TV: Bones 4.1-2: Yanks in the UK (Part 1 and 2)

Yay, Bones is back! What did everyone think of the first episode? My (spoiler-free) thoughts below...

Plot: Booth and Brennan are in England to give speeches, but they get roped into helping their British counterparts with a few cases. The first case involves a murdered American heiress and her aristocratic British boyfriend and their complicated families. I found it a little hard to follow, but I couldn't put my finger on why. This was another one where it seemed like they came up with a punchline along the lines of "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if they were in England and had [xyz famous mystery cliche] happen?" So it was fine, but kind of... eh.

In the second hour, the murder victim was Brennan's UK counterpart himself. This case involves all sorts of delving into British academia, crew teams, industrialization vs. preservation debates, and more. Booth and Brennan do their thing - sending data and evidence back to the squints for help - and, of course, solve the case. This case was more satisfying than the first one.

Booth/Brennan: There was a lot of nonsense about Booth being completely out of his depth in England - not able to understand driving laws, incapable of successfully talking to people, generally being non-functional. This seemed completely ridiculous - he was a big important secret military sniper, right? He can't be this bumbling whenever he's put into an unfamiliar setting. It just seemed completely out of character.

There was some interesting stuff with Booth's reaction to Brennan considering getting involved with her UK counterpart. His reaction was not as unsubtle as I'd feared it would be, and I think their interaction boded well for the development of the relationship this season.

The Squints: I was less-than-thrilled with the various squint subplots this episode, too. Angela's long-lost husband finally resurfaces and throws everyone into turmoil, with results that I really didn't like. (Sorry to be vague, but I'm trying to avoid spoiling too much here.) Sweets did actually have some good insights, but isn't he supposed to be there to actually consult on cases at this point? It's kind of hilarious that this department of half a dozen people seems to need a full-time shrink just to deal with their interpersonal issues. I did like the Grad Student of the Week, but at the end of the night he announced that he was leaving because he couldn't take all the drama involved in working there. Yeah. I was kind of sympathetic with him on that one.

Overall Grade: B