castle: s02 e05 when the bough breaks

This one was very sweet. And so, so sad.

A girl is found dead, and the trail leads to her ex husband who says she left him because he reminded her too much of their dead son. They find out that she'd just lost her job at a high-end hotel / apartment place because of showing too much interest in a Doctor's kid. As they investigate, they find out that her baby and the Doctor's baby and the baby of someone else that she'd been reported for showing too much interest in two years before had all been born in the same hospital on the same day, and all were boys. The doctor switched his own sick baby for this poor immigrant lady's healthy one, and when the sick baby she thought was her's died, she made it her mission to find out what happened-- and it led to her death. It's sad because it's a horrible thing to go through.

Meanwhile, the Heat Wave book launch means the deal with the police is done, and Castle and Beckett keep butting heads over it-- he's got an offer to relaunch 'a certain British spy' and wants to take it, but doesn't want to leave Beckett; she thinks he wants her to tell him to do it, and has this image of not wanting to put up with him anymore, so she keeps insisting that she'll be fine and even relieved to see him go. This hurts his feelings because he likes working with her and thinks he's been more use than that, and hurt feelings make him snarky. Snarkiness makes her angry, and so she's insisting more firmly that he's just in the way. And so on and so forth until the case is solved and they have to part ways. And they're very civil about it. They both have things to say, you can see it in the awkward way they both keep almost saying things and then not doing so, but they shake on it and prepare to go their separate ways. It's sad because they like each other (though it's probably not at a capital-L level yet, though his agent saw how he was looking at her and told him to get it over with already), and they're both misinterpreting the situation, but neither will just admit that they want to stay together.

So, sad all around.

But in the end of the case, they get the kid's read dad (the dead woman's ex husband) and his supposed-mom (the doctor's wife, now effectively widowed by his life imprisonment for murder) together so he can meet his actual son and tell her about her actual son. And my head immediately gave them a shared-trauma-leads-to-unlikely-love happily ever after. And Becett and Castle get simultaneous calls from their bosses informing them that Nikki Heat is through the roof and they want three more books, and so they're still together whether they want to or not-- which causes anger and consternation that's really there to cover up relief.

Yay! They're still a team! It looked almost like they were actually going to split them up and make me suffer through episodes where they're doing separate things and have to work their way back together after only five episodes.

I really liked this ep. I love how Castle and Beckett are gravitating toward each other mostly against their own better judgement. And I like how their snarking covers the fact that they actually do respect each other and are starting to blur into something like a real friendship with tinges of the sexual tension that was always there. I think they can go far. People like tension in their TV shows, sure, but I don't think it has to be chaste forever-- remember Remington Steele? This could totally go that way: no actual consummation, but the occasional making out, the embroilment of emotions, and the constant reminder that she's in a dangerous line of work and he's not quite trustworthy. Maybe that's why I like this show so much-- it's like RS, and there hasn't been something like that since it went off the air. Most things that try to walk that line wind up in Moonlighting land where there's too much snark, too much fighting, and not enough love and deepening respect. I think this show is good-hearted enough to walk the line and avoid Moonlighting hell.

bones: s05 eo5 a night at the bones museum

This is the moment when the whole rest of the cast ruins my life. Or, you know, breaks my brain.

Because right before that, we had progress, people. This is why I love the episodes where one of the other of them has an outside romantic interest-- hackles go up, defenses close down, eyes go green, and then in the end, it forces movement on the thinning line between them. And I squeed so much my eyes were bleeding like this week's second body.

The main story was about an ancient Egyptian mummy and how excited Bones is to find new anthropological evidence on who it is and what happened in his life, solving a 3000 year old crime and bringing justice in such a way that the museum holds a banquet in her honor. And it's about how the mummy was used in the murder of the scientist in charge of the study on him, and another scientist that couldn't handle the prospect of the riches he could gain by the secrets she uncovers in her examination. There was more of the in-house paranoia like a few seasons ago when scientists turned up dead. But you know what? They talked through that one then, and there was no need to say it all over again-- they just all knew that one of their own was dead and the crime needed to be solved.

Meanwhile, Daisy's back, and she and Bones find common ground with the mummy. And Booth's boss thinks Bones is hot and asks her out, which puts Booth on edge and on the defensive, and he keeps insisting that it's because he doesn't want her messing around with his boss, but we all know better-- including Angela, who says as much, flat out, and that's why I love this show. It's like real life here: everyone can see what's going on except the two of them.

Anyway, Bones doesn't get it, and goes out on the date, and talks about Booth, which he'd asked her not to do, and when he finds out about it, he's hurt, and she can't understand why, until he doesn't quite say that he shares more with her than he does with anyone else, but even she, with her near-total lack of social skills figures that one out. And in the end, she takes Booth to the gala instead of AD Hacker, and there's a Moment, where they're being honest with each other for the first time all episode, and each thing they say brings them closer together, and he sort of ducks his head and she sort of tilter her chin up... and then everyone walks in and I die of deferred fandom. Not quite as bad as that scene in the first X-Files movie (nothing has been that bad, ship-wise), but it was such a perfect scene, so of course it had to die. That's how TV works. ::sigh::

But before they go back to the party, she straightens his tie and he pushes her hair back off her shoulder, and they smile at each other, and there's still hope. And maybe an idea, and inkling, a hint of how that Moment could have gone? The feeling that they would be okay with it? A girl can hope.

Now we just need to get that lingering issue of Booth's brain trauma out of the way, the nagging idea that he only loves her because his neurons are rattled. I'd like him to face a clown and find it disturbing again, get all shaken and upset, and then realize that he still has feelings for her. About face, gushing that it's okay, she's confused, and... well, probably nothing. At least a hug, even if he doesn't explain anything to her. Which he probably won't unless it's sweeps week or the season ender, because Hart Hanson wants me to have an aneurysm. Oh, but the fanfic it could spawn!