Warning: General spoilers ahead

While last week’s season 12 premiere was all about Zack Addy’s (Eric Millegan)  big return to the series, tonight it’s back to business-as-usual at the Jeffersonian with another super-weird (and super-gross!) murder case. In the 2nd episode of the show’s final season, the team is introduced to the world of robots and artificial intelligence when Ian Goldberg, a pioneer in the field, is murdered and discovered by a fancy standard poodle with big hair at a local dog show.

Goldberg specialized in robots to assist children on the autism spectrum, and on paper, seemed like a saint whom everyone loved. In fact, as Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) said himself, “Who would want to hurt someone like this?” But, as we have all learned over the past 11 seasons of this series, everyone has secrets, and Dr. Golberg is no exception. It turns out that Goldberg may have ventured to the dark side when the team learns he was in the process of selling his technology for use in sex robots, and not to mention, according to most of his colleagues, he was a dick in real life.

As I watched the episode, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad because this is a case that Zack would have loved to work on. Remember back in Season 1 when Zack made the robot and then, ended up giving it away as a Christmas present? Yes, so sad. But, no worries because Zack **is** mentioned in this episode! Dr. Brennan (Emily Deschanel)  is about to turn 40 and decides to plan her own “surprise party.” (oh, yes, that’s so Dr. Brennan!) At the same time, she insists to Booth (David Boreanaz)  that he doesn’t get her anything. Booth does respect her wishes — well, sort of — and doesn’t give her a true present, but instead, gives her a small “gift,” and it’s related to Zack. Curious now? <smile> I absolutely loved this, and it lays a pretty good foundation for Episode 11, which is the next time we’ll see Zack Addy.

After the case is finally solved, Dr. Brennan does have her “surprise party,” which actually turns out to have a surprise or 2 but not for Brennan. Sadly, putting all the gifts and fun aside, we also learn at this party that one of our beloved characters may be sick. We’ve known since the Executive Producers teased the final season this past summer at San Diego Comic-Con that there were going to be some character deaths. Since then, the buzz and speculation have been virtually non-stop, and unfortunately, by the end of the hour, we’ll have a pretty good idea who one of those characters is likely going to be.

Episode 12.02 of Bones  is titled “The Brain In The Bot” and airs tonight at 9/8c on FOX.

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