['Bones' - 'The Truth in the Myth']

When a guest writer comes along to pen an episode of a long-running series, there are bound to be concerns. Has he or she seen the show before? Do they have a handle on the characters and their interactions? Can they follow the format with their own unique style?

Luckily, viewers of 'Bones' didn't have to worry much since the guest writer was John Francis Daley, known to us as Doctor Lance Sweets. The result was a fast-paced episode with some amusing moments, solid detecting, and a welcome avoidance from the romantic struggles of Booth and Bones.




The mystery revolved around the death of a myth-busting show host from a cryptid creature known as a Chupacabra. This brought differing opinions and feelings from the characters. For Hodgins, the mere mention of a potential death by cryptid perked him right up. We don't see this side of Jack much since he got married. Thus, it's a happy occasion when something like this pops up, as it shows Hodgins still believes in all those crazy conspiratorial-mythical situations.

For Booth, the Chupacabra gave him the opportunity to mess with Bones' head a bit. Seeley has been laying low in his continuing project to humanize Temperance. While making a recommendation here or there, he hasn't really tested her. This time he concocted a story about seeing a Yeti, which put Bones into verification mode. In the end, after extensively researching a plausible creature that Booth could have actually seen, Seeley confused her even more by saying the story was a fake. Or was it?

For Bones, discussion on the cryptid allowed her to debunk a crypto zoologist on television -- well, public access television. My gosh, didn't the man know what he was getting himself into when he asked Brennan to sit with him? Everyone in the viewing audience knew he was going to get raked over the coals by Bones. Still, it's always fun to watch Tempy tear someone down who tends to deserve it.

Finally, the week's mystery allowed Sweets to get in some serious interrogation time. He handled a total of four, including with a pet psychic, played by Jo Anne Worley. For fans of her days on 'Laugh-In' and 'Match Game,' it must have been strange to see Ms. Worley being so calm when we all remember her as the big-eyed girl with the high hair style and the infectious cackle.

Despite this, she played the role of an animal psychic pretty straight. I would have liked to have seen more but, unfortunately, Sweets declined her offer to speak with the goat found at the murder site. The show would have been over 20 minutes earlier if she had talked to the animal and found out what really happened.

Beside the murder plot, this episode featured a story around Vincent Nigel-Murray. After getting the short shrift a few weeks ago, we found out something interesting about the young man, other than reducing the amount of tangential information he usually spurted during an investigation. Turns out, Vincent is in AA after a post-'Jeopardy' downward spiral. In this episode he was up to Step 9 of the Twelve-Step plan: asking for forgiveness.

Boy, did he have a lot to be forgiven for: Peeing in Hodgins' tadpole tank, wearing Bones' iguana as a hat during a party, stealing coupons from Cam's desk drawer. But those were only the small ones. The biggies were the tall tales to his friends of his relationships with Bones, Cam and Angela. According to these stories, he had dated and had sex with all three of these women at one point or another. While Cam and Angela were shocked, Bones was her usual self and laughed it off, feeling it would be absurd for her and Nigel-Murray to ever be romantically involved.

But this wasn't where Vincent got his comeuppance. In a predictable yet funny moment, Hodgins got Nigel-Murray back with the old Shoe Polish on the Microscope Lenses trick, which left the young Squintern looking either like a British Raccoon or the lead character in 'The Incredible Mr. Limpet.' It was a true King of the Lab moment for Hodgins.

Overall, it was a good first outing for Mr. Daley's writing talents. Using the show's history, he was able to put together an episode that hearkened back to the earlier days of the show when the mystery was the story while the romance hid in the background. If the ratings for this week's episode are good, perhaps John will get another script-writing opportunity in the future.

What did you think of John Francis Daley's writing gig for 'Bones?'

Bones airs Thursdays at 8PM ET on FOX.

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Watch the full episode here: