Get Season 2 from Bones from Amazon.com

As you may have gathered from my review of the first season, I liked the start of this. I liked the Forensic Anthropologist take on the Science Detective show.  I liked the characters, and I liked the stories in the show. Now I’ve watched Season 2, and the show has slightly changed it’s focus, to a certain extent. Specifically, in this season the focus has changed from being heavily based around the murders, with the character focused side plots orbiting around it. Instead, with this season, the show has balanced itself out, like a binary star system (which is thus far the geekiest reference I’ve ever made), between the mysteries themselves and the portion of the plot based around the lives of the people working with Bones.

This is not a bad thing.

To get into the details, this season of Bones has two little side arcs to it. The first relates to the mystery surrounding Bones’ ex-bank robber father, who is still alive but missing, why he and Bones’ mother ran away from their children all those years ago. The other focuses around the blooming romance between Hodgins and Angela, which gets progressively serious over the course of the season. Both of these side plots are pretty well executed. I was a little worried about how they’d handle the arc around Bones’ father, but it worked out well.

To be frank, the first episode involving Bones father was flawless. However, as Bones’ father, Max, returned, I became a little worried about how this would turn out. My ultimate concern was that they’d turn Max into what would ultimately be a Carmen Sandiego-esque super-ex criminal. Not in terms of stealing national landmarks, but always staying 3 steps ahead of the police, despite the fact that he’s constantly hanging around Washington DC, and semi-regularly contacting his daughter. The fact that Max was arrested (by Booth) at the end of the season was a good way of resolving this plot arc, in my opinion.

On the other hand, the romance between Hodgins and Angela was very well written – especially considering that Hodgins is probably one of the most functional people in the lab aside from Angela. It was believable and generally executed splendidly. If I had any complaints with that, the one that came to mind was the prior marriage that Angela had just so happened to have forgotten about – a cliche that I find to be more than a bit hokey.

Other then that, I have only one other complaint about this season. In one of the episodes, Hodgins and Bones are kidnapped and buried alive. This is a traumatic incident for both of them, one which is referenced throughout the season. The kidnapper gets away and there’s a general declaration of “I’ll get this guy” or something in some form or another to that effect by various members of the cast. Aside from the brief references in dialog though, the hunt for the kidnapper in question, the “Grave Digger”, is quietly brushed aside. I do hope this plot point does come up later eventually in a future season.

All complaints aside, among all the many bright spots in this season, one shines brighter than the others. That is the repeat guest starring appearances of Stephen Fry as Dr. Gordon Wyatt. He is fantastic in every episode he appears in this season. Fry is a genius actor, and he works excellently with every character in this show he shares a scene with, and I’m looking forward to Season 4, which is where his character returns.

Recommendation: This is a very good show. If you like detective shows (particularly Forensic Detective shows), and don’t have problems with skeletons and some limited gore, I’d say this show is worth checking out.

Filed under: Television Tagged: DVD, review, TV

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