak Henri, Dustin Ingram, Andrea Bordeaux
Writer: Joe Hortua, series created by Hart Hanson, based on the life and writings of Kathy Reichs
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Network: Fox Network, Thursdays @ 8 PM
Airdate: November 12, 2015

Sometimes a show late in its run hits things a little too hard, and so it is with the BONES Season 11 episode “The Promise in the Palace.” The A story concerns the death of a young woman who turns out to be a professional escape artist in the mode of Harry Houdini. We wind up less tracking the case – after going through the woman’s lover, roommate and professional competitor, it turns out that her mentor (Jay Thomas) killed her when she broke her promise to stay at his club, the Magic Palace, and was headed for Vegas – than the beats of Brennan’s (Emily Deschanel) attitudes about magic.

Daughter Christine has just lost her first tooth, and Booth (David Boreanaz) is prepared to put a dollar from the tooth fairy under the little girl’s pillow. Brennan is appalled by this perpetuation of a myth and would much rather discuss dental science with the child. Then lab assistant Dr. Clark Edison (Eugene Byrd) attempts to impress Brennan with his magic tricks, but she immediately busts him on how the tricks actually work. But then Brennan bluffs a confession out of the killer (by pretending she can see blood within a lock when it’s not really there), which inspires her to put a dollar under Christine’s pillow herself. Then Booth stumps Brennan with a magic trick she can’t figure out (nor could this reviewer).

Even with Booth’s partner Aubrey (John Boyd) cautiously suggesting that perhaps Brennan could be right about truth vs. tooth fairy, “Promise” is so weighted towards Booth’s point of view that it doesn’t bother much with its own logic. Brennan and Booth have bluffed suspects before without it affecting Brennan’s world view. Having Booth, who previously has demonstrated no interest in magic at all, be able to flawlessly pull off a trick is cute but feels a little smug.

In the C story, lab boss Cam (Tamara Taylor) is at first afraid that famous photographer Sebastian Kohl (Gil Darnell), who has been mentoring Angela (Michaela Conlin), is about to make a pass at the married mother of two. However, Sebastian really does have a purely professional association with Angela – he’s interested in Cam. After hemming and hawing, Cam finally decides to go out with her admirer.

It’s always good when they give the admirable Taylor something extra to do, and it’s true that Cam has come out of a serious relationship, but she has previously seemed confident and mature about romance. The character seems a little more flustered about the whole thing than we might expect.

On the plus side, the forensic matters are both laid out well (the lab team needs to see the weapon before determining exactly what happened, and this leads to discovering the killer’s identity) and easy for the audience to follow, and there is fun to be had in seeing Hodgins (TJ Thyne) and Edison geeking out over the Jeffersonian’s collection of magic tricks paraphernalia.

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