The search to find the people framing Booth continues even after Booth is released from prison and assigned his new partner: junior agent James Aubrey (John Boyd). Unfortunately, the team's investigation is halted when Lance Sweets is murdered by people believed to be connected to the conspiracy.
Tropes
- Almost Dead Guy: Sweets survives his beating long enough to give Booth and Brennan a little info and also some poignant last words.
- Artistic License – Medicine: After three months, Booth is fully recovered from multiple gunshot wounds, all to his torso. That's a big no. He should still be in physical therapy, which he wouldn't get in prison.
- Beard of Sorrow: Booth is poorly unshaven in prison.
- Blackmail: The previous season had a ring that goes back to J Edgar Hoover himself. Brennan blackmails a corrupt Judge to get Booth freed when he’s framed by people in the blackmail ring and wrongly accused of murder, landing him in prison. She says she’s never blackmailed anyone but thinks she has everything.
- Blood from the Mouth: Sweets is bleeding from the mouth when Booth and Brennan find him as he’s dying.
- Cop Killer: The corrupt judge who had his guys beat Sweets to death. Federal agent killer, but still counts.
- Cop Killer Manhunt: After Sweets is killed, everyone is determined to take down the guy who did it, with Booth nearly going rogue to do it himself.
- Dies Wide Open: Goddammit, they killed Sweets.
- Downer Ending: Booth is released from prison and the crew is on their way to getting to the bottom of the conspiracy that landed him in there when Sweets is killed trying to stop one of the conspirators... not long after the audience learned he had not only reunited with Daisy but she is also pregnant with his son. We learn he is really, truly dead when Cam does his autopsy with everyone present, including Daisy.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine:
- Killed Off for Real: Sweets is killed. Unlike Booth's fake death in season 3, this is for real because Cam does Sweets' autopsy in front of all his friends and the woman carrying his child.
- Prison Episode: The episode's beginning has Booth in prison after a Frame-Up until Brennan resorts to blackmail to free him.
- Properly Paranoid: Hodgins correctly predicts that the conspiracy will come after Cooper's skeleton, so he snags some of the bones and replaces them with others from limbo.
- Rebuilt Set: Brennan moved into a new house after Booth and the Delta guys destroyed the old house. Founding Fathers also gets a rebuild for no reason.
- The Reveal: Sweets and Daisy have been hooking up, and now she's pretty heavily pregnant.
- Sacrificial Lion: As if we didn't need more reason to hate the conspiracy, they have someone brutally beat Sweets to death after we learn he's going to be a father.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: This episode introduces FBI agent Aubrey to replace the outgoing Sweets. Although he's not a shrink, he's a very young FBI agent who will have a lot to learn from Booth and Brennan and constantly be referred to as a kid. He's even lanky with black hair.
- Time Skip: It's been three months since the previous Season Finale.
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Bones and Booth managed to reach Sweets's murder scene before the paramedics, when they were nowhere near it. This is in part because Writers Don't Know Geography.
- Wham Episode: The episode brutally kills Sweets without warning in the last few minutes.
