Quick disclaimer: Because this is a component of the discourse following this episode, I feel the need to clarify: I am not a conspiracy theorist. If you saw the low rating and immediately figured "oh, one of those" please don't jump to such an easy conclusion. Now, to the review itself.
The episode starts out quite promisingly, with a gathering of the current interns at the mysterious behest of Dr. Brennan. It was interesting to see these characters, who had previously been restricted to their own episodes, interacting with each other and working together. Though the best of the interns left the show well before this point, the personalities of the squints in question played well together, at least during those first scenes.
Unfortunately, as the central mystery unfolds the writing quickly falls apart and the characters all adopt an identical conception of jingoistic and disingenuous patriotism. The problem with this "very special episode" is not that it chooses as its subject such an event as the attacks of September 11th 2001. The problem is that it is so poorly done. For fear of offending the pundits in the audience, the entirety of the dialogue concerning 9/11 is embarrassingly jingoistic, clichéd, and insulting to the memory of the victims of those attacks. Even Hodgins, the resident conspiracy theorist and eternal questioner of authority, becomes an honorary Fox News patriot for the day.
While much of the dialogue sounds like it was cut from leftover Sean Hannity monologues, the show takes a decidedly Left approach to its sole Muslim character, Arastoo (who is often the source of horrid dialogue and classless pandering), in order to provide a rousing monologue about the misappropriation of the Muslim religion. And it suffers from all of the same problems as the rest of the episode, being clichéd, reductionist, and insulting. This in itself is not great, but the real problem is the writers' unwillingness to question any of the assumptions made by the character (something the show has done regularly with other such moments and characters). For a series that has an otherwise admirable track record dealing with religion, this episode entirely fails to offer any kind of counterbalance to itself after Arastoo's declarations.
In any other episode, and particularly with any other religion, the show would have thrown Brennan or another intern into the discussion to offer another viewpoint from the simplistic and naive "religion is great and can never do wrong" speech given by Arastoo. This happens consistently throughout the series with regards to Christianity, where Brennan and Booth serve to balance one another. Brennan being the skeptic, Booth being the believer. Each offers their arguments and criticisms and the audience is left to decide for themselves who made the best case. In this special episode however, we do not get to choose. We are told exactly how to feel about religious belief, and everyone in the room comes to immediate consensus about it. There is no skeptic, no devil's advocate, no clarification or refinement. Nothing but "that was awesome!" (Yes, this is the literal line of dialogue that follows Arastoo's speech). Had Booth given a similar speech, Brennan would have immediately offered her rebuttal in her usual way. By cowardly removing this element from the show's religious discourse, the writers have utterly failed to live up to the series' standard.
This is not the smart, incisive show that it was in past seasons. This is emotional extortion. A national tragedy being exploited in order to trick the audience into feeling emotion that is not elicited from the quality of the script itself. This show is, or was, better than this. I hope the season improves from here.
