The Woman in the Car

The Woman in the Car is the eleventh episode of the first season of Bones.
== Summary ==
When a woman’s burned body is found in a car with signs that her child was kidnapped, Brennan and Booth suspect the father, Carl Decker. But things get complicated when Decker turns out to be in the Witness Protection program.
== Recap ==
Special Agent Seeley Booth enters Dr. Temperance Brennan's office and waits as she awkwardly answers questions about her new book, Bred in the Bone, in a television interview on Wake Up, DC!. After the interview ends, Booth quickly takes her to the crime scene where a car and its driver were found extensively burnt, with signs of a child kidnapping. They retrieve the body to the Jeffersonian Institute where they determine the remains belong to an Eastern European female, who is also a mother.
As they examine the evidence, the team is interrupted by the arrival of Agent Samantha Pickering from the State Department, who has been assigned to conduct a security review on the team. By reconstructing the facial features of the victim, forensic artist Angela Montenegro is able to identify the victim. The victim's name is Polina Semov. She has an eight-year-old son, Donovan, with her husband Carl Decker, who she is currently separated from. Booth suspects Carl to be the kidnapper. However, Booth and Brennan discover that Carl is under a Federal witness protection program and is scheduled to testify in two days against KBC Systems, a company he believes is responsible for the deaths of 30 soldiers by knowingly sending defective armor to Iraq. The Justice Department informs them that they have not told Carl about his wife and son lest he decides not to testify.
Booth finds out Carl's secret meetings at a motel were the cause of the separation between Carl and his wife. The meetings were with Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Weeks, assigned to Decker's case against KBC Systems. Weeks tells Booth that Carl disappeared after he was not allowed to talk with his son. Booth and Brennan find Carl at KBC Systems, pointing a gun to the CEO's head, accusing him of the kidnapping. Carl reluctantly surrenders at Brennan and Booth's urging.
Brennan and her assistant, Zack Addy determine the victim was burnt post mortem and the cause of death was electrocution, which Zach later figures out the current used was consistent with the current provided by a generator. Agent Pickering's security review is terminated by her superior when she asks Brennan about a certain piece of classified information. All her notes taken from the team are instructed to be destroyed. From the ear wax in the ear that Zach had found earlier in the victim's throat, Dr. Jack Hodgins is able to determine the origins of the kidnapper to be South African. Booth remarks that companies use South African mercenaries.
The kidnappers threaten Booth by sending him Donovan's finger. From the finger, Brennan is able to ascertain that the boy is alive and her team is able to determine that the boy is likely being held in an abandoned gas station or mechanic shop. The FBI is able to determine that while Polina's cell phone was never used after she was kidnapped and killed, it was also never turned off and eventually passed into the coverage area of another routing tower which gives them a 75 square mile area to look. There's six abandoned gas stations and mechanic shops in the area, five urban and one rural. While the FBI SWAT teams intend to hit all of them, Booth takes Brennan to the rural one, believing from his own Special Forces experience that that's the one that mercenaries would choose.
At the gas station, SWAT determines that there are three adults inside the building using thermal imaging, but can't locate Donovan which Booth speculates is because he is so small and so cold. Leaving Brennan outside, Booth and the SWAT team storm the building and engage in a quick gunfight with the mercenaries which leaves all three men dead. Booth rescues a terrified Donovan, gaining his trust using a code word given to him by Carl. Carl is brought to the scene and tearfully reunited with his son while Booth tells Brennan that he's gladder than ever to be a parent.
==Cast==
===Main Cast===
* Temperance Brennan - Emily Deschanel
* Seeley Booth - David Boreanaz
* Jack Hodgins - T.J Thyne
* Angela Montenegro - Michaela Conlin
* Zack Addy - Eric Millegan
* Daniel Goodman - Jonathan Adams
===Recurring cast===
* Sam Cullen - John M. Jackson
===Guest cast===
*Carl Decker - Zeljko Ivanek
*Samantha Pickering - Suzanne Cryer
*Trent Seward - Lawrence Pressman
*Donovan Decker - Jake Cherry
*Polina Decker - Anna Easteden
*Stacy Goodyear - Jaime Ray Newman
*Maria Semov - Sarah Ann Schultz
*Sharon Pomeroy - Alexa Fischer
*Assistant U.S. Attorney Weeks - Marc Jablon
*Special Agent Stone - Ben Parrillo
==Notes==
* The first reference to Angela's long-lost, forgotten husband who she married (though she didn't think it was a legal marriage at the time) in Fiji occurs when Agent Pickering asks Angela about her "husband" during her security check interview.
*Brennan says that her television interview was her first. She had been interviewed for television (with Penny Marshall) in the previous episode, "The Woman at the Airport".
*Agent Pickering tells Hodgins that she does not need to interview him because the State Department researched him 6 months prior when his cousin was appointed to a very high post in the government. Throughout the series, it is established that Hodgins has no living relatives left (which accounts for his vast wealth as the sole heir to the Cantilever Group).
==Quotes==
*Booth: FBI!US Marshall agent: US Marshall's!Booth: US Marshall's?Brennan: Forensic Anthropologist. That's why no gun.
*Hodgins: I know things that would curdle your blood, including a formula that literally curdles blood.
*Brennan: Why don't we ever take my car?Booth: You have Bullet Proof vests in the back?Brennan: No.Booth: That's why.
*Hodgins: Way to go Zack! We went from geniuses to idiots in three seconds.
*Booth: I hope you're really good at your job, Mr. Weeks.Weeks: Why's that?Booth: Because otherwise, you got nothing going for you.Brennan: He's a father himself.Weeks: Well, thank god I had the sense never to let that happen to me.
==I don't know what that means==
==External Links==
*The Woman in the Car summary at the official site of Bones
* Bones: The Woman in the Car at TV.com
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 1