The Method in the Madness

This is one of the most frustrating episodes I've seen and usually I love Bones! As an armchair forensics expert (serious non-fiction collection) I had the murder weapon and therefore the killer from the start. Yet it did not occur to the team until the end of the episode. The only reason for this would be bad writing. I don't believe a professional of Brennan's calibre would take so long to even start to look in the right direction. Given her experience she would have seen similar injuries and it was just glaringly obvious. There was no mystery. This was more a story of incompetence and failure to see the evidence. They focused on one direction, the wrong one. Even when they discover an oddity and fail to question how it could have occurred. To make it worse, the very next episode Brennan is talking to Booth and tells him that the interns are making assumptions regarding the bones of the victim and tells them to look as if seeing them for the first time and see how the injuries connect. Exactly what the writers failed to do.

I agree with previous reviewers (although I think it deserves more than a one star rating). The whole chain of events shows relative shortsightedness on the part of the squints. The harshness of the cuts on the bones seems to be superhuman, plus the pattern should have at least led to some kind of machine early on. But that would not have allowed the whole Sweets living at Brennan and Booth's house bit. It's all a little disappointing, although there are a few good moments. The lottery set up at the office is interesting. Even in a silly thing like this, it seems that participant that can control the results should not be participating.