Max Keenan is put on trial for the supposed murder of FBI Deputy Director Kirby, requiring everyone on the team (bar Brennan) to be called as witness for the prosecution. Brennan, however, is called as forensics advisor for the defense, putting her at odds with her team to free her father.
Tropes:
- Badass Boast: As badass as one can get in a realistic series:Clark (To Max) : "I shave, sir. I have a driver's license. I've won a couple fistfights. I've saved a life. I've lain with a woman. I've been hustled at pool. I've defied my father's wishes. I have broken hearts and I have been heartbroken. So by all the markers of this society, I am a grown man."
- Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Booth guesses that this happened to a skeleton found in an unlikely posture, but Bones shoots down his theory that the body was left rolled up in a rug that had rotted away.
- Courtroom Episode: This episode is about Max's trial.
- Noodle Incident: The case we never see solved: a skeleton curved all the way around into a backwards circle. This is before Brennan is pulled off the case for her father's trial.
- Race Against the Clock: Once it's established the object presented in court as the murder weapon wasn't the murder weapon, the judge gives the prosecution a deadline to find the real weapon and, if it's not found, the murder charge will be dropped. The real weapon is found.
- Taking the Heat: A downplayed version. Brennan doesn't confess to anything but does raise sufficient interpretations of the evidence to make herself a viable suspect for the murder, creating enough reasonable doubt to get Max found Not Guilty.
