The Beaver in the Otter (30 Apr. 2009)

The remains of a college student are found in a mascot costume from a rival college. As the squints investigate how the body got in there, Booth finds out what his brother plans on doing with his life after his court martial.

Director:

Brad Turner

Writers:

Hart Hanson (creator), Kathy Reichs (inspired by the life of forensic anthropologist and author),

Stars:

David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, Michaela Conlin

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
David Boreanaz	...	Special Agent Seeley Booth
Emily Deschanel	...	Dr. Temperance 'Bones' Brennan
Michaela Conlin	...	Angela Montenegro
Tamara Taylor	...	Dr. Camille Saroyan
T.J. Thyne	...	Dr. Jack Hodgins (as TJ Thyne)
John Francis Daley	...	Dr. Lance Sweets
Brendan Fehr	...	Jared Booth
Pej Vahdat	...	Arastoo Vaziri
Jaimie Alexander	...	Molly Briggs
Nick Ballard	...	Greg Harmalard
Rick Peters	...	Dean Vernon Warner
Edwin Hodge	...	Robert Hooper
Michael Hyatt	...	Sheriff Tina Mullins
Lorna Raver	...	Professor Marlene Twardosh
Jonathan Chesner	...	Gary Bacon

Storyline

When the Middlesex university team publicly burns its Otters adversary's stolen mascot, it's discretely shot and a corps falls out. It's not from anatomy, but James 'Beaver' Bouvier, a popular member of the Delta Beta Sigma fraternity. Sweets analyzes frat-life, Bones looks down upon it, Booth enjoys the male bonding memories. Beaver also was a bookie and involved in hacking to steal test questions. His disputed sex-life also provides suspects. Meanwhile Seeley worries that his brother Jared, who just was paroled, refuses a job interview, desiring to travel India by motorbike.

---

Plot Keywords:

male bonding | gambling | undressing | fire | bare chested male | 

---

Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Romance

---

Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 April 2009 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Stage 6, 20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

20th Century Fox Television, Far Field Productions, Josephson Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

55 min 55 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Goofs

Twice in the opening minutes of the show, characters refer to a full-sized muzzle-loading cannon (mounted on spoked wooden wheels) as a "blunderbuss," which was an early hand-held firearm usually loaded with shot.

---

Quotes

Arastoo Vaziri: I have never seen so many foreign objects in human remains. Arrows, marbles, jacks, various coins, cutlery. My best guess is: nuclear explosion just as the victim entered a 99 Cent Store.
Angela Montenegro: Well, uh, close. He was shot by a blenderbus, pelted by an angry mob, and then burned.
Dr. Camille Saroyan: Now that's what I call team spirit.
[They look at Cam strangely]
Dr. Camille Saroyan: I'm a wisecracking Pathologist with a dark sense of humor.

---

Connections

References Free Willy (1993)

---

Soundtracks

"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
(uncredited)
Music by William Steffe
(played by the marching band at the pep rally)

User Reviews

Generation Gap

Hated Animal House et al of it Mimickers. Watching adults behaving like hyper-active 8-year-olds on crack just offends me. Amplifying that is my long-standing contempt for the practice of extending adolescence into our late teens, a practice dating to the late 19th Century in America and initially restricted to the affluent. The poor and working classes couldn't afford it and it wasn't til the 1920s that, prompted by free secondary education, the idea seeped throughout the middle classes. Even then, Andy Hardy still matured.

Irresponsibility related to Greek college students follows a parallel line beginning with Fitzgerald, carries through to the mid/late 50s, took a break from the late 50s to Animal House (1978), which devolved that irresponsibility to the level of 8-year-olds on crack.

Personally, I got lucky, going to a large state university where Jocks and Greeks were (self) isolated from the larger community and most of us gloried in our first autonomy as adults. That was 1968 and, during my undergraduate years, I neither saw nor imagined the kind of behavior displayed in either Animal House or this episode of Bones; on our campus, it wouldn't have been tolerated even within the confines of Greek/Jock Row. A kegger on the Snake River was as close as it got.

Bottom line, I'm extremely prejudiced on the subject and only gave this episode a 2 because I love Bones - and the fact that Jared took his first small step towards turning into a Human Being.

Unlike virtually every other episode, there is nothing here I like; no little bit of banter, not even the arching of an eyebrow.

A caveat to latter generations - my generation (or large parts of it) embraced the classic American values and the revolutions of the 60s were based on making those values real, especially the notion of individual autonomy (which we now call empowerment). That was our context. Contexts change, as demonstrated by Animal House. Generation Gaps emerge so, if you don't find that change in context offensive, if you enjoyed its new set of parameters, you might actually like this episode.

As for myself, I feel no grief that the Beaver's dead and figure he deserved his fate.