Reunited and it feels so good

BONES: 4.10 “The Bone That Blew”

I wouldn’t be a good Whedonite if I didn’t mention how much I enjoyed seeing David Boreanaz and Gina Torres reunited on Bones this week. If you don’t recall, Gina Torres was one of the big bads of season four of Angel, and it was nice to see her again with our Angel alum (this time, without the maggots).

Other than that, we have the normal cases to cover. This time, bones were found in a tree. My nerdy side got very excited to see the physics used to see how the bones got into the tree: how fast the wind was going and where the starting point must’ve been. Really, Bones seems to be a nerdy person’s dreams sometimes–just like Numb3rs can entertain the mathly (though sometimes that show bugs me because I want to prove what they’re saying is true…).

My only complaint was that the murderer seemed a little…cliche? Just last week we had a son killing the mistress of his father, and now we have a daughter killing a nanny over homework. As soon as they claimed the mother did it, I got the feeling she was covering. As soon as we knew she was covering, I knew it was a child, and I’m pretty sure that the only reason it wasn’t the son was because the previous episode showed a son doing the crime. I wish there had been a little more originality. I feel like we’ve seen this in many other cop shows, too.

Beyond this, we have Bones’ father on the staff as a teacher. The entire episode, Bones seemed to be a little ill at ease with this change. First, I doubt Cam would have hired him without telling Bones, knowing all the problems and past histories that have ensued. Second, I worry about whether his addition to the cast would be a good thing. To be honest, it sounds like Bones might be leaning a little too heavily on the father/son humor of Fringe, so I guess they’ll still have to prove that this is going to be a good thing.

But one familial relationship I did enjoy seeing was Booth’s back-and-forth dilemma over his son’s education. I’d read this before (and I can’t remember where), but I do think that Booth’s father/son relationship gives this show a special something that other cop shows don’t have.

And I loved the final scene. It reminded me of this Diet Coke experiment, courtesy of YouTube:

I love you, Jim Sam Sam Jim

GHOST WHISPERER: 4.08 “Heart & Soul”

At long last, I finally caught up on last week’s Ghost Whisperer, where we find out what happened to Jim once he entered into Sam’s dead body.

I’d like to reiterate how much I didn’t see that twist coming, and I give the writers of Ghost Whisperer props for it. I was sure we’d see Ghost Jim just chill with the ghost-helping crew for a while, or perhaps he’d find out that he missed his one chance to go into the light and we then had to find out how to get it back.

Instead, we have Jim in Sam, and neither remember their pasts. What’s especially great is how we have almost scientific reasons for what he remembers. He remembers Sam’s sister’s shampoo–a muscle-related memory. Clearly, by staying in a physical body, he remembers the physical. Of course, he doesn’t remember the guitar, which musical instruments could be seen as muscle memory or brain memory, so that’s still a mystery. Can people let me know whether Jim used to play guitar, too, or just Sam?

On the other hand, the heart remembers Melinda and prior commitments that meant something to him. He went to the basketball court for Ned, though he didn’t know why.

Personally, I like that he had a “Jim” moment that was in regards to someone other than Melinda. I like that we chose to show Jim’s heart in a scene that was close to Ned, an adopted son of sorts. It just reshowed that Jim wasn’t just living for Melinda and that his good nature was more fully developed than just a devoted husband.

In other news, Melinda put a family back together. I like that the ghost who was haunting Melinda decided she does good things for doing something like that (I loved his line about how the light has been following him around all day, too). But I felt he had a very good defense in saying that the family’s opportunity to mourn their son was taken from them. That is true.

Which leads to my only complaint for the episode. Considering that Sam Jim still does not know who he is–or Melinda’s gift–I feel like the episode just ended too happily. This is such a significant storyline in the show that I just wish we had more struggle with it. Sure, this might come up more in the upcoming weeks (Jim still needs to find out he’s Jim), but it seemed overly happy in the end which gave it a bit of a cheesy vibe.

But that’s just me. I’m interested in seeing where it goes from here, though.