The Babe in the Bar

by Courtney Hilden

In this episode of Bones a woman is discovered in a giant chocolate bar. Like many of the show's openings, this happened to have the gross-out moment where putrefied body liquid came out of the bar. Luckily (or maybe not) the body liquid looked like carmel and raspberry filing, not corpse juice.
Meanwhile, other characters were dealing with other storylines. Cam's daughter was about to apply to college, and decided she wanted to go to Central Maine State. It was so nice to see a character applying to a college that no one has ever gone to. Every time characters go to college on tv, they go somewhere well-known and usually prestigious, so showing a state school is a nice change. The not so good thing about this decision? Michelle's motivation for going to the school, which was where her boyfriend was going to be at. The storyline also emphasized Cam's lack of confidence in Sweets. When Angela suggested Cam talk to him, Cam said that she didn't want to "talk to a child about a child." Ouch. It was really unfair, considering that Sweets did make a reasonable argument for why Cam should back off. Of course, just because Sweets made a reasonable argument doesn't mean Cam listened, which includes applying for her adopted daughter.
Also, Hodgins finally decided it was time to announce his and Angela's pregnancy. You already knew how the baby surprise storyline was going to end, since the writers have been setting everyone up since the beginning of the season. Poor Hodgins had no idea that everyone already knew the surprise. Angela was forced into asking people into pretending they were surprise, which of course means they would accidentally tip Hodgins off.
As for the central storyline, I was hoping that the victim had lied to her family about training to be a chocolate maker. It was additionally strange that no matter what the size of evidence, there's always a table big enough to hold it, even when it's a giant chocolate lab. (And don't defend this by saying they had borrowed the table. Did you see how big that table is? Who has a table like that just so someone can borrow it?) Also lame? Making the victim, named Harriet, a spy.

"Hell is the Truth Learned Too Late"

Or, a Review of "Third Girl"
by Courtney Hilden

"Third Girl," the latest in this series of Poirot's adventures, is by far the most messy and difficult to understand story. The story involves a young woman named Norma, who visits Poirot, telling him that she believed she had committed a crime. This is apparently all Poirot needs, because he is off, tracking this girl down and trying to decide if she, indeed, has done something wrong. He discovers her involvement in a crime, including that of her two roommates, Frances, an actress, and Claudia Reese-Holland, a secretary and lover of Norma's Father, and Norma's boyfriend David, a painter. It's an embarrassingly bad and bland attempt at making a mystery interesting.
Other than that, it is hard to know where to begin with this dead carcass of a mystery. It is slow moving. The majority of the characters are impossible to care for, and Mr. Rodderick and Norma's interactions feel more like a creepy incestuous relationship than that of a father or daughter. At least one of them was suppose to believe that they were in a real relationship. Sonia and her relationship with a much older man was also creepy. The music was also melodramatic and miserable. Music is only suppose to be that on the nose in soap operas.
Once again, Jemima Rooper manages to give a great, relateable and believable performance as the title character. If her miraculous work making her the only consistently good thing on Hex and this episode of Poirot is any indication, Rooper deserves bigger and better roles, because she can clearly work material into something good.
There are other, smaller things that made this better. Poirot being insulted several times for being too old was a nice touch of levity (and perhaps another meta comment on the series, as part of the inclusion of a stand-in for Christie herself.) It was also nice to show Poirot being compassionate and solving this mystery for genuine concern for Norma, and not for being harsh and unyielding like he has become in other outings. Next time, he should be allowed to feel for his victims. Helping others should be his motivation, not enforcing the law on other's.