The Tiger in the Tale

The Tiger in the Tale is the fourth episode of the eighth season of Bones.
==Synopsis==
The Jeffersonian team investigates the death of Jared Drew, an animal expo employee, and in the course of their investigation into his death, they enter the world of illegal animal trafficking. Meanwhile, Brennan thinks she would make an excellent presidential candidate, and Sweets and Daisy take on a big change in their relationship.
==Summary==
A husband and wife have run off the road and their car is stuck in the mud. They argue as the husband pushes on the back of the car and the wife revs the engine. Suddenly, the spinning wheels spit out something red and goopy. The wife gets out of the car and screams -- there is a face stuck to her husband's shirt.
Booth and Bones talk politics at the breakfast table. Bones is making a list of why she would be a good presidential candidate. She considers it everyone's responsibility to figure out how they can best serve the public. They get a call. Bones has a chance to serve by doing what she does best: solving a murder. At the scene, Bones IDs the messy remains as a male while Hodgins vacuums up bugs crawling on the body. The husband, sitting nearby, then throws up the victim's tooth, which was shot into his mouth by the spinning wheels. 
Back at the lab, Hodgins finds newspaper shoved in the man's boots. So he was wearing shoes that didn't fit him. He also had horrible teeth. Hodgins discovers from the bugs that time of death was about five days prior. At the diner, Sweets hands Daisy her keys. The two officially live together now.
Later, Hodgins finds small pieces of rare Venetian glass wedged in the dead man's boots. He traces them to the local fairgrounds, where an antique show was recently held. B&B head to the fairgrounds and find a man, Juan, picking from a crowd of workers desperate for cleaning jobs. B&B Interview Juan, who believes that he recognizes Angela's facial reconstruction of the victim as a day laborer named Jared. Later, research shows that the victim's ex-wife filed a restraining order against Jared two days before he died. Also, Jared was a formerly successful businessman who recently lost everything.
Daisy, meanwhile, has reconstructed the victim's face and discovered a bullet hole in his head. That hole does not match the bullet holes found in the hands. "Two guns," Bones says. "We're likely looking for two killers." Perhaps only coincidentally, Sweets interviews the victim's wife, Marcy, and her new boyfriend, Mike -- who explains that Jared was constantly coming around and asking Marcy to dump Mike and come back to her. Mike calls Jared a "loser," but Marcy tearfully refers to her ex as "a good man." Both demand a lawyer.
Camille then finds remnants of exotic animals on the victim and determines that his last job was at a local pet expo. So B&B bring in the pet expo owner, Eric, who says he never met the victim. B&B then question the man's line of work, but Eric pushes back, explaining that everything he does, including selling lions and tigers, is perfectly legal. At the diner, Angela eats with Sweets, who admits that he is a "little nervous" about moving in with Daisy. "It's a minor commitment," he says. Angela suggests that what he sees as minor, Daisy might see as the beginning of a new life together. Sweets grimaces.
Back at the lab, Hodgins discovers even more evidence on the victim: a purebred Siberian tiger slashed him. He also notes that buying or selling one of those animals would be a felony. Camille also has news. She figures that Jared was shot in the hand with a hollow point bullet and it expanded before entering and exiting his face. Thus: "One bullet, one shooter." Later, Sweets and Booth theorize that the victim was selling a Siberian tiger when he was slashed. They decide to start looking for farms around the area where the body was found that might be housing an illegal tiger.
First, however, Sweets interviews the exotic pet expo owner. Eric agrees to take the names of potential Siberian tiger buyers home to see if any look suspicious. Angela, in the meantime, decides to look at satellite images of the farms, but the images are a year old. So, Hodgins breaks out his WWII model plane equipped with a camera and flies it over the farms. Watching the images back at the lab, Camille and Angela spot zebras, camels and more. So B&B head to the farm in question -- and find, half buried in the woods, the Siberian tiger carcass. The farm's owner is defensive at first, but then admits that he had to kill the creature because it was "out of control." Bones, who doesn't like zoos, is furious. She is held back by Booth and then begins to cry.
Back at Booth's office, Bones declares that killing tigers will warrant the death penalty when she becomes president. They then interview the farm owner, who denies killing Jared after the man sold him the tiger. The farm owner then explains that someone was with Jared that night. He also tells B&B that he bought the tiger online and was instructed to bring the money to a man named Juan at the fairgrounds. B&B head back to the fairgrounds and Juan admits to taking delivery of the envelope, but claims he had no idea it was for the purchase of a tiger. So who did he give the money to? Eric.
B&B bring in Eric, who is clearly sick. Bones theorizes that it was from the blowback when he shot Jared, who had blood poisoning from being slashed by the tiger. Sure enough, they find a sliver of bone fragment in the man's shooting hand. Case closed, but not the episode. Sweets returns to his new apartment to find Daisy waiting on the stoop. A very sad Sweets tells Daisy that he can't move in with her. "I misconstrued the significance," he says through tears. "I'm so sorry ... We're breaking up." Daisy watches him go.
==Cast==
===Main Cast===
*Temperance Brennan - Emily Deschanel
*Seeley Booth - David Boreanaz
*Jack Hodgins - T.J Thyne
*Angela Montenegro - Michaela Conlin
*Camille Saroyan - Tamara Taylor
*Lance Sweets - John Francis Daley
===Intern of the Week===
*Daisy Wick - Carla Gallo
===Guest Cast===
*Eric Neilbling - Brian McNamara
*Juan Chiquez - Arturo del Puerto
*Thomas Casey - Chris Butler
*Marcy Drew - Heather Mazur
*Mike Young - Drew Rausch
*Costas - Ryan Caltagirone
*Lucia - Audrey Dundee Hannah
*FBI Tech - Andy Tran
==Featured Music==
* TBA
==Notes==
*When Sweets and Daisy are standing outside their new apartment, it's actually a How I Met Your Mother set.
*When Bones and Booth are discussing Bones running for president, Bones mentions that Donald Trump was thinking of running. Although he didn't run in 2012, Trump did make a successful run for President in the 2016 election.
==Quotes==
Category:Season 8
Category:Episodes