Arastoo's life is on the line after the CDC brings in a body discovered at a biohazard disposal facility is found to have been infected with an unknown and potentially lethal virus. The team must then work around the clock to identify the virus and the killer to prevent a potential outbreak. After the case, Brennan surprises Booth under a gazebo.
Tropes
- Amputation Stops Spread: Suggested; when Arastoo is first infected, he suggests cutting off the finger that got pricked, but the CDC consultant affirms that won't help in the current situation.
- Artistic License – Biology: Averted. The killer virus couldn't destroy dead flesh; viruses require living cells to reproduce. However, the virus was accelerated by including Clostridium botulinum, a prokaryotic infection that causes botulism, and bacteria don't require living hosts to reproduce and excrete their toxins.
- Carrying the Antidote: It’s surmised that the killer would have it in case he was infected himself, so they need to find him before Arastoo succumbs to the virus.
- Contamination Situation: Intern Of The Week Arastoo is infected and drives the team to discover a cure before the clock runs out.
- Convulsive Seizures: Arastoo when he’a dying from a virus; He’s given an anti-serum but it fails to work and increases his heart rate until he seized.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Subverted when Angela declares that if Hodgins had done to her what Mia did to her boyfriend, she would not want to kill him; she would have killed him.
- Find the Cure!: Arastoo is infected with a Synthetic Plague and catching the killer of the originally infected victim is tantamount to getting the anti-serum to save him.
- Hollywood Law: This one is kind of dicey, actually. The team has enough to get the killer based on all the evidence they managed to collect. The dicey part is the end, where Brennan pretends to inject the killer with the virus in order to get the anti-serum necessary to save Arastoo. That was criminal assault and the confession that came with it would be totally in the wind. However, no one would convict Brennan for what she did and the evidence wasn't necessary. Still, Cowboy Cop out the ass.
- Instant Illness: A Synthetic Plague has Arastoo close to death in a couple of hours.
- Instant Sedation: Arastoo again. He needs a procedure to help him fight the illness and when Cam injects sedative into his IV beforehand, he’s out in seconds. Possibly justified since it was directly into his bloodstream.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The entire team freaks out when they go to move the remains and Arastoo says "Ow." because something jabbed him. This goes up to a billion when they see he's bleeding.
- The killer when Brennan jabs him with a syringe she says is full of distilled virus.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Brennan finds Hodgins concocting a cure for Arastoo based on old folk remedies, the sort of thing she would ordinarily ridicule as superstition. Instead she joins in, offers suggestions about what to pursue, and helps him work out dosage ratios.
- Race Against the Clock: The team would already have been motivated to catch a killer with an instant death virus post-haste, but then Arastoo gets infected and they find themselves with a few hours to save his life by catching the killer in the hope that they can also retrieve the antidote.
- Synthetic Plague: The modified virus that killed the victim and infected Arastoo.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The killer was experimenting on killer viruses, and killed the victim to cover up the incredible danger of unsanctioned experimentation.
- Withholding the Cure: The killer won’t give up the anti-serum at first, even as Cam begs him to save the dying Arastoo, because admitting he has the cure is basically an admission of guilt. He relents when Brennan grabs a nearby syringe and fakes injecting him with the virus.
