Dr. Camille "Cam" Saroyan is the head of the Jeffersonian Institute's Forensic Division, a new division formed during the summer of 2006.
Brief character history
Previously she worked as a New York coroner, performing autopsies in difficult and sometimes unsanitary conditions, and admits to Booth she took the job at the Jeffersonian because of the facilities. She was also a cop in New York for eleven years before becoming a coroner. She is clearly a very focused and intelligent woman, to go from being a police officer to a medical doctor specialising in forensic pathology. (It's very unlikely that Brennan would tolerate a coroner with lesser qualifications.)
She is a 'hard line' woman who takes charge of her division and defends them if necessary, as long as she believes they are in the right. In the beginning of the second season, Saroyan butts heads with Dr. Brennan and the other team members, but eventually accepts their quirks and develops relationships with them. At one point early in Season 2, she considers removing Dr. Brennan from her position at the Jeffersonian, until both Angela and Booth make it abundantly clear if Brennan goes, the entire team will leave with her.
In the episode entitled "The Man in the Cell", Camille is almost killed by a neurotoxin (bromomethane) to which she is exposed by serial killer Howard Epps when she was trying to cut into the forehead of the former Mrs Epps. Epps' attack on Dr. Saroyan has an extreme emotional effect on both Brennan and Booth. Luckily, Hodgins manages to find out what the toxin is and alerts the hospital in time to save Cam. Originally, Saroyan was supposed to die in the episode, ending her character run, but the cast and producers received good reviews on the character of Camille Saroyan, thus decided to keep her.
Like all the other "squints", she is interested in Booth and Brennan's relationship. She often overhears Booth and Brennan's telephone exchanges or overly intimate conversations, and smiles or shakes her head at their apparent obliquity and insistence their relationship is strictly platonic and professional.
In the season 2 episode, "The Headless Witch in the Woods", Cam states her mother, who died when she was 23, came to her the day after she died and led her to find a necklace in a drawer. Cam still wears the necklace.
In the season 3 episode of "The Pain in the Heart", it is revealed Dr. Saroyan was a police officer for 10 years prior to obtaining her position in the Jeffersonian.
Cam has a seemingly poor relationship with her younger sister, Felicia, as both of them are very competitive, each of them trying to prove that their life is more fulfilling than the other. However their close relationship can be seen when both sisters decided to ignore Booth after he told Cam about Felicia kissing him in the episode,"Intern in the Incinerator", where her Dad had his sixtieth birthday.
In season 4, Saroyan became concerned when Jared Booth, Seeley Booth's younger brother, went out on a date with Brennan and was relieved to hear the two did not have sex. While Cam was not comfortable expressing why she felt this way, Angela was: "It would have been a creepy way to have sex with Booth, without having sex with the real Booth". Saroyan has also known the Booth brothers for a long number of years.
Later in season 4 in the episode "The Doctor in the Den"; Cam's ex-fiancée dies, and Cam meets his daughter, Michelle, again after ten years. At the end of the episode Cam offers to have Michelle move in with her and Michelle (the daughter) accepts. The episode ends with the two of them hugging.
It has also been hinted many times she is an occasional smoker.
In season 5, she tries to find a gynaecologist for Michelle and found a perfect one, until she starts dating the doctor. This however made her realise that Michelle cared for her enough to want her to have a man in her life.
History
Season 2
In the beginning of the second season, she butts heads with Dr. Brennan and the team members, but eventually accepts their quirks and develops relationships with them. At one point early on in Season 2, she considers removing Dr. Brennan from her position at the Jeffersonian, until both Angela and Booth make it abundantly clear that if Brennan goes, they all go.
Dr. Saroyan and Booth have had an intimate/romantic relationship in the past, a relationship that is rekindled at an undisclosed point midway through the series. It is revealed in the episode "Aliens in a Spaceship" that they had plans to go to New York together. This relationship ended in "The Man in the Cell", when Booth asserted that workplace relationships put everyone in danger when high-pressure situations arose, after Camille is almost killed by a neurotoxin (bromomethane) she is exposed to by serial killer Howard Epps. She originally was supposed to die in the episode and ending the character of Cam, but the cast and producers thought she was a good addition to the storyline and decided to keep her.
Season 3
Season 4
In the beginning of Season 4, she had intercourse with Angela's ex-husband.
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Relationships
Romantic
Arastoo Vaziri
See also: Cam and Arastoo
In the season 8 episode The Bod in the Pod, it is revealed that Cam is in a relationship with Arastoo Vaziri, one of Brennan's 'squinterns'. Hodgins is the first to find out, when he overhears Arastoo reading a poem that he wrote in Farsi to Cam. They urge him not to tell anyone else, and it is only when he and Angela sees Cam and Arastoo kiss that she finds out. Cam tells Arastoo that she "wants to tell everyone, but [she] doesn't want anyone to know". Arastoo asks her if she wants him to quit, but Cam quickly declines, telling him that she could not live with that guilt.
Seeley Booth
- See also: Cam and Booth
Dr. Saroyan and Booth have had an intimate/romantic relationship in the past, a relationship that is rekindled at an undisclosed point midway through the series. In the episode "The Boy in the Shroud", several comments, conversations, and scenarios between different characters suggest Cam and Booth may have been romantically involved at a young age, most likely in high school or early college, although this has yet to be explicitly confirmed. Later episodes reveal Cam has known Booth and his younger brother for fifteen years, which seems to support this conclusion, or at least indicate they knew each other as adolescents. It is further revealed in the episode "Aliens in a Spaceship" that Booth and Saroyan had struck up their relationship again after she came to the Jeffersonian, although Booth appeared to have some reservations and was uncomfortable telling anyone at work, especially Dr. Brennan, about his connection with Camille. The relationship between Booth and Saroyan ended in "The Man in the Cell", when Booth asserted workplace relationships put everyone in danger when high-pressure situations arise. She still asked him to play her boyfriend for her father's birthday dinner in the season 3 episode "Intern in the Incinerator".
Grayson Barasa
Camille also had a brief fling with Angela's ex-husband Grayson "Birimbau" Barasa. After flirting a bit at the Jeffersonian, she offered to drive him to the airport, where his flight was canceled and he checked into a local hotel with her.
Cam dated Paul, a gynecologist for awhile during season 5 and they broke up sometime during season 6.
Andrew Welton
Cam was once engaged to and lived with a cardiology surgeon named Dr. Andrew Welton. While they were dating, and later engaged, Cam helped to raise his daughter, Michelle. However, after his wife's death (Michelle's mother, who died in childbirth), he was never able to fully commit to their relationship, and was constantly cheating. Though Cam did love him, she ended the engagement, leaving Welton and the young Michelle behind. 10 years later in the season 4 episode "The Doctor in the Den" his remains are found in a tiger exhibit at a zoo. Upon learning the identity of the remains, Cam takes it upon herself to inform Michelle of her father's death. Michelle claims to barely remember Cam and she treats her coldly. Later in the episode, Michelle admits she had been very deeply hurt by Cam's apparent abandonment, and she had waited at the window for weeks, "waiting for you to come home." Finally, at the end of "The Doctor in the Den". Michelle and Cam are reconciled and Michelle accepts Cam's offer to move in with her.
Trivia
- Cam was originally supposed to die after six episodes, but the cast and crew loved her so much that they decided to keep her.
- Cam has arachnophobia (The Proof in the Pudding) and ophidiophobia (The Hot Dog in the Competition).
- Cam was once hypnotized by a Las Vegas showman into clucking like a chicken after hearing the word "coffee," and although she claims to have gotten past it through the years, she still clucked unintentionally at Angela's test of the word. (Death in the Saddle)
- When living in New York, she acted in a cheesy, low budget film called 'Invasion of the Mother Suckers' The Suit on the Set