Bones 7x01: The Memories in the Shallow Grave

Original Air Date: 3 November 2011

Storyline: When the Jeffersonian team identifies the remains of a woman found in a paintball field, they discover two missing-persons reports in her file. Booth and Sweets interrogate the victim's husband and learn that she suffered from amnesia. When squint Wendell Bray learns that the victim also survived a bullet wound, inconsistencies in her medical records uncover a surprising crime linked to her murder. Meanwhile, Brennan and Booth adjust to their new life as an expectant couple and deal with the forthcoming changes in their home life.Best Quote:

Brennan: Your kitchen is very small.
Booth: My kitchen is the same size that it's always been. Look at it.
Brennan: The implication being that I've grown bigger? I'm aware of that.
Booth: Oh, no, it's not that you've grown bigger. It's that you've... you know, you-you've grown out. You've gotten larger, you know? Like you just expanded, then... You look great, by the way.
Brennan: What you see is the manifestation of your own virility, which fills you with a sense of pride and power. It's natural to confuse that with attraction.
Booth: You look great.

Review: I don't think there was another series' return I was so excited about like I was about Bones. I don't know if I can call it my favorite airing TV show, but it's definitely high in my top, and last season's finale made the waiting even more excruciating. Would the Moonlighting curse touch Booth and Brennan? How will they overcome their differences and raise a child together, while at the same time maintain the working relationship we got used to for six years? Will they even be together as a couple?

Most of the questions we all had during the summer were answered as we watched a great season premiere. The episode picks up five months after the events in "The Change in the Game", with Brennan now very much pregnant, but still active in the crime solving business. "For centuries, pregnant women have been carrying bales of hay, jugs of water on their head and then squatting in the fields to have their children." Why wouldn't she be able to do her job? The only obstacles are her belly and her hormones, which make Booth both embarrassed at not knowing what to say and amused at her mood changes, enough to take pictures of Brennan in each and every situation she might get into.
The relationship between the two is exactly what I would have hoped it would be: they are comfortable with each other, spend almost every moment together and banter just like they got us used to for the past six seasons. They still have their beliefs and rules, which, of course, makes everything all the more hilarious (like Brennan's characterization of God as a sociopath because he "capriciously slaughters the creatures he creates"). I loved each and every moment with the two of them together - just like before, but even more now, that they are trying to start a family and overcome their differences in the process.
Hart Hanson has been accused by part of the fandom that he didn't show Booth and Brennan having sex. Personally, I don't get this obsession with seeing two people make love on TV; it's enough for me to know that they share intimate moments, and seeing how they actually kiss on screen a couple of times, I don't need more in terms of their romantic scenes. It's a lot more entertaining seeing them banter over living together, watching them have breakfast in Booth's amazingly small kitchen or seeing Booth's quizzical face when Brennan says or does something he doesn't entirely agree with but knows he has no chance of winning the argument. By all accounts, they're an established couple, they feel comfortable enough with each other for Booth to cook naked and let Brennan take his picture and use it for leverage should he embarrass her with the pictures he takes of her crying. There are a lot of adorable moments and listing them all would mean spending two hours just writing about this episode.
Let's discuss the case a little bit as well, since Bones is still a crime procedural. They are investigating the murder of a woman who, as discovered later, was suffering from retrograde amnesia and was in a fugue state, which means she established a new identity for herself as a survival mechanism. I was excited about the originality of the victim's life, and there were enough gore details to remind me why - other than the characters - I started watching this show in the first place. Nothing can beat a decomposing body and seeing the paintballer's finger go through the body's eyeball or Cam cutting through the skull to take out the brain were just disgusting enough.
Some other highlights: Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins as the most adorable thing one would see in a lab, ever! He even makes rule-obeying Cam unable to stop smiling at him. Hodgins' baby-talking the beetles he extracted from the victim's skull. Brennan's reasoning for moving in with Booth: "I can always depend on you to assist when needed, whether practically, emotionally or sexually". The closing scene, with the two of them looking at houses and Booth's rhetorical question - "Why did I think this was going to be easy?"
The showrunners proved that Bones can make it past the criticism and deliver an amazing episode, just like they did for the past six seasons. The only downside is that, sue to Emily Deschanel's pregnancy, this one will only have 13 episodes. Back to Season 7