Disclaimer: The parts and the sum and the whole of the thing belong to Hart Hanson and Fox, etc.

Warning: Spoilers for episode 100, "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole."

Note: The last time Bones went all artsy and literary on us, there was a tumor and a coma dream so we got Jack Hodgins as narrator to help straighten us out. And that was nice. But Hodgins doesn't scream "matter of the heart." Well, not as well as Angela does anyway. So, for this landmark episode, I'm giving Angela a shot. This is totally off the wall and not like anything I've done. So, well, feedback extra appreciated.

Someone Call for a Narrator?

Or

"The Parts in the Sum of the Whole" as read by Angela Montenegro

[1] Dude, where's my gore?

Things are different to begin with. That one thing you must remember or nothing that follows will seem wondrous. Okay, that's probably not true but it'll definitely seem less wondrous.

So we start like this: Booth and Brennan are riding an escalator, going up. It's typical for them, standing side-by-side, moved together by an outside force. But it's not exactly the typical start to a case. I mean where's the challenge to my gag reflex? Where's the gore so unfailingly revolting that it's only surprising now when it succeeds in making him flinch. Isn't this case supposed to start a different way? Shouldn't some hapless hominids happen across some horrible human remains? Not today. No sir-ee, Bob.

Instead, they're discussing Sweets and the book we've all been waiting for. So in case the Dickens reference a few sentences back didn't sink in, here it is again: things are different this time around. Just in case you weren't sure. How often does one of their cases begin in such an atypical fashion? I can think of one other time. And at the end of that one he woke up.

In the middle of a conversation that started somewhere in the dark, somewhere below the street, somewhere before we started watching, Booth gently brings up that they need to tell Sweets about the mistake he made and Brennan agrees. And because he's a nice guy, Booth feels bad that they're going to ruin Sweets's happy ending, going to tag team a boy who's trying so hard to become a man. Last week it was a ring, today it's a book. Booth talks about how well people usually take warnings. Usually it involves screaming and running into walls. Ouch.

Brennan is hysterical, coaching herself through Booth's half-assed metaphor about shouting "fire." She says "Okay, okay" as she works out the analogy and we can only see the back of Booth's head and a hint of waggling eyebrows but this would be a perfect moment for an "attagirl." You know, not like that other one.

It's important to note that "attagirl" is part of their relationship. They are each other other's best friend. So "attagirl" is part of it but not all of it. (And since I'm the narrator and it's my job to point out the obvious, I'll take the opportunity to say that if ever in the course of this story you forget that the title is, "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole" you're going to be missing sooo much.)

Like always, Brennan is rational. She'd want to know about a mistake in one of her books so Sweets will certainly appreciate knowing as well. The fact that she still doesn't really consider Sweets a person of science (like herself) doesn't factor in. Even after all this time, she still assumes everyone is rational. Like you and I might make assumptions about, I dunno, gravity. Apples fall, planets rotate the sun. These are the rules. Perfect and rational. But she, Sweetie that she is, wants to extend perfection beyond the sun to everything and everyone under the sun. She who finds the notion of God distasteful still wants to make gods of the rest of us.

When Booth calls the mistake an interpretation she is horrified. "Okay, what exactly do you think, you think we're telling him about?" Booth asks. And you gotta take a moment and revel in this exchange:

Her: Page 31, and I quote ....

Him: Oh! Right, yeah. We worked that other case before that.

Her: What did you think we were going to talk to him about?

Him: The whole, uh, love thing?

And he's totally baiting her here but you probably don't mind because, admit it, you're used to siding with Booth. You've learned to get where Brennan's coming from but Seeley Booth is your Everyman, right? Which is why this moment is great. Because the scene might (and will) end in Brennan sneering over the notion that she'd be upset by Sweets's opinion that she and Booth are in love. "Why would I care about that?" she says, carelessly breaking our hearts while Booth looks puzzled. He's hinted about his feelings to her more than once now so he's not at all heart broken when she doesn't take the bait.

Don't worry Booth, that'll come later.

So we love her but we're annoyed with her and it's so typical that we forget, for a second, to be annoyed with him. But things are different today and he deserves it. Boy, does he deserve it! Sure she might be zealously focussed on page 31 instead of the "whole love thing" but why, for crying out loud, isn't he? He only remembers that they worked a case before Cleo Eller at her prompting.

Big deal! You might argue.

But it is! I reply.

See, it's not that he forgot the case, it's that he didn't even realize Sweets might need to know all the stuff that happened during the case, with the case, around the case. I'll tell you ahead of time, gentle readers, today's story is many stories and each small story describes a larger one. And the story he's just now remembering is not about the case, it's not about the noun. It's about prepositions. Like this entire saga of our lives. It's not about the terrible thing that happened but about all the other things that happened alongside that thing.

So we're annoyed with him too because the prepositions of that first case-all the stuff that happened with and during and around that first murder case-those are BIG things. So he's trying to talk about love and for once she's right to be horrified.

To Be Continued.