For my final paper, I’ve decided to write about the pilot episode of Bones. In this
episode, the audience is introduced to Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist
who is quirky, brutally honest, and super good at her job. She is called upon by agent
Booth of the FBI in order to solve a murder. Agent Booth knows how good Dr. Brennan
is at analyzing remains and has nicknamed Dr. Brennan “Bones.” After convincing her to
work under him, agent Booth takes Bones to a crime scene located at the bottom of a
pond. In order to investigate the sunken remains, Booth supplies a waterproof camera that
is fed under the boat and down into the depths. From above, Bones is able to watch a
video feed of remains that are wrapped up and weighted down to prevent the body from
floating while in the process of decomposition. Upon seeing this, she notes that the area
is a murder scene.
After the body is brought to the surface, Bones has a closer look at the bones of
the remains and estimates that the decedent was a female tennis player. Agent Booth
warily asks how she knows this information to which he is told by Bones’ assistant,
“Epiphysis fusion gives age, pelvic bone shape gives sex.” And to which Bones replies,
“Bursitis in the shoulder. Somebody this young…must be an athletic injury.” In the next
scene, the body is brought to a lab where Bones and her colleagues work. Here it is
determined that the body has been submerged for “one winter and two summers” by a
specialist who studies decomposition. He relays info to Bones that the body was
submersed in warm, microbial water and that bottom feeders like Koi and Black Carp fed on the tennis player. He also states that there are “three larval stages of trichoptera and
chironimidae.” All these variables played a catalytic role in the overall decomposition
process.
The next scene depicts Bones carefully reconstructing fragmented cranial remains
left from the burial site using Elmer’s glue and facial tissue markers. When she is
finished, the camera shows that she has pieced the victim’s skull back together. In the
next lab scene, the computer technician explains that this reconstructed skull was used in
a computer program that accepts digital inputs and processes these variables into a 3D
hologram projection. Bones then explains to agent Booth that “her skull was badly
damaged. But racial indicators- cheekbone dimensions, nasal arch, occipital
measurement- suggest African-American.” Suddenly, a projection of the victim is cast
down from the ceiling for everyone standing watch. After a couple of adjustments to race
and facial tissue depth, agent Booth recognizes the decedent as Cleo Eller, a missing
person that he was previously assigned to find. The audience is then notified that Cleo
had had an affair with Washington D.C. Senator Bethlehem, while she was interning for
him prior to her death.
Following up identification of the victim, Bones and agent Booth visit the
decedent’s family and inform them of their findings. Upon learning this info, the father
and mother become distraught and demand an explanation as to how their daughter died.
Booth explains that they are in the middle of the investigation and nothing has been
determined. Bones then asks the parents what Cleo was wearing around her neck when
she died. It turns out that it was her father’s missing Bronze Star, awarded while he
served in the military. This furthers the leads for the investigation process into
determination of Cleo’s manner of death. The next day, Bones and her lab techs are
shown hovering over the bones of Cleo while they discuss their most recent findings.
Bones states, “There are stab marks here and odd markings on the distal phalanges.” To
which her colleague, Dr. Hodgins, replies that the victim was “in a nutshell, anxious,
