Bones – Season 8 Episode 12 – Recap – The Corpse in the Canopy

Pelant (Andrew Leeds) reprised his character in the twelfth episode of Bones Season 8, and he definitely made an impact. Whenever Pelant is added into the script, you just know it’s going to be a visually disgusting episode to watch. From the moment I saw the corpse at the beginning of the episode to the moment I witnessed Pelant reconstructing his OWN face, I almost hurled. Almost. And that’s saying a lot coming from ME—since I’m such an avid fan of ‘Bones.’

Pelant

Christopher Pelant is back from Egypt, and he’s completely wiped out his alternative identity—Bassam Alfayat—from the federal records. He hung a corpse (inside a canopy) from Angela & Hodgins’ bedroom ceiling. It was revealed later in the episode that Pelant had filled their bedroom with gas so that he could hang the dead body from A+H’s ceiling (while they were unconscious). Angela (Michaela Conlin) and Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) didn’t discover the body until after they woke up. Also: Pelant placed petals inside of their son’s crib. Though A+H were under distress, they still participated in this murder case.

Here are a few quotes from Angela & Hodgins:

“Pelant was holding Michael (their son) in his arms!” – Angela

“He (Pelant) was in my bedroom, he threatened my wife, my child! Nothing is more important than that!” – Hodgins

Hodgins in distress

I usually post a screencap of the murder victim in each recap, but for this recap, I won’t post one because it’s just that disgusting to look at. I wonder how long it takes the artists of Bones to create something like that for each episode? Absolutely repulsive.

Brennan (Emily Deschanel) determined the murder victim to be a highly trained professional soldier in his late 30’s. I believe Pelant placed the murder victim in Hodgins’ bedroom for revenge. (Hodgins choked Pelant in an earlier episode, and Pelant didn’t want Hodgins working on this case). Later in the episode, Hodgins biopsied both his own lungs and Angela’s lungs in an attempt to trace the gas that was used to fill up their bedroom.

Pelant called Brennan to let her know that he left her a clue (he mailed a finger to the Jeffersonian Institute—not a human finger, but a finger that belonged to a Visalius ape). Pelant murdered the victim in the same fashion as the Visalius, and he left a code for the forensic team: M-E-L-Y-C-U—a code that was re-arranged to the word, “Lyceum.” It turns out Lyceum is an all-girls’ school in Afghanistan. Though Pelant scheduled an “MQ9 predator drone” to fly directly into the Lyceum School, Angela figured out how to self-destruct the drone before it hit the school (Lyceum was the code needed to self-destruct the drone). Her success came with a price, however. Pelant completely drained her and Hodgins’ bank accounts in the process.

The MQ9 Predator Drone self-destructing

Angela figured out that Pelant has been using the alias: Justin Tremble (after he got back from Egypt) so she traced the server that he was currently using. The entire FBI squad locked down the building that Pelant was inside of, but he got away. Pelant hijacked all of the security cameras, disconnected the main server, and then escaped through a secret pathway that wasn’t even drawn in the original blueprints. And, Agent Flynn (Reed Diamond) was severely injured in the process. Flynn is stabilized for now, but who exactly knows what will become of his character in the future? Then, Agent Booth (David Boreanaz) shot Pelant while he was driving in his getaway car… Pelant still managed to get away despite having a bullet in his body.

At the end of the episode, Pelant killed a plastic surgeon and proceeded to rearrange his OWN face with the dead plastic surgeon’s face. How is the forensic team ever going to catch him, now that his face looks completely different?? Pelant is so repulsive, but he’s the missing puzzle piece to the entire puzzle. He is the character that makes this series more brilliant than it already is.