Bones

The episode begins with the final scene from The Wannabee in the Weeds, when Booth gets shot. It fades to Bones in the lab, working on a skeleton. The squints approach, telling her that it is time to go to Booth's funeral. She refuses to go.



Sweets fails to convince her to come. He says that "the loss of a loved one" only made it worse. She tells him that she lost a partner. Just a partner. Angela pulls her aside and says that she really needs her best friend to come. Bones finally agrees to come with them.



At the funeral, Caroline is speaking. Bones is telling Angela that she would have gladly taken the bullet. She also says that if there was a merciful God, he would have saved Booth.



A man that had been lurking near a tree comes forward. One of the guards jumps out of line suddenly. The guard is none other than Booth! He attacks the man. While they are fighting, the casket falls over, revealing a fake body. When the man is just about to get his gun, Bones picks up a fake arm and whacks him with it.



Booth gets up to thank her, but then he sees her face. Her eyes are blazing. She throws a good punch at him and the force knocks him back off balance. He sits up, rubbing his jaw, as she storms off.



Back at the lab, Booth tries to explain to Bones what happened. He drove the suspect underground. When he got shot, they faked his death so that he could get him. Bones tells him that she doesn't care. She was supposed to know. He says he gave a list of people (that included Bones) to his boss and those people were supposed to know that he wasn't dead. Sweets explains that Bones is actually mad because she had to face strong emotions. He goes on to say that punching Booth was a passionate act. Bones replies, telling him that it was passionate because anger is a passion. She feels that she has been manipulated.



The argument is interrupted when Zack picks up a package and hands it to Bones. She opens it to find a jaw with silver screws. There are tooth marks on the mandible. The silver screws and the gnaw marks point to Gormogon.



The squints are watching Sweets on TV, being interviewed about the Gormogon case. Booth is standing on the platform, which is roped off by crime scene tape, trying to figure out what to do. The platform is a crime scene, but the squints need to access it to investigate. They just go under the tape anyway when he tells them what he needs. While they get to work, he heads back to his house.



At Booth's house, he is in his tub, listening to really loud music, drinking beer from a beer dispensing hat, smoking a cigar, and reading a comic book. Bones bursts in, turning off the music. After he explains the hat, he asks what she wants. She wants an explanation as to why she wasn't told about Booth's fake death. He doesn't know why. He was just following protocol. This irritates Bones. She tells him that he hasn't cared about protocol before. She also says that he has no concern for her. He jumps up, reminding her that he took a bullet for her. There is an awkward silence, and then he sits down. He tells her that he will find out why she wasn't told. She leaves and turns the music back on.



At the lab again, Hodgins and Zack have figured out that dentures caused the bite marks. Cam has found out that the jaw belonged to the lobbyist from the episode The Knight on the Grid. Hodgins and Zack want to do an experiment. The dentures were home-made, not store-bought. Cam agrees to let them do the experiment.



Bones, Booth, and Sweets are looking at the silver skeleton. Sweets thinks that they should add the jaw, since it is Gormogon's obsession that the bones get there. He has a way of figuring out if they put it on or not. Bones mentions Booth's "lack of concern" again. They tell Sweets about how Bones barged into his bathroom, and Sweets is amused. He thinks that Booth's forms of relaxation are funny.



Hodgins and Zack are working on their experiment. Hodgins hands Zack the mold, and Zack adds it to the mixture. It explodes. Booth and Bones rush in, and Cam and Angela are there, too. Hodgins is fine, just slightly dazed. Zack isn't so great. He's in shock. His hands were badly damaged in the explosion.



In Zack's hospital room, Booth and Bones are sitting with him. Booth is trying to be reassuring, but Zack and Bones tell him that his hands are too severely injured. Hodgins, Cam, and Angela come in. Hodgins is trying to figure out what happened. The explosion didn't make sense. Angela says that there will be one of them in there with Zack at all times. She takes the first shift.



Back at the lab, Hodgins is working on figuring out what went wrong. Sweets tells him that there are agents working on it too. Hodgins' faith in them isn't that great, which is why he's doing his own investigation. He figures it out, but he won't tell the agent. The agent in then figures it out as well. It's tricyclic acetone peroxide. When it mixed with the thermoplastic, it had a reaction that caused the explosion. Somebody switched the containers.



Booth drags Sweets into Bones' office. He tells Sweets to tell Bones something. Sweets acts like he doesn't know what Booth is talking about. Booth tells her. When he gave the list of people to tell to his boss, who gave the list to Sweets. Sweets is the one that was supposed to tell Bones. Booth wants Bones to hit Sweets now. Sweets admits that he chose not to tell Bones. He says that the fewer people that knew, the better. Bones agrees, but is still mad at Booth for not personally telling her. Booth doesn't like that. Cam interrupts, telling them that there's something in the Gormogon vault.



On the way down, Bones pulls Sweets aside. She tells him that she knows what he's up to. He's been experimenting. He wanted to test her reaction to Booth being dead. Bones tells him that he better not do it again, or Booth will beat him up.



When they get there, Hodgins is already there. The silver skeleton is gone. Cam shows them that at the time of the explosion, every security camera in the building failed. There was nobody guarding the skeleton. The explosion was a diversion, set up by Gormogon. Gormogon or his apprentice works in the lab. Booth calls for a forensic team.



Bones and Booth are eating at the diner, and Sweets comes to sit with them. He has a file on somebody who he thinks could be Gormogon. He suspects that it is Hodgins. Bones asks why she isn't a suspect, and he starts talking about her reverence for life and her emotional connection to Booth. Bones has had enough and she gets up and leaves.



In Bones' office, she tells Cam that Sweets suspects Hodgins. Cam thinks that Sweets is doing that to keep the blame off himself. He was the only one that wasn't accounted for after the explosion. Cam gave him security clearance.



Hodgins comes into Cam's office, and wants to know if she's found anything out. She can't say anything. Hodgins tells her that he found something. The jawbone was boiled in water with lead in it. He found the neighborhood with the highest concentration of lead in the water. His house is in the neighborhood. He knows that he's a suspect, and he says that he could have left it out if he wanted to, and Cam says that that would have thrown suspicion on him if somebody had gone back through his work.



Bones and Booth meet with Sweets at the diner. They ask him where he was after the explosion. He called 9-1-1, and then showed the EMT's where to go. Then he adds that he went down to the vault to steal the skeleton, since he's Gormogon. Bones and Booth ignore the sarcasm. Booth says that he can arrest Sweets for that. Sweets says that Booth will have to bring out the handcuffs, because he won't make it easy.



Angela is with Zack in his hospital room. Hodgins comes in. Zack tries to explain that nobody could have switched the chemicals. Hodgins pushes the painkiller button several times. Zack is asleep before he can finish.



Cam stops by Bones' office. Bones had been working on the jaw. It was treated with ultraviolet light. That is standard procedure to do before storing a bone. There are thousands of bones in storage.



In bone storage, or Limbo, Angela and Bones explain to some Grad students what to do. They are going to make sure that what is in the box is consistent with the card on the box, as well as the computer records. Caroline Julian is there too. Several students find extra bones. They lay them out anatomically. The skull is missing the mandible. Bones believes that it is the body of the lobbyist. Another student finds something strange in several skulls. The canine teeth. Caroline wants the security videos from the past six months, but there aren't cameras there.



Cam is showing Caroline some gnawed-on Bones. They discuss the bite marks. Cam goes off to give the bones to Bones.



Booth finds Bones is her office. He asks about Zack getting the bite marks wrong. Bones tells him no. Any first year student would know that the marks were not made from dentures. They were made from canine teeth. Zack lied. He made the dentures. He's the killer.



Cam is reading to Zack in his hospital room. Booth and Bones come in and say that they need the room. Cam wants to know if they are absolutely certain. They are. Cam leaves. Zack knows that Bones noticed the bite marks. She would have seen it eventually. He was going to sneak out and steal the mandible to add it to the skeleton, but his friends never left him. He set up the explosion, knowing how badly he would be injured. He was injured worse than planned, though. Hodgins hesitated. The thermoplastic reached boiling point, causing the explosion to be three times greater than expected. He made sure that Hodgins avoided injury. He refers to Gormogon as The Master, and will not give a name. His logic is irrefutable, according to Zack. They (the Gormogons) believe that the human experience is greater than one person's life. He helped them because he believes that himself. There was a flaw in the logic, though. Bones helps him to realize it. He risked everything so he wouldn't hurt Hodgins.



Zack tells Bones and Booth about how he estimated where The Master lives. Booth and a team go to get the man. They kill him. Booth and Sweets meet the rest of the group at the hospital, where Caroline is talking to Zack. The Master was a nobody. Caroline tells them that they've gotten Zack a deal. He pleads guilty, and they get him in a mental institute instead of jail. Sweets says that it won't work, since Zack isn't actually insane. Booth tells him to let the others handle it their way this time.



At the lab, everybody is talking about what they could have done to help Zack. Cam says that he made his own choices. Sweets points out that Cam is actually very upset about it. Hodgins sets a box down on the table. It is filled with Zack's favorite things. They are all things that the others gave to him. Bones realizes that she never gave him anything. Booth picks an envelope out of the box as Bones leaves. He follows her and reads the letter inside of the envelope to her. It was the letter of acceptance that she had given to Zack, telling him that he would be her official Grad student.