Bones (2005–2017): Season 12, Episode 10 - The Radioactive Panthers in the Party - full transcript
When the body of an aspiring writer/director falls onto a passing car, the team investigates a series of locations and characters connected to his film.
All right, 10 hours down
and only three more to go.
I got this.
Seriously, just pull
over and get some sleep.
This is crazy.
You wanna know what's crazy?
Letting Betty move to New York.
Not stopping the woman I love
from making the
biggest mistake of her life.
It actually sounds like Betty's
doing extremely well out there.
I mean, it's been
four years, Gordy.
Yeah, four years I couldn't
stop thinking about her.
Dude, you and Betty
dated for, like, a month.
If you show up on her doorstep,
trust me, you're going to look insane.
You want to know what's insane?
Letting Betty go to
New York, that's insane.
Gordy, enough, you need sleep.
You're starting to
sound like a lunatic.
No, that's just the
sign of love, my friend.
The sweet, sweet, sound of...
What? What's wrong?
What's going on?
Oh, my God!
Gordy, what's going
on? Is everything all right?
It just fell from the sky like
some damn bird or something!
Gordy! Gordy!
Gordy! Gordy!
Gordy!
What the hell just happened?
And do not tell me that
was the sound of love.
That was the sound of death.
Tell Mama I just
crashed her car.
Shit!
The victim jumped 30 feet off an
overpass and landed on a passing car.
That's gonna leave a dent.
I imagine it would, and given
the gravitational acceleration rate
of 9.8 meters per second...
Come on, Bones,
it's too early for math.
Too early. It's never
too early for math.
Anything before
12:00 is too early,
anything after
12:00 is too late.
That leaves no time for
math. I don't want math.
I want math. Way too early.
Hey, take a look there,
that's Dr. Mayer, right?
Oh, Dr. Mayer. It's so
nice to see you again.
Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth.
What a treat. Please join me.
Uh, well, we got
some food to go.
So, I gotta get Bones
here back to the lab.
You're wearing your
Jeffersonian lanyard.
Are you coming in
to help ID the jumper?
Actually, I've hung
up my lab coat.
I never thought of
you as one to retire.
Oh, heavens, no.
I woke up one morning and just
found the passion was missing.
If you're not working anymore,
why are you wearing
your Jeffersonian badge?
I'm studying prairie dogs
for the Zoology department.
Prairie dogs?
Actually, they're
fascinating little creatures.
Did you know their entire
mating window is one hour a year?
By "fascinating,"
you mean sad, right?
Congratulations on
your new career path.
You seem... You seem happy.
Sometimes it just takes a new match
to get the old flame burning again.
Tell that to the
prairie dogs, huh?
Okay, gotta go. Let's go, Bones.
Bye. Thank you, girl.
Oh, okay, how about "Hulk Bones,
"A Study on the Skeletal Effects
of Incredible Physical Strength"?
That's a great idea, Hodgins.
Unfortunately, to write that
paper, I would need Hulk's bones.
And since the Hulk
doesn't actually exist...
Trust me, your dissertation
committee, they're gonna eat it up.
It's gonna prove that you
can think outside the box.
Or, that you've
completely lost your mind.
Mr. Bray, please catch me up on
what you've discovered thus far.
Based on the size
of the femoral head,
coupled with the strong
torsion of the femoral neck,
the victim was a Caucasian male.
Excellent work, given the
condition of the remains.
Burned, broken
and cut to ribbons.
Well, if he wanted to kill himself,
he certainly accomplished his goal.
Our victim did not
want to kill himself.
Well, according to the police
report, he jumped off an overpass.
The fractures on the
skull are dry breaks.
Which means he was
actually dead before he fell.
This was a murder
made to look like a suicide.
The irregular rim contour
of the sternal rib ends
indicates an age
range of mid to late 40s.
And judging by
the tobacco staining
localized on the
canines and incisors,
our victim spent the majority
of those years smoking.
"Prolonged Effect
of Nicotine Exposure
"on Long Bones."
No, coccyx.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to decide
what to write my
dissertation about.
I recommend you choose wisely,
as it will be one of the most important
decisions of your professional career.
Thanks, as if I wasn't
already stressing enough.
What is it that excites you
about the field of anthropology?
I don't know, lots of things.
Your dissertation on
the effects of tribalism
within ancient Karakorum
was certainly an
early inspiration for me.
As it should've been.
It's an exceptional paper,
as are the other
four I'd written.
You wrote five dissertations?
I was curious about
a variety of topics
and I couldn't decide which
one to focus my attention on.
So, I just wrote all five.
Wasn't that a lot of work?
Yes, Mr. Bray,
that was the point.
Uh, it's tough to be certain,
given the condition of the skull,
but there seems to be
evidence of frontal bossing.
Hmm.
Aside from the tobacco staining,
did you discover
anything unusual
about the victim's teeth?
He had a few crowns,
but that's about it.
I would like to remove
one of those crowns.
A baby tooth?
As I suspected.
Evidence of enamel hypoplasia.
It appears the victim suffered
from malignant infantile
osteopetrosis as a child.
That's a pretty rare disease.
Which means it may be
able to provide us with an ID.
Hey, I checked with
the local hospitals,
found a patient matching
our victim's description.
Victim's name is Ronald Bergman.
But you may know him better as the
mattress king of Southeast Baltimore.
This sounds like a good
case for James Aubrey,
the murder-solving
king of Washington DC.
What? Hold on a sec.
Are you giving
me a lead on this?
You know what, Aubrey, if you want
to be a Supervisory Special Agent,
you got to get a little ASA
experience under your belt.
Wow. Thank you, Booth.
So, does this mean that,
like, I'm your boss now?
Listen, Aubrey, if you have
to ask if you're my boss,
you're not my boss.
Okay. Look at that.
Aw, double tap-in.
Whether it's riding
a monster wave,
taking a stroll on Mars,
or just catching some Zs...
Here at Snoozeland, we'll
help you achieve your dreams.
That guy seems so sweet.
It's obvious he really cared
about what he was doing.
I've never seen you get so
emotional over a commercial before.
Well, in this age of snark,
I'm just thankful for someone with
some good old-fashioned sincerity.
Then I'll save the snark
and get right to the point.
Angela, I have a job for you.
Apparently one that reeks
of burned human hair.
Thigh hair, in fact.
The victim's cellphone
melted to his leg during the fire.
Right.
So, do you think there's
enough left to pull the data?
This thing is really
cooked, but I'll give it a shot.
Ms. Martin, now, you are the
manager of Snoozeland, is that correct?
I am. And we're actually
pretty busy right now,
so the sooner we can get
this over with, the better.
Okay.
Sensing some annoyance.
That would be because
I'm annoyed. Oh.
We're in the middle of a giant
sale, and I don't have time to...
What is it? What did
my idiot ex do this time?
What? No. Uh, this
is about your boss.
He was found dead
this morning. Ronnie?
Yeah. And we have reason
to believe that it was murder.
I knew this was a mistake.
What was a mistake?
Ronnie is a creative guy,
full of all these wild ideas,
and after directing all the
Snoozeland commercials,
he decided he was
ready for the real thing.
Real commercial? Movie.
He said he was gonna
be the next Gordon Welles.
Orson Welles? Sure.
Whatever, I don't know
about any of that stuff.
All I know is, Ronnie
wrote himself a story,
took a leave of absence from
work, and went off to make his movie.
This movie was all
Ronnie could think about.
Was gonna be his Citizen Krane.
So, I've been going
through the burned blobs
that used to be
our victim's shoes.
Jeez, Hodgins, you cannot
just roll up on me like that.
I'm in a wheelchair, Cam, I have
no choice but to roll up on you.
Fair enough.
So, so far, the only thing I've
found in the victim's shoe treads
are a piece of cigarette butt and
some small white marble chips.
Like the kind used in
decorative landscaping?
He had to have been walking around
in this stuff shortly before he died.
The problem is,
white marble chips,
they're not rare enough
to tell us where that was.
Yeah, well, wherever he
was, he was in a struggle.
Looks like there are two
incisions on his right forearm.
Well, yeah, the guy did
fall through a windshield.
But there's no trace of
glass in these incisions.
They appear to be
defensive wounds.
Unfortunately, the tissue's
too badly compromised
to get a better description.
Well, let me swab.
I'll see what I can find.
Come to Papa, you
nasty little piece of flesh.
This is a fairly
decent operation.
No, I mean, it's no Bone
of Contention or anything.
One thing I learned about
these guys, these creative types,
hey, they're definitely
a breed of their own.
You know, I heard the guy who
played Agent Andy is in rehab now.
Hey, stop with the
TMZ, just focus.
And, action! Okay.
I thought our director
was supposed to be dead.
Well, lead, Aubrey, lead.
Oh, dear God. This is like
spring break on bath salts.
Oh, no!
Excuse me. FBI.
Who's the director here?
I think his name is Kirby, or
Herbie or something. I'm not sure.
Yesterday, dude was
just a sandwich boy.
And now he's directing this?
Whatever this is.
Be careful with those
guts, they're rentals.
Look out! What?
I'm gonna eat this!
I'm sorry, but what is this
movie supposed to be?
Radioactive Party Panthers
from Fort Lauderdale.
Thought you guys were
supposed to know this stuff.
We know enough, Kirby.
Enough to be talking to you.
I like the sound of that.
And, I'm sorry, you
guys are with the FBI?
I haven't heard of
them. Are they new?
You haven't heard of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Oh, that FBI. Bummer.
I thought you guys were, like,
Hollywood agents. Real agents.
We are real agents,
investigating a real murder.
So why don't you tell
us why the sandwich boy
is suddenly directing
a dead man's movie?
Ron is dead? Yeah.
Frickin' A.
I guess that explains why I couldn't
get a hold of him this morning.
Sorry, so you thought, because you
knew how to make a cheese sandwich,
you could direct his movie?
Okay, I went to film school.
I know how a story works.
I know I am a suspect.
But trust me, I didn't kill Ron
and take control of his movie.
Why should we believe you?
Because he was already
giving me plenty of control.
When was the last
time you saw Ron?
Last night.
We finished shooting at the
hot tub warehouse around 10:00
and everyone went home.
Did you notice anything
strange about him?
Acting weird? Anything
out of the ordinary?
No. It was just your normal day
shooting a radioactive
panther attack in a hot tub store.
So, how many cameras
did Ron usually have rolling?
As many as he could get.
Ron was the type of
director that shot everything.
Oh, great.
Listen, we're gonna need
to get a hold of that footage.
Sure. Yeah. I can also give
you some of the stuff I shot today.
I got this great shot of a
disembodied arm's POV...
No. We're good. Thank you, bye.
Killer Klowns from Outer
Space. Aaah! Zombies!!
Come on, you had to
have heard of Sharknado.
Those are all scientifically
implausible. Oh, completely.
But I think that's part of
the appeal of B movies.
They offer a mindless escape.
So, people enjoy these movies
because they don't require them to think?
After a long day at work, don't you
ever just wanna go home and turn it off?
No. I enjoy using my
mind, and so should you.
Have you made any progress in
determining a topic for your dissertation?
I've got nothing.
Perhaps reading my
unpublished dissertations
might inspire something in you.
That would be
awesome, thank you.
There appears to be severe
perimortem blunt force trauma
on the sacrum T8 and
T9 and the right scapula.
Judging by the indistinct wound edges
and heavy amount of fracture lines,
the weapon used to create
this damage had a round outline,
maybe a pipe or a baseball bat.
Until the skull
is reconstructed,
there's no telling if this
beating was cause of death.
The cellphone's motherboard
was partially burned by the fire.
So, what are you doing with the
heat gun? Burning up the rest?
The hot air isn't gonna hurt it,
I'm just using it to desolder the
phone's primary data storage chip.
And as long as the chip wasn't
completely fried in the fire,
I should be able to use chip-off
forensics to retrieve the phone's data.
Okay, well, as soon
as you're done with that,
I'm gonna need you to go through
the film footage Aubrey's sending over.
Oh! Oh, can I do it, please? I
love watching campy B movies.
Of course you do.
All of them involving
giant man-eating bugs.
I can't tell you how many times I've
suffered through Earwig Armageddon.
Have you swabbed the
injuries on the victim's arm?
I have, and I found traces
of keratin in the wound.
Like, from a fingernail?
Or a razor-sharp claw.
Specifically, a
razor-sharp panther claw.
So, the victim was
self-financing the entire project.
At the time of his death, he had
already put up a million bucks.
Plenty of money,
plenty of motive.
I don't know. I'm thinking about
maybe going a different route.
I mean, you do know that Ron was
attacked by a panther on the set, right?
You want me to bring the
panther in for questioning?
No, no, no. But the guy
who supposedly trained it,
this guy right here...
Dwayne Hawkins. He did five years
for assault with a deadly weapon
'cause his grizzly mauled
another actor on a previous set.
Right. Another incident like that
would certainly land him back in jail.
Yeah, you know,
I'm just thinking, maybe he decides
to cover up the panther attack,
kill Ron, make it
look like a suicide.
I thought that I was supposed
to be lead on the case here.
I'm just trying to help.
Appreciate that, but you keep telling
me where to go, what leads to follow,
wouldn't even let me
drive to the movie location.
You're like a turtle
behind the wheel.
What? Like a turtle.
We would've still been in the
parking lot if you were driving, Aubrey.
We would've got there.
That's my point. You gotta let
me work at my own pace here.
Fine. That's your case.
Go ahead. Thank you.
Go ahead. Walk it out.
I will. Slow, still not driving.
That is a pretty gnarly
scar you got there.
A bald eagle tried to rip my
eyes out during a car commercial.
Turns out they don't
like wearing top hats.
Doesn't look like you got the best
record with these animals, Dwayne.
You're talking about the
incident with Chauncey?
Chauncey, yeah.
The man-eating bear
that nearly killed an actor
on the set of your last movie.
I take full responsibility for what
happened on Captain Carnie.
But I served my sentence.
Yeah, well, maybe this time you
didn't want to serve your sentence.
See, we know that your
panther attacked Ron.
It was a little scratch. I don't
think that counts as an attack.
And that scratch had enough
juice to put you back in jail.
Ron got scratched
because he was careless.
That's certainly
true. He hired you.
Look. First, the guy tells me he
wants a cat, so I get him a calico.
Then he decides it's
gotta be a panther.
Well, all the panthers
I know are working.
I scrambled, but I find him one.
Just some random
panther, off the street?
Pretty much. Okay.
Which would have been fine,
if I had a chance to work with it.
So, Ron got scratched because
he didn't give you enough time
to properly train the animal.
The guy didn't know
what he was doing.
When you're in charge of a set with
weapons, and stunts, and animals,
and you don't know what
you're doing, people get hurt.
And if anyone knows that,
it's you.
Yeah.
Angie, step aside, I'm
commandeering the Angelatron.
I'm actually kind
of busy right now.
Trust me, this is much,
much more important.
Well, it better be.
I still have a pile of cooked
flesh I need to analyze.
Okay, so I was looking through
the dailies, and look what I found.
Why does that guy look familiar?
Because that is David Faustino.
He played Bud Bundy on Married
with Children for, like, 10 years.
I love that show. That's a
good get for Party Panthers.
I'm sorry, is he on a
roof? Well, not for long.
And, action!
Suck my waves, Party Panthers!
That sounds like it hurt.
Son of a bitch!
You could have gotten me killed!
I should break your
stupid little freakin' neck!
Cut, cut!
Well, it sounds like Bud
Bundy just threatened our victim.
Ladies.
So, Mr. Faustino.
What am I, your grandpa?
Call me Tino. Okay.
According to the Internet,
you got kicked off your last
movie for fighting with the director.
Hey, dude, I've auditioned
to play cops before, okay?
I know the drill.
Just get to your point.
You got a history of
violence towards directors.
You threatened to kill your
current director, and now he's dead.
How's that?
Okay, well. I fought with my last
director because I wanted to do action
and that slap dick only
saw me as a comedy guy.
I mean, come on, okay?
But Party Panthers is different.
Ron let me showcase my
muscles, let me be an action star.
That's why I loved
working with him.
Okay. 'Cause I saw the footage.
Didn't really look like you
loved working with him.
Yeah. Well, that stunt mishap
made me look like a punk, okay?
I was embarrassed. And when
I get embarrassed, I get pissed.
Yeah. Really pissed.
Like vein-popping pissed.
What can I say? I'm
a passionate man.
But ultimately, I realized
the stunt was my fault, okay?
It was my idea. I was
the one pushing it on Ron.
I was so excited about it,
I probably didn't give him
enough time to properly plan it out.
All right. Hurry up and shoot. That
seems to be the theme of this movie.
Yeah, well, you ever heard
the saying, "Time is money"?
Well, this is a
low-budget movie. Yeah.
Was a low budget
movie. You guys are done.
Whoa, whoa. Dude, bro! We
only have a couple of scenes left.
You can't just shut
us down. Sure I can.
And if I were you, I'd hold off on
booking my ticket back to L.A. just yet.
Hey, Angie. So, I've been
watching more of the dailies...
I don't care. You are not
taking over my monitor again.
No, no, no. So, Faustino, he plays
this character named Pamanther.
Half man, half panther. Why?
Because sometimes, the
only way to stop a panther
is to become a panther.
That makes no sense.
And yet, still, it is awesome.
What's going on here?
I'm sorting through some
texts on the victim's phone.
Anything good?
Here's one from the owner
of Funtown Amusement
Park, Alan Peppermelt,
threatening to gut Ron like a
pig and use his intestines as floss.
Funtown...
Didn't we bring Michael
Vincent there once?
Yeah. It was awful.
Remember, they gave us those
used stuffed animals as prizes?
Oh, geez. That's right.
Hey, Angie, do me a favor,
call up a picture of Funtown.
Hey, Angie, can you zoom
underneath the fountain there?
Yeah.
Wow. White marble chips.
That's exactly what I found
in the victim's shoe tread.
Okay, let's look at the
production schedule.
Yeah, Ron shot
there three weeks ago.
Then what was he doing back
there on the night of his death?
Dr. Mayer.
Oh.
I was returning from lunch and
the supervisor said you'd left word.
I did. And I appreciate
you coming by.
Oh...
I'm sorry for being
a Nosey Norm.
I saw the title of your
paper and I just got pulled in.
"A Study of the Devolution
of the Human Species."
That was one of my dissertations.
I had a lot of fun with it.
Clearly. Your enthusiasm
just jumps off the page.
Actually, that is what I was
hoping to speak with you about.
How do you know?
How do I know what, dear?
When you've lost your
passion for your work.
You said that you woke up one
morning and realized that it was gone.
If you're used to the electricity
dancing through your veins,
and suddenly it's
not there, you notice.
What if you're not that
in tune with yourself?
Is it possible to lose
your drive and not know?
Absolutely. In fact, that's
what usually happens.
How many people do you know who
are truly in touch with their feelings?
Well, not many. Exactly.
Here's a little test.
Think about what you do here.
Really focus on it.
Okay.
Now, how would you feel
if someone took it away?
Sorry to interrupt,
but I finished reconstructing the
victim's skull and I found something.
My apologies, Dr. Mayer.
Nonsense.
I believe we've answered
all your questions.
I believe we have.
Amongst the postmortem
fracturing caused by the fall,
I found plenty of
perimortem fracturing.
The injury is severe
enough to be cause of death.
However, the broad impact
area leads me to believe
this trauma was not caused
by the same cylindrical object
used to beat the victim.
Well, it was most likely
the result of the victim's skull
being smashed into a flat
surface with great force.
So, not long before Ron's
death, you sent him a text,
"Remove the fake
blood from my tea cups,
"or I'll gut you like a pig and
use your intestines as floss."
Oh, man, that sounds
pretty bad, huh?
Yeah, it sounds really bad.
And, honestly, it's not what I'd
expect from the owner of Funtown.
Just my luck. The one time I
try to get tough with someone,
they end up dead.
This guy is pathetic. We
can tear him down with fear.
I know that you
didn't kill Ron, okay?
But I'm gonna need
you to help me out here.
Great, or we just
do the opposite.
We have evidence suggesting that
Ron was at your business
on the night of his death.
No, I haven't seen
Ron in a few weeks.
My God, he's lying,
okay? Get in his face.
Tell him that we can nail
him. Pin him against the wall.
Look, you seem
like a nice guy, Alan.
So, what makes a nice guy threaten to
gut a man and use his intestines as floss?
Ron came to me
about a month ago,
asking if he could use Funtown
as a location for his movie.
He said it was a pivotal scene
about a sick boy visiting
his first amusement park.
So, I gave him the
park for the day,
then I show up to see how things
are going, it was a madhouse.
There was no sick boy.
Just a bunch of blood and
guts and topless women.
He duped you.
And old Alan
Peppermelt fell for it.
It took me four days to clean
up all that blood and guts.
I lost over $1,000.
And if you killed Ron, you never
would have gotten your money,
so how did you intend
to get your money back?
I was gonna sue.
But then I remembered Carly.
Who's Carly? Carly Catalano.
She works the funnel
cake stand at Funtown.
She's also an aspiring actress,
and I told Ron if he gave
Carly a part in the movie,
I'd reconsider my lawsuit.
Wow. So you sacrificed $1,000
in order to get one of your
employees an acting job?
I was hoping it would finally
convince Carly to go on a date with me.
It didn't.
So how's it coming with
the Funtown marble?
The smoothness of
the grain is inconsistent
with the chips that I found
in the victim's shoe tread.
So, he wasn't at Funtown
on the night of his death?
Nope. Now that that's resolved,
it's time to get back to
the Party Panther party.
Or, you could help me
out. Yeah, can that wait?
Because I'm just at the scene
where the drug dealer accidentally
feeds his pet panthers radioactive meat.
Yeah, so, I just finished going
through the charred tissue
and found another panther
scratch on the victim's neck.
Makes sense, seeing as he
was attacked by a panther.
According to hospital records,
he was only treated for
scratches to the forearm.
Wait, so you think he was
attacked a second time?
I don't know. We shall swab and
see, or rather, you shall swab and see
and I will find out what happens
with the radioactive meat.
No, Cam, come on. You
don't even like the movie.
Cam, come on now. Cam.
Come on, Chad. Come
on. Roar, roar, roar!
Hey, hey, what
happened back there?
I mean, what's the point
of having me in your ear
if you're not
gonna listen to me?
I wasn't listening because
Peppermelt isn't our guy.
I mean, if I'd
taken your advice,
he would have shut
down and given us nothing.
Worked out that way,
anyway. Actually, no...
Because he gave us this.
I've collected...
What the hell is that?
You gotta be kidding me.
- I confined...
I con-filed all of the data.
And the numbers
seem to suggest...
She's bad.
Even by Party Panther
standards, she's bad.
So, this is
Peppermelt's employee,
the one that he convinced
Ron to recast in the female lead.
Recast, meaning
someone got fired? Exactly.
Well, if I was fired and replaced by
that, I'd want to commit murder, too.
I was thinking the same thing.
So, I looked into the original actor.
It's a picture of a
young boy. Yeah. I know.
Joey Martucci was
originally cast in this role.
What? I know, I
can't explain that.
But I did find out that his
mother was arrested last year
on charges of assault and battery
after beating a man with a baseball bat.
Sounds like a woman
with a lot of rage.
How do you think
Mrs. Martucci felt
when she found out that her son
was getting fired and replaced by her?
By my calculations,
we have seven hours
until the panthers merge
into one giant mega-panther.
We were out at
the batting cages,
when this man recognized Joey
from a Snoozeland commercial.
The guy was clearly drunk,
saying all sorts of rude things.
He wouldn't leave
us alone, so finally...
You whacked him
with a baseball bat.
And I'd gladly do it again. But
this time, I'd aim right for his beans.
You seem like a very
protective mother, Mrs. Martucci.
You say it like
it's a bad thing.
Well, I'm just wondering if
that instinct kicked back in
when you learned that Ron was
firing your son from his movie.
Please.
Co-lead in a movie
starring David Faustino
seems like a pretty
decent-sized credit for a kid
trying to start
an acting career.
At a certain point,
it just isn't worth it.
What do you mean?
Ronnie came to us with
this script he'd written
about a sick kid who loses
himself in his imagination,
pretending his pet
cat is a giant panther
and his sand box is a
beautiful Florida beach.
It was this really
adorable little story.
This is Radioactive Party Panthers
from Fort Lauderdale you're talking about?
It only became that
after Faustino signed on.
That's when we started getting
all these ridiculous rewrites.
I'm talking real baloney here.
The whole movie changed,
became this big shoot 'em up.
We weren't interested in that.
Wow. So it sounds like Ron was
actually doing you a favor by firing Joey.
He was.
Ronnie was a sweetheart. He just
got caught up and taken for a ride.
You gotta be careful.
This industry will eat
you alive if you let it.
Hey, do you need
anything else, Dr. B?
No. Enjoy your
evening. You, too.
Thanks again for
the dissertations.
Who knows, maybe I'll be so inspired,
I'll end up writing multiple papers myself.
Just focus on the one, Mr. Bray.
Hey, you're still here.
Yes. I used to get some
of my best work done
after the lab had shut
down for the night.
Is everything okay?
There appears to be
evidence of buckle fracturing
on the angles of the right
side ribs seven, eight and nine.
I meant with you.
You've been distant all day.
Angela, do you believe in
passion in the workplace?
Well, given that Hodgins and I have been
caught in the Egyptian room a few times...
I meant professionally.
How important do you think
it is for us to love what we do?
Uh, well, it's important,
but it's not everything.
Most people don't
love their jobs.
They don't even like them.
They do them
because they have to.
What if they didn't have to?
If you can afford to leave an
unfulfilling job, why wouldn't you?
Are you... Just
curious, that's all.
Left side ribs seven, eight and nine
also show evidence of buckle fracturing.
The presence of
these injuries suggests
a substantial amount of weight
having been applied to the victim's chest.
As if the killer sat on the victim
while smashing his head in.
That sounds like a very
violent way to kill someone.
It speaks more to
a crime of passion.
I'll inform Aubrey.
I know you're concerned
about me, Angela,
and I really am okay.
Geez, I thought I was
in early. Look at you.
No, you are. I'm just here late.
You've been here
all night? Yeah.
I'm comparing the
shooting draft of the script
with the early version that
Barb Martucci sent over.
Uh-huh. Wow.
These are all the changes that
Faustino made when he got on.
So in a course of three weeks, he
completely rewrote Ron's entire movie.
Okay, well, Ron was
financing the project.
Why would he give
up control like that?
Well, he gave up control the
minute that he hired Faustino.
Faustino was the name that
was gonna sell Ron's movie.
Right, and if he
didn't have him,
then he would just have
an expensive home video.
And on the day of Ron's death,
Faustino rewrote the final
portion of the original script.
I mean, Ron's sweet little
movie was officially over.
You think that was
his breaking point?
Well, eventually, you either
give up or you fight back.
I think maybe Ron decided to
fight back. That's what got him killed.
Good work, Aubrey. Look at you.
Just killed that one, huh?
You earned those
bags under your eyes.
Cam, you were right.
The scratch on the victim's
neck was from a panther.
So, the trainer lied to us.
Well, no, not exactly. May I?
So the panther claw that created
the wound wasn't made of keratin,
it was made of
polyurethane resin.
What, a fake panther
claw? A Party Panther claw.
So, we're gonna need to test everyone
in the panther suits used in the movie.
Or just one.
See, I also found neon orange
aerosol paint particulates in the wound.
Great. Which one of the actors
wore the orange panther suit?
Why don't I show you?
Why don't you just tell me?
I think it will have a bigger
impact. Hodgins, just...
Pamanther. Pamanther wears
a neon orange panther claw.
Isn't that the character
David Faustino played?
Sometimes the only way to stop
a panther is to become a panther.
Man, I still got it. I
mean, look at me.
Oh!
What's the Bone of
Contention dude doing here?
You're kidding me. We're
questioning you for murder, pal.
Well, I must be in some serious
heat if you brought in the big gun.
Uh, actually, I'm
the big gun on this.
Yeah, I know big guns,
and you are not a big gun.
Hey, you know I auditioned
for the role of Agent Andy, right?
I mean, I would have been
playing you. How crazy is that?
Nope. How's that
for a big gun, huh?
Techs found Ron's
blood on your panther arm.
Sounds like Pamanther
has a little explaining to do.
And we know that you
took an ax to Ron's script,
turned it into quite
the turd, if you ask me.
Party Panthers
was not a turd, okay?
Well, it was because of
you, and Ron was sick of it.
So he decided to confront you,
and that's when your
famous temper took over.
You attacked Ron, you
climbed on top of him,
smashed his head in.
Okay, Ron was the
one who attacked me.
All I did was ask for
a "written by" credit.
Dude just snapped.
Came charging at me.
I mean, I must have scratched
him while trying to fight him off.
So you killed him
in self-defense?
I didn't kill Ron, okay?
I just held him down to
get him to stop freaking out.
I mean, the guy was raging.
He said I ruined everything.
Doesn't sound like he was wrong.
Whatever, man, all I know is
that Ron gave me the credit,
we made our peace, and he left.
That's the last
time I saw the guy.
But why did you fail to
mention that to Agent Aubrey
last time you talked to him?
- Who's Aubrey?
- Are you kidding?
I'm Aubrey.
If people hear I got into
another fight with a director,
I'll be uninsurable.
My career will be over.
Please, Agent Andy,
this has to stay
between the two of us.
The two of you?
Seriously? I don't know.
I'm two feet away from
the man. I don't get this guy.
If Faustino smashed the
victim's skull into the ground,
he would've had direct
contact with it during the murder.
And if he was still
wearing the panther claw...
Well, actually,
I think I found something in the
margins of the foramen magnum.
Oh. Yes. The ring fracture
caused by the fall from the overpass.
I noted this injury early in
the investigation, Mr. Bray.
No. Underneath it.
Hemorrhagic staining,
evidence of another ring fracture.
You are correct.
It appears the victim
fell before he fell.
If he landed on his head,
that could have caused the
trauma to the back of his skull.
Had he fallen from a height
greater than two stories,
we would have found
extensive perimortem fracturing
on the internal bones.
So the victim was whacked
with a cylindrical object,
then thrown off a
one-to-two story building.
Unfortunately, the
height of the building
will not help us narrow down the
search, but maybe the type of roof will.
So, in addition to landscaping,
white marble chips are occasionally
used as surface material on roofs,
and one of those
roofs is on Snoozeland.
Do we know how
tall this building is?
Yeah. According to the
calculations, the building is 23 feet tall.
Roughly two stories.
It's the flagpoles.
The width of the poles
appears to be a match for the damage
found on the victim's scapula and sacrum.
So the victim was pushed off the building,
and hit the poles on the way down.
Then the killer threw
the body off an overpass
to disguise the initial fall.
The blood on the flagpoles confirms
that Ron was killed at Snoozeland.
Yeah, Ron left Faustino's
trailer around midnight.
The body was thrown over the
overpass about six hours later.
According to the time sheets,
the only person at Snoozeland
between 12:00 and 6:00 was Linda.
Well, Linda said she
hadn't seen him in weeks.
Right. So what was
he doing back there?
The guy's in the middle
of directing a movie.
Look, it's like what you said.
At a certain point, either
you fight back or you give up.
Okay. So Ron was giving up.
He was going back to
where he felt that he belonged.
Look, having Ron back would
only make Linda's job easier.
Why would she kill him?
Because it wasn't about ease.
So Ron coming back to work
meant that you were going
back to being his number two.
Ron was coming back to work?
This was supposed to be
your time to shine, Linda.
This was your chance to
finally prove what you could do,
to finally, after
all these years,
crawl out from under your
boss's big, looming shadow.
And all you wanted was an
opportunity to show yourself,
your friends, your family,
that you had what it took.
And here he was waltzing back in
and throwing that big
shadow right over you.
He was sitting
up there, smoking.
He said the movie was a mistake
and he was coming back to work.
And I was working so hard.
I couldn't go back to
being his sidekick again.
And it just happened. I just
pushed him.
Linda Martin, you're under arrest
for the murder of Ron Bergman.
Good job, Aubrey.
So, you know, if we didn't
get a confession from Linda,
she would have walked.
Sometimes, you just need to know
which buttons to push, huh, Booth?
What's that supposed to mean?
I know you were messing with me.
Me? Come on. Yep.
Bad information in my ear.
Throwing me off my game.
All right, okay. You got me.
But you know what, I
had to see for myself
if you could grab the bull
by its horns and get it done.
And you got her done. Good job.
Thank you.
So, does that mean I'm going
to get more ASA experience?
No, it doesn't. Sorry.
But it does mean that
you're going to become
a full-fledged
Supervisory Special Agent.
Come on. What?
They're promoting me?
Look, the L.A. field office
has been inquiring about you,
so I said to myself,
what better way to show them
that you're qualified to do this by...
Giving me my own case.
They're gonna offer you the job.
My God! Booth, I've never
even been to Los Angeles.
You're gonna love it.
It's a place full of schemes and dreams
and pros and cons, all about the show.
Good work.
I hear it's a little bit lacking
in the pizza department.
Yeah, their pizza's really bad.
You know what? You
shouldn't take the job.
Thanks, Booth.
Thank you.
Hey.
Just wanted to see if
everything was okay.
It's not like you to miss
anything on the bones.
I've had a lot on my mind today.
Actually, could you
please take a seat?
Uh...
Okay.
Sounds serious.
Do you like being
here, Mr. Bray?
Yeah, of course
I like being here.
I need you to answer a
question, and answer it honestly.
What would you do if you
couldn't work here anymore?
I don't know. I'd be
mad, I'd be confused.
What is this about?
But you wouldn't stop
breathing, would you?
No, of course not.
I couldn't breathe if I
didn't do this anymore.
I mean, I'm
speaking figuratively...
Hang on, is this because I couldn't
find a topic for my dissertation?
I was so excited to
write my dissertations
because I loved what I was doing,
and I couldn't wait to keep learning.
I just haven't found
the right topic yet.
Maybe because it's not
in the field of anthropology.
Wait, what are you
saying? Are you...
Are you firing me?
No. No, I wouldn't fire you.
But you should know that
you're too smart to waste your life
doing something
that your heart isn't in.
I mean, you're not wrong.
I like my job, but compared
with you and the other interns...
There's something
bigger out there.
You need to go after
it while you still can.
You guys are like
my family here.
That will not change.
Wow.
This is not how I
saw my day ending.
This is going to
be good, Wendell.
Yeah.
Is it cool if I still come over
for the game tomorrow night?
Yes. Yes, I'm making
my famous puttanesca.
On game night?
Game night is for, like, nachos and
beer. Does Booth know about this?
Of course. He
loves my puttanesca.
Okay, fine. I'll
bring the nachos,
and you can make your weird, fancy sauce,
and we'll see what everyone eats first.
Deal.
I'm bringing the beer.
Just so you know...
and only three more to go.
I got this.
Seriously, just pull
over and get some sleep.
This is crazy.
You wanna know what's crazy?
Letting Betty move to New York.
Not stopping the woman I love
from making the
biggest mistake of her life.
It actually sounds like Betty's
doing extremely well out there.
I mean, it's been
four years, Gordy.
Yeah, four years I couldn't
stop thinking about her.
Dude, you and Betty
dated for, like, a month.
If you show up on her doorstep,
trust me, you're going to look insane.
You want to know what's insane?
Letting Betty go to
New York, that's insane.
Gordy, enough, you need sleep.
You're starting to
sound like a lunatic.
No, that's just the
sign of love, my friend.
The sweet, sweet, sound of...
What? What's wrong?
What's going on?
Oh, my God!
Gordy, what's going
on? Is everything all right?
It just fell from the sky like
some damn bird or something!
Gordy! Gordy!
Gordy! Gordy!
Gordy!
What the hell just happened?
And do not tell me that
was the sound of love.
That was the sound of death.
Tell Mama I just
crashed her car.
Shit!
The victim jumped 30 feet off an
overpass and landed on a passing car.
That's gonna leave a dent.
I imagine it would, and given
the gravitational acceleration rate
of 9.8 meters per second...
Come on, Bones,
it's too early for math.
Too early. It's never
too early for math.
Anything before
12:00 is too early,
anything after
12:00 is too late.
That leaves no time for
math. I don't want math.
I want math. Way too early.
Hey, take a look there,
that's Dr. Mayer, right?
Oh, Dr. Mayer. It's so
nice to see you again.
Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth.
What a treat. Please join me.
Uh, well, we got
some food to go.
So, I gotta get Bones
here back to the lab.
You're wearing your
Jeffersonian lanyard.
Are you coming in
to help ID the jumper?
Actually, I've hung
up my lab coat.
I never thought of
you as one to retire.
Oh, heavens, no.
I woke up one morning and just
found the passion was missing.
If you're not working anymore,
why are you wearing
your Jeffersonian badge?
I'm studying prairie dogs
for the Zoology department.
Prairie dogs?
Actually, they're
fascinating little creatures.
Did you know their entire
mating window is one hour a year?
By "fascinating,"
you mean sad, right?
Congratulations on
your new career path.
You seem... You seem happy.
Sometimes it just takes a new match
to get the old flame burning again.
Tell that to the
prairie dogs, huh?
Okay, gotta go. Let's go, Bones.
Bye. Thank you, girl.
Oh, okay, how about "Hulk Bones,
"A Study on the Skeletal Effects
of Incredible Physical Strength"?
That's a great idea, Hodgins.
Unfortunately, to write that
paper, I would need Hulk's bones.
And since the Hulk
doesn't actually exist...
Trust me, your dissertation
committee, they're gonna eat it up.
It's gonna prove that you
can think outside the box.
Or, that you've
completely lost your mind.
Mr. Bray, please catch me up on
what you've discovered thus far.
Based on the size
of the femoral head,
coupled with the strong
torsion of the femoral neck,
the victim was a Caucasian male.
Excellent work, given the
condition of the remains.
Burned, broken
and cut to ribbons.
Well, if he wanted to kill himself,
he certainly accomplished his goal.
Our victim did not
want to kill himself.
Well, according to the police
report, he jumped off an overpass.
The fractures on the
skull are dry breaks.
Which means he was
actually dead before he fell.
This was a murder
made to look like a suicide.
The irregular rim contour
of the sternal rib ends
indicates an age
range of mid to late 40s.
And judging by
the tobacco staining
localized on the
canines and incisors,
our victim spent the majority
of those years smoking.
"Prolonged Effect
of Nicotine Exposure
"on Long Bones."
No, coccyx.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to decide
what to write my
dissertation about.
I recommend you choose wisely,
as it will be one of the most important
decisions of your professional career.
Thanks, as if I wasn't
already stressing enough.
What is it that excites you
about the field of anthropology?
I don't know, lots of things.
Your dissertation on
the effects of tribalism
within ancient Karakorum
was certainly an
early inspiration for me.
As it should've been.
It's an exceptional paper,
as are the other
four I'd written.
You wrote five dissertations?
I was curious about
a variety of topics
and I couldn't decide which
one to focus my attention on.
So, I just wrote all five.
Wasn't that a lot of work?
Yes, Mr. Bray,
that was the point.
Uh, it's tough to be certain,
given the condition of the skull,
but there seems to be
evidence of frontal bossing.
Hmm.
Aside from the tobacco staining,
did you discover
anything unusual
about the victim's teeth?
He had a few crowns,
but that's about it.
I would like to remove
one of those crowns.
A baby tooth?
As I suspected.
Evidence of enamel hypoplasia.
It appears the victim suffered
from malignant infantile
osteopetrosis as a child.
That's a pretty rare disease.
Which means it may be
able to provide us with an ID.
Hey, I checked with
the local hospitals,
found a patient matching
our victim's description.
Victim's name is Ronald Bergman.
But you may know him better as the
mattress king of Southeast Baltimore.
This sounds like a good
case for James Aubrey,
the murder-solving
king of Washington DC.
What? Hold on a sec.
Are you giving
me a lead on this?
You know what, Aubrey, if you want
to be a Supervisory Special Agent,
you got to get a little ASA
experience under your belt.
Wow. Thank you, Booth.
So, does this mean that,
like, I'm your boss now?
Listen, Aubrey, if you have
to ask if you're my boss,
you're not my boss.
Okay. Look at that.
Aw, double tap-in.
Whether it's riding
a monster wave,
taking a stroll on Mars,
or just catching some Zs...
Here at Snoozeland, we'll
help you achieve your dreams.
That guy seems so sweet.
It's obvious he really cared
about what he was doing.
I've never seen you get so
emotional over a commercial before.
Well, in this age of snark,
I'm just thankful for someone with
some good old-fashioned sincerity.
Then I'll save the snark
and get right to the point.
Angela, I have a job for you.
Apparently one that reeks
of burned human hair.
Thigh hair, in fact.
The victim's cellphone
melted to his leg during the fire.
Right.
So, do you think there's
enough left to pull the data?
This thing is really
cooked, but I'll give it a shot.
Ms. Martin, now, you are the
manager of Snoozeland, is that correct?
I am. And we're actually
pretty busy right now,
so the sooner we can get
this over with, the better.
Okay.
Sensing some annoyance.
That would be because
I'm annoyed. Oh.
We're in the middle of a giant
sale, and I don't have time to...
What is it? What did
my idiot ex do this time?
What? No. Uh, this
is about your boss.
He was found dead
this morning. Ronnie?
Yeah. And we have reason
to believe that it was murder.
I knew this was a mistake.
What was a mistake?
Ronnie is a creative guy,
full of all these wild ideas,
and after directing all the
Snoozeland commercials,
he decided he was
ready for the real thing.
Real commercial? Movie.
He said he was gonna
be the next Gordon Welles.
Orson Welles? Sure.
Whatever, I don't know
about any of that stuff.
All I know is, Ronnie
wrote himself a story,
took a leave of absence from
work, and went off to make his movie.
This movie was all
Ronnie could think about.
Was gonna be his Citizen Krane.
So, I've been going
through the burned blobs
that used to be
our victim's shoes.
Jeez, Hodgins, you cannot
just roll up on me like that.
I'm in a wheelchair, Cam, I have
no choice but to roll up on you.
Fair enough.
So, so far, the only thing I've
found in the victim's shoe treads
are a piece of cigarette butt and
some small white marble chips.
Like the kind used in
decorative landscaping?
He had to have been walking around
in this stuff shortly before he died.
The problem is,
white marble chips,
they're not rare enough
to tell us where that was.
Yeah, well, wherever he
was, he was in a struggle.
Looks like there are two
incisions on his right forearm.
Well, yeah, the guy did
fall through a windshield.
But there's no trace of
glass in these incisions.
They appear to be
defensive wounds.
Unfortunately, the tissue's
too badly compromised
to get a better description.
Well, let me swab.
I'll see what I can find.
Come to Papa, you
nasty little piece of flesh.
This is a fairly
decent operation.
No, I mean, it's no Bone
of Contention or anything.
One thing I learned about
these guys, these creative types,
hey, they're definitely
a breed of their own.
You know, I heard the guy who
played Agent Andy is in rehab now.
Hey, stop with the
TMZ, just focus.
And, action! Okay.
I thought our director
was supposed to be dead.
Well, lead, Aubrey, lead.
Oh, dear God. This is like
spring break on bath salts.
Oh, no!
Excuse me. FBI.
Who's the director here?
I think his name is Kirby, or
Herbie or something. I'm not sure.
Yesterday, dude was
just a sandwich boy.
And now he's directing this?
Whatever this is.
Be careful with those
guts, they're rentals.
Look out! What?
I'm gonna eat this!
I'm sorry, but what is this
movie supposed to be?
Radioactive Party Panthers
from Fort Lauderdale.
Thought you guys were
supposed to know this stuff.
We know enough, Kirby.
Enough to be talking to you.
I like the sound of that.
And, I'm sorry, you
guys are with the FBI?
I haven't heard of
them. Are they new?
You haven't heard of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Oh, that FBI. Bummer.
I thought you guys were, like,
Hollywood agents. Real agents.
We are real agents,
investigating a real murder.
So why don't you tell
us why the sandwich boy
is suddenly directing
a dead man's movie?
Ron is dead? Yeah.
Frickin' A.
I guess that explains why I couldn't
get a hold of him this morning.
Sorry, so you thought, because you
knew how to make a cheese sandwich,
you could direct his movie?
Okay, I went to film school.
I know how a story works.
I know I am a suspect.
But trust me, I didn't kill Ron
and take control of his movie.
Why should we believe you?
Because he was already
giving me plenty of control.
When was the last
time you saw Ron?
Last night.
We finished shooting at the
hot tub warehouse around 10:00
and everyone went home.
Did you notice anything
strange about him?
Acting weird? Anything
out of the ordinary?
No. It was just your normal day
shooting a radioactive
panther attack in a hot tub store.
So, how many cameras
did Ron usually have rolling?
As many as he could get.
Ron was the type of
director that shot everything.
Oh, great.
Listen, we're gonna need
to get a hold of that footage.
Sure. Yeah. I can also give
you some of the stuff I shot today.
I got this great shot of a
disembodied arm's POV...
No. We're good. Thank you, bye.
Killer Klowns from Outer
Space. Aaah! Zombies!!
Come on, you had to
have heard of Sharknado.
Those are all scientifically
implausible. Oh, completely.
But I think that's part of
the appeal of B movies.
They offer a mindless escape.
So, people enjoy these movies
because they don't require them to think?
After a long day at work, don't you
ever just wanna go home and turn it off?
No. I enjoy using my
mind, and so should you.
Have you made any progress in
determining a topic for your dissertation?
I've got nothing.
Perhaps reading my
unpublished dissertations
might inspire something in you.
That would be
awesome, thank you.
There appears to be severe
perimortem blunt force trauma
on the sacrum T8 and
T9 and the right scapula.
Judging by the indistinct wound edges
and heavy amount of fracture lines,
the weapon used to create
this damage had a round outline,
maybe a pipe or a baseball bat.
Until the skull
is reconstructed,
there's no telling if this
beating was cause of death.
The cellphone's motherboard
was partially burned by the fire.
So, what are you doing with the
heat gun? Burning up the rest?
The hot air isn't gonna hurt it,
I'm just using it to desolder the
phone's primary data storage chip.
And as long as the chip wasn't
completely fried in the fire,
I should be able to use chip-off
forensics to retrieve the phone's data.
Okay, well, as soon
as you're done with that,
I'm gonna need you to go through
the film footage Aubrey's sending over.
Oh! Oh, can I do it, please? I
love watching campy B movies.
Of course you do.
All of them involving
giant man-eating bugs.
I can't tell you how many times I've
suffered through Earwig Armageddon.
Have you swabbed the
injuries on the victim's arm?
I have, and I found traces
of keratin in the wound.
Like, from a fingernail?
Or a razor-sharp claw.
Specifically, a
razor-sharp panther claw.
So, the victim was
self-financing the entire project.
At the time of his death, he had
already put up a million bucks.
Plenty of money,
plenty of motive.
I don't know. I'm thinking about
maybe going a different route.
I mean, you do know that Ron was
attacked by a panther on the set, right?
You want me to bring the
panther in for questioning?
No, no, no. But the guy
who supposedly trained it,
this guy right here...
Dwayne Hawkins. He did five years
for assault with a deadly weapon
'cause his grizzly mauled
another actor on a previous set.
Right. Another incident like that
would certainly land him back in jail.
Yeah, you know,
I'm just thinking, maybe he decides
to cover up the panther attack,
kill Ron, make it
look like a suicide.
I thought that I was supposed
to be lead on the case here.
I'm just trying to help.
Appreciate that, but you keep telling
me where to go, what leads to follow,
wouldn't even let me
drive to the movie location.
You're like a turtle
behind the wheel.
What? Like a turtle.
We would've still been in the
parking lot if you were driving, Aubrey.
We would've got there.
That's my point. You gotta let
me work at my own pace here.
Fine. That's your case.
Go ahead. Thank you.
Go ahead. Walk it out.
I will. Slow, still not driving.
That is a pretty gnarly
scar you got there.
A bald eagle tried to rip my
eyes out during a car commercial.
Turns out they don't
like wearing top hats.
Doesn't look like you got the best
record with these animals, Dwayne.
You're talking about the
incident with Chauncey?
Chauncey, yeah.
The man-eating bear
that nearly killed an actor
on the set of your last movie.
I take full responsibility for what
happened on Captain Carnie.
But I served my sentence.
Yeah, well, maybe this time you
didn't want to serve your sentence.
See, we know that your
panther attacked Ron.
It was a little scratch. I don't
think that counts as an attack.
And that scratch had enough
juice to put you back in jail.
Ron got scratched
because he was careless.
That's certainly
true. He hired you.
Look. First, the guy tells me he
wants a cat, so I get him a calico.
Then he decides it's
gotta be a panther.
Well, all the panthers
I know are working.
I scrambled, but I find him one.
Just some random
panther, off the street?
Pretty much. Okay.
Which would have been fine,
if I had a chance to work with it.
So, Ron got scratched because
he didn't give you enough time
to properly train the animal.
The guy didn't know
what he was doing.
When you're in charge of a set with
weapons, and stunts, and animals,
and you don't know what
you're doing, people get hurt.
And if anyone knows that,
it's you.
Yeah.
Angie, step aside, I'm
commandeering the Angelatron.
I'm actually kind
of busy right now.
Trust me, this is much,
much more important.
Well, it better be.
I still have a pile of cooked
flesh I need to analyze.
Okay, so I was looking through
the dailies, and look what I found.
Why does that guy look familiar?
Because that is David Faustino.
He played Bud Bundy on Married
with Children for, like, 10 years.
I love that show. That's a
good get for Party Panthers.
I'm sorry, is he on a
roof? Well, not for long.
And, action!
Suck my waves, Party Panthers!
That sounds like it hurt.
Son of a bitch!
You could have gotten me killed!
I should break your
stupid little freakin' neck!
Cut, cut!
Well, it sounds like Bud
Bundy just threatened our victim.
Ladies.
So, Mr. Faustino.
What am I, your grandpa?
Call me Tino. Okay.
According to the Internet,
you got kicked off your last
movie for fighting with the director.
Hey, dude, I've auditioned
to play cops before, okay?
I know the drill.
Just get to your point.
You got a history of
violence towards directors.
You threatened to kill your
current director, and now he's dead.
How's that?
Okay, well. I fought with my last
director because I wanted to do action
and that slap dick only
saw me as a comedy guy.
I mean, come on, okay?
But Party Panthers is different.
Ron let me showcase my
muscles, let me be an action star.
That's why I loved
working with him.
Okay. 'Cause I saw the footage.
Didn't really look like you
loved working with him.
Yeah. Well, that stunt mishap
made me look like a punk, okay?
I was embarrassed. And when
I get embarrassed, I get pissed.
Yeah. Really pissed.
Like vein-popping pissed.
What can I say? I'm
a passionate man.
But ultimately, I realized
the stunt was my fault, okay?
It was my idea. I was
the one pushing it on Ron.
I was so excited about it,
I probably didn't give him
enough time to properly plan it out.
All right. Hurry up and shoot. That
seems to be the theme of this movie.
Yeah, well, you ever heard
the saying, "Time is money"?
Well, this is a
low-budget movie. Yeah.
Was a low budget
movie. You guys are done.
Whoa, whoa. Dude, bro! We
only have a couple of scenes left.
You can't just shut
us down. Sure I can.
And if I were you, I'd hold off on
booking my ticket back to L.A. just yet.
Hey, Angie. So, I've been
watching more of the dailies...
I don't care. You are not
taking over my monitor again.
No, no, no. So, Faustino, he plays
this character named Pamanther.
Half man, half panther. Why?
Because sometimes, the
only way to stop a panther
is to become a panther.
That makes no sense.
And yet, still, it is awesome.
What's going on here?
I'm sorting through some
texts on the victim's phone.
Anything good?
Here's one from the owner
of Funtown Amusement
Park, Alan Peppermelt,
threatening to gut Ron like a
pig and use his intestines as floss.
Funtown...
Didn't we bring Michael
Vincent there once?
Yeah. It was awful.
Remember, they gave us those
used stuffed animals as prizes?
Oh, geez. That's right.
Hey, Angie, do me a favor,
call up a picture of Funtown.
Hey, Angie, can you zoom
underneath the fountain there?
Yeah.
Wow. White marble chips.
That's exactly what I found
in the victim's shoe tread.
Okay, let's look at the
production schedule.
Yeah, Ron shot
there three weeks ago.
Then what was he doing back
there on the night of his death?
Dr. Mayer.
Oh.
I was returning from lunch and
the supervisor said you'd left word.
I did. And I appreciate
you coming by.
Oh...
I'm sorry for being
a Nosey Norm.
I saw the title of your
paper and I just got pulled in.
"A Study of the Devolution
of the Human Species."
That was one of my dissertations.
I had a lot of fun with it.
Clearly. Your enthusiasm
just jumps off the page.
Actually, that is what I was
hoping to speak with you about.
How do you know?
How do I know what, dear?
When you've lost your
passion for your work.
You said that you woke up one
morning and realized that it was gone.
If you're used to the electricity
dancing through your veins,
and suddenly it's
not there, you notice.
What if you're not that
in tune with yourself?
Is it possible to lose
your drive and not know?
Absolutely. In fact, that's
what usually happens.
How many people do you know who
are truly in touch with their feelings?
Well, not many. Exactly.
Here's a little test.
Think about what you do here.
Really focus on it.
Okay.
Now, how would you feel
if someone took it away?
Sorry to interrupt,
but I finished reconstructing the
victim's skull and I found something.
My apologies, Dr. Mayer.
Nonsense.
I believe we've answered
all your questions.
I believe we have.
Amongst the postmortem
fracturing caused by the fall,
I found plenty of
perimortem fracturing.
The injury is severe
enough to be cause of death.
However, the broad impact
area leads me to believe
this trauma was not caused
by the same cylindrical object
used to beat the victim.
Well, it was most likely
the result of the victim's skull
being smashed into a flat
surface with great force.
So, not long before Ron's
death, you sent him a text,
"Remove the fake
blood from my tea cups,
"or I'll gut you like a pig and
use your intestines as floss."
Oh, man, that sounds
pretty bad, huh?
Yeah, it sounds really bad.
And, honestly, it's not what I'd
expect from the owner of Funtown.
Just my luck. The one time I
try to get tough with someone,
they end up dead.
This guy is pathetic. We
can tear him down with fear.
I know that you
didn't kill Ron, okay?
But I'm gonna need
you to help me out here.
Great, or we just
do the opposite.
We have evidence suggesting that
Ron was at your business
on the night of his death.
No, I haven't seen
Ron in a few weeks.
My God, he's lying,
okay? Get in his face.
Tell him that we can nail
him. Pin him against the wall.
Look, you seem
like a nice guy, Alan.
So, what makes a nice guy threaten to
gut a man and use his intestines as floss?
Ron came to me
about a month ago,
asking if he could use Funtown
as a location for his movie.
He said it was a pivotal scene
about a sick boy visiting
his first amusement park.
So, I gave him the
park for the day,
then I show up to see how things
are going, it was a madhouse.
There was no sick boy.
Just a bunch of blood and
guts and topless women.
He duped you.
And old Alan
Peppermelt fell for it.
It took me four days to clean
up all that blood and guts.
I lost over $1,000.
And if you killed Ron, you never
would have gotten your money,
so how did you intend
to get your money back?
I was gonna sue.
But then I remembered Carly.
Who's Carly? Carly Catalano.
She works the funnel
cake stand at Funtown.
She's also an aspiring actress,
and I told Ron if he gave
Carly a part in the movie,
I'd reconsider my lawsuit.
Wow. So you sacrificed $1,000
in order to get one of your
employees an acting job?
I was hoping it would finally
convince Carly to go on a date with me.
It didn't.
So how's it coming with
the Funtown marble?
The smoothness of
the grain is inconsistent
with the chips that I found
in the victim's shoe tread.
So, he wasn't at Funtown
on the night of his death?
Nope. Now that that's resolved,
it's time to get back to
the Party Panther party.
Or, you could help me
out. Yeah, can that wait?
Because I'm just at the scene
where the drug dealer accidentally
feeds his pet panthers radioactive meat.
Yeah, so, I just finished going
through the charred tissue
and found another panther
scratch on the victim's neck.
Makes sense, seeing as he
was attacked by a panther.
According to hospital records,
he was only treated for
scratches to the forearm.
Wait, so you think he was
attacked a second time?
I don't know. We shall swab and
see, or rather, you shall swab and see
and I will find out what happens
with the radioactive meat.
No, Cam, come on. You
don't even like the movie.
Cam, come on now. Cam.
Come on, Chad. Come
on. Roar, roar, roar!
Hey, hey, what
happened back there?
I mean, what's the point
of having me in your ear
if you're not
gonna listen to me?
I wasn't listening because
Peppermelt isn't our guy.
I mean, if I'd
taken your advice,
he would have shut
down and given us nothing.
Worked out that way,
anyway. Actually, no...
Because he gave us this.
I've collected...
What the hell is that?
You gotta be kidding me.
- I confined...
I con-filed all of the data.
And the numbers
seem to suggest...
She's bad.
Even by Party Panther
standards, she's bad.
So, this is
Peppermelt's employee,
the one that he convinced
Ron to recast in the female lead.
Recast, meaning
someone got fired? Exactly.
Well, if I was fired and replaced by
that, I'd want to commit murder, too.
I was thinking the same thing.
So, I looked into the original actor.
It's a picture of a
young boy. Yeah. I know.
Joey Martucci was
originally cast in this role.
What? I know, I
can't explain that.
But I did find out that his
mother was arrested last year
on charges of assault and battery
after beating a man with a baseball bat.
Sounds like a woman
with a lot of rage.
How do you think
Mrs. Martucci felt
when she found out that her son
was getting fired and replaced by her?
By my calculations,
we have seven hours
until the panthers merge
into one giant mega-panther.
We were out at
the batting cages,
when this man recognized Joey
from a Snoozeland commercial.
The guy was clearly drunk,
saying all sorts of rude things.
He wouldn't leave
us alone, so finally...
You whacked him
with a baseball bat.
And I'd gladly do it again. But
this time, I'd aim right for his beans.
You seem like a very
protective mother, Mrs. Martucci.
You say it like
it's a bad thing.
Well, I'm just wondering if
that instinct kicked back in
when you learned that Ron was
firing your son from his movie.
Please.
Co-lead in a movie
starring David Faustino
seems like a pretty
decent-sized credit for a kid
trying to start
an acting career.
At a certain point,
it just isn't worth it.
What do you mean?
Ronnie came to us with
this script he'd written
about a sick kid who loses
himself in his imagination,
pretending his pet
cat is a giant panther
and his sand box is a
beautiful Florida beach.
It was this really
adorable little story.
This is Radioactive Party Panthers
from Fort Lauderdale you're talking about?
It only became that
after Faustino signed on.
That's when we started getting
all these ridiculous rewrites.
I'm talking real baloney here.
The whole movie changed,
became this big shoot 'em up.
We weren't interested in that.
Wow. So it sounds like Ron was
actually doing you a favor by firing Joey.
He was.
Ronnie was a sweetheart. He just
got caught up and taken for a ride.
You gotta be careful.
This industry will eat
you alive if you let it.
Hey, do you need
anything else, Dr. B?
No. Enjoy your
evening. You, too.
Thanks again for
the dissertations.
Who knows, maybe I'll be so inspired,
I'll end up writing multiple papers myself.
Just focus on the one, Mr. Bray.
Hey, you're still here.
Yes. I used to get some
of my best work done
after the lab had shut
down for the night.
Is everything okay?
There appears to be
evidence of buckle fracturing
on the angles of the right
side ribs seven, eight and nine.
I meant with you.
You've been distant all day.
Angela, do you believe in
passion in the workplace?
Well, given that Hodgins and I have been
caught in the Egyptian room a few times...
I meant professionally.
How important do you think
it is for us to love what we do?
Uh, well, it's important,
but it's not everything.
Most people don't
love their jobs.
They don't even like them.
They do them
because they have to.
What if they didn't have to?
If you can afford to leave an
unfulfilling job, why wouldn't you?
Are you... Just
curious, that's all.
Left side ribs seven, eight and nine
also show evidence of buckle fracturing.
The presence of
these injuries suggests
a substantial amount of weight
having been applied to the victim's chest.
As if the killer sat on the victim
while smashing his head in.
That sounds like a very
violent way to kill someone.
It speaks more to
a crime of passion.
I'll inform Aubrey.
I know you're concerned
about me, Angela,
and I really am okay.
Geez, I thought I was
in early. Look at you.
No, you are. I'm just here late.
You've been here
all night? Yeah.
I'm comparing the
shooting draft of the script
with the early version that
Barb Martucci sent over.
Uh-huh. Wow.
These are all the changes that
Faustino made when he got on.
So in a course of three weeks, he
completely rewrote Ron's entire movie.
Okay, well, Ron was
financing the project.
Why would he give
up control like that?
Well, he gave up control the
minute that he hired Faustino.
Faustino was the name that
was gonna sell Ron's movie.
Right, and if he
didn't have him,
then he would just have
an expensive home video.
And on the day of Ron's death,
Faustino rewrote the final
portion of the original script.
I mean, Ron's sweet little
movie was officially over.
You think that was
his breaking point?
Well, eventually, you either
give up or you fight back.
I think maybe Ron decided to
fight back. That's what got him killed.
Good work, Aubrey. Look at you.
Just killed that one, huh?
You earned those
bags under your eyes.
Cam, you were right.
The scratch on the victim's
neck was from a panther.
So, the trainer lied to us.
Well, no, not exactly. May I?
So the panther claw that created
the wound wasn't made of keratin,
it was made of
polyurethane resin.
What, a fake panther
claw? A Party Panther claw.
So, we're gonna need to test everyone
in the panther suits used in the movie.
Or just one.
See, I also found neon orange
aerosol paint particulates in the wound.
Great. Which one of the actors
wore the orange panther suit?
Why don't I show you?
Why don't you just tell me?
I think it will have a bigger
impact. Hodgins, just...
Pamanther. Pamanther wears
a neon orange panther claw.
Isn't that the character
David Faustino played?
Sometimes the only way to stop
a panther is to become a panther.
Man, I still got it. I
mean, look at me.
Oh!
What's the Bone of
Contention dude doing here?
You're kidding me. We're
questioning you for murder, pal.
Well, I must be in some serious
heat if you brought in the big gun.
Uh, actually, I'm
the big gun on this.
Yeah, I know big guns,
and you are not a big gun.
Hey, you know I auditioned
for the role of Agent Andy, right?
I mean, I would have been
playing you. How crazy is that?
Nope. How's that
for a big gun, huh?
Techs found Ron's
blood on your panther arm.
Sounds like Pamanther
has a little explaining to do.
And we know that you
took an ax to Ron's script,
turned it into quite
the turd, if you ask me.
Party Panthers
was not a turd, okay?
Well, it was because of
you, and Ron was sick of it.
So he decided to confront you,
and that's when your
famous temper took over.
You attacked Ron, you
climbed on top of him,
smashed his head in.
Okay, Ron was the
one who attacked me.
All I did was ask for
a "written by" credit.
Dude just snapped.
Came charging at me.
I mean, I must have scratched
him while trying to fight him off.
So you killed him
in self-defense?
I didn't kill Ron, okay?
I just held him down to
get him to stop freaking out.
I mean, the guy was raging.
He said I ruined everything.
Doesn't sound like he was wrong.
Whatever, man, all I know is
that Ron gave me the credit,
we made our peace, and he left.
That's the last
time I saw the guy.
But why did you fail to
mention that to Agent Aubrey
last time you talked to him?
- Who's Aubrey?
- Are you kidding?
I'm Aubrey.
If people hear I got into
another fight with a director,
I'll be uninsurable.
My career will be over.
Please, Agent Andy,
this has to stay
between the two of us.
The two of you?
Seriously? I don't know.
I'm two feet away from
the man. I don't get this guy.
If Faustino smashed the
victim's skull into the ground,
he would've had direct
contact with it during the murder.
And if he was still
wearing the panther claw...
Well, actually,
I think I found something in the
margins of the foramen magnum.
Oh. Yes. The ring fracture
caused by the fall from the overpass.
I noted this injury early in
the investigation, Mr. Bray.
No. Underneath it.
Hemorrhagic staining,
evidence of another ring fracture.
You are correct.
It appears the victim
fell before he fell.
If he landed on his head,
that could have caused the
trauma to the back of his skull.
Had he fallen from a height
greater than two stories,
we would have found
extensive perimortem fracturing
on the internal bones.
So the victim was whacked
with a cylindrical object,
then thrown off a
one-to-two story building.
Unfortunately, the
height of the building
will not help us narrow down the
search, but maybe the type of roof will.
So, in addition to landscaping,
white marble chips are occasionally
used as surface material on roofs,
and one of those
roofs is on Snoozeland.
Do we know how
tall this building is?
Yeah. According to the
calculations, the building is 23 feet tall.
Roughly two stories.
It's the flagpoles.
The width of the poles
appears to be a match for the damage
found on the victim's scapula and sacrum.
So the victim was pushed off the building,
and hit the poles on the way down.
Then the killer threw
the body off an overpass
to disguise the initial fall.
The blood on the flagpoles confirms
that Ron was killed at Snoozeland.
Yeah, Ron left Faustino's
trailer around midnight.
The body was thrown over the
overpass about six hours later.
According to the time sheets,
the only person at Snoozeland
between 12:00 and 6:00 was Linda.
Well, Linda said she
hadn't seen him in weeks.
Right. So what was
he doing back there?
The guy's in the middle
of directing a movie.
Look, it's like what you said.
At a certain point, either
you fight back or you give up.
Okay. So Ron was giving up.
He was going back to
where he felt that he belonged.
Look, having Ron back would
only make Linda's job easier.
Why would she kill him?
Because it wasn't about ease.
So Ron coming back to work
meant that you were going
back to being his number two.
Ron was coming back to work?
This was supposed to be
your time to shine, Linda.
This was your chance to
finally prove what you could do,
to finally, after
all these years,
crawl out from under your
boss's big, looming shadow.
And all you wanted was an
opportunity to show yourself,
your friends, your family,
that you had what it took.
And here he was waltzing back in
and throwing that big
shadow right over you.
He was sitting
up there, smoking.
He said the movie was a mistake
and he was coming back to work.
And I was working so hard.
I couldn't go back to
being his sidekick again.
And it just happened. I just
pushed him.
Linda Martin, you're under arrest
for the murder of Ron Bergman.
Good job, Aubrey.
So, you know, if we didn't
get a confession from Linda,
she would have walked.
Sometimes, you just need to know
which buttons to push, huh, Booth?
What's that supposed to mean?
I know you were messing with me.
Me? Come on. Yep.
Bad information in my ear.
Throwing me off my game.
All right, okay. You got me.
But you know what, I
had to see for myself
if you could grab the bull
by its horns and get it done.
And you got her done. Good job.
Thank you.
So, does that mean I'm going
to get more ASA experience?
No, it doesn't. Sorry.
But it does mean that
you're going to become
a full-fledged
Supervisory Special Agent.
Come on. What?
They're promoting me?
Look, the L.A. field office
has been inquiring about you,
so I said to myself,
what better way to show them
that you're qualified to do this by...
Giving me my own case.
They're gonna offer you the job.
My God! Booth, I've never
even been to Los Angeles.
You're gonna love it.
It's a place full of schemes and dreams
and pros and cons, all about the show.
Good work.
I hear it's a little bit lacking
in the pizza department.
Yeah, their pizza's really bad.
You know what? You
shouldn't take the job.
Thanks, Booth.
Thank you.
Hey.
Just wanted to see if
everything was okay.
It's not like you to miss
anything on the bones.
I've had a lot on my mind today.
Actually, could you
please take a seat?
Uh...
Okay.
Sounds serious.
Do you like being
here, Mr. Bray?
Yeah, of course
I like being here.
I need you to answer a
question, and answer it honestly.
What would you do if you
couldn't work here anymore?
I don't know. I'd be
mad, I'd be confused.
What is this about?
But you wouldn't stop
breathing, would you?
No, of course not.
I couldn't breathe if I
didn't do this anymore.
I mean, I'm
speaking figuratively...
Hang on, is this because I couldn't
find a topic for my dissertation?
I was so excited to
write my dissertations
because I loved what I was doing,
and I couldn't wait to keep learning.
I just haven't found
the right topic yet.
Maybe because it's not
in the field of anthropology.
Wait, what are you
saying? Are you...
Are you firing me?
No. No, I wouldn't fire you.
But you should know that
you're too smart to waste your life
doing something
that your heart isn't in.
I mean, you're not wrong.
I like my job, but compared
with you and the other interns...
There's something
bigger out there.
You need to go after
it while you still can.
You guys are like
my family here.
That will not change.
Wow.
This is not how I
saw my day ending.
This is going to
be good, Wendell.
Yeah.
Is it cool if I still come over
for the game tomorrow night?
Yes. Yes, I'm making
my famous puttanesca.
On game night?
Game night is for, like, nachos and
beer. Does Booth know about this?
Of course. He
loves my puttanesca.
Okay, fine. I'll
bring the nachos,
and you can make your weird, fancy sauce,
and we'll see what everyone eats first.
Deal.
I'm bringing the beer.
Just so you know...