
Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist who works at the Jeffersonian Institution and also writes books, has an impressive ability to read clues from victims' bones. Consequently, law enforcement calls her to assist with investigations when remains are so badly decomposed, burned or destroyed that standard identification methods are useless. Brennan is teamed with Special Agent Seeley Booth, a former Army sniper, who mistrusts science and scientists when it comes to solving crimes but who has developed respect for Brennan, both professionally and personally.

When Booth's son, Parker, finds a finger in a bird's nest, the team launches an investigation to find the rest of the body; Booth asks Sweets to psychoanalyze his son; Sweets confronts Hodgins about his attitude in the lab.

A teen discovers a dismembered, headless body in a pool of purple water; the team struggles to find enough evidence to locate a killer until getting insight from Zack, who studies the case at his psychiatric facility.

Booth and Brennan investigate when the remains of a disliked office manager are found in a building elevator shaft; Angela and Hodgins try to figure out their altered relationship.

Skeletal remains with remnants of breast implants are found in the Chesapeake Bay; when the body's lower half is discovered, the team realizes that initial assumptions about the victim may be wrong.