The Boneless Bride in the River

The Boneless Bride in the River
Season 2
Episode 16
Air date	March 21, 2007
Production code	2AKY16
Written by	Gary Glasberg
Directed by	Tony Wharmby
Previous	The Bodies in the Book
Next	The Priest in the Churchyard

The Boneless Bride in the River is the sixteenth episode of the second season of Bones.

Synopsis

Interrupting Brennan's romantic vacation with Sully on his boat in the marina, Booth drags her to a crime scene on the river where the shell of a woman's body is found minus all of her bones. The body poses an intriguing case for the team as they attempt to reconstruct the women's skeletal structure without the help of any bones. Eager to get back to her vacation, Brennan quickly weighs in on the case, but in the absence of any bones, does not feel she has a reason to be involved. Zach, Hodgins and Cam attempt to construct a skeleton for the body, a task that proves to be both difficult and gruesome. During the process Cam finds the sole remaining bone in the deflated body, which is enough of a reason for Booth to barge back into Brennan's and Sully's vacation and bring Brennan into the Jeffersonian once again. Booth investigates an international mail-order bride agency as well as the woman's former fiancée, but the man quickly evades the investigation. When further clues in the case point to a rare and ancient Asian custom that involves burying the bones of an unmarried woman with those of an unmarried man as a sort of afterlife wedding ceremony, Brennan and Booth realize they are in fact looking for a murder suspect who may have killed the woman found in the river to use her bones for the ceremony. Meanwhile, Sully propositions Brennan, forcing her to make an important decision about their future together, a proposition that surprises her and for which she's definitely not prepared

Summary

A trunk, which was submersed for about eight days in a brook, contains a female body, which was boiled, had all bones removed and was sewn up again. Bones resumes her holiday, 'no bones, no Bones', boating with Sully who considers moving onto it permanently. Hair and a genetic disease indicate an Asian, about 20, immigrated - identified through the Homeland Security database as Li Ling Fan, on a fiancée visa. Her partner, Drew Harper, a fence specializing in Asian objects, says they mutually called off the wedding a month ago and escapes. Booth gets Bones who finds sinologist Professor Shi Jon Chen, who introduces them to old Mai Zhang. Her young nephew William Chang is a candidate for minghun, an old Chinese tradition for bachelors of reburial with the bones of a posthumous "bride". Sully decides to buy the yacht, names it "Temperance" and asks Bones to take a sabbatical to sail a year with him in the Caribbean, even Booth and Angela advise her to accept. She doesn't go and waves goodbye to him as he is sailing away at the end of the episode.

Cast

Main Cast

• Temperance Brennan - Emily Deschanel
• Seeley Booth - David Boreanaz
• Jack Hodgins - T.J Thyne
• Angela Montenegro - Michaela Conlin
• Zack Addy - Eric Millegan
• Camille Saroyan - Tamara Taylor

Recurring Cast

• Tim Sullivan - Eddie McClintock

Guest Cast

• Shi Jon Chen - Michael Paul Chan
• Drew Harper - John Paul Pitoc
• Jackie Burrows - Deborah Theaker
• Mai Zhang - Lucille Soong
• Eric Chang - Bob Lem
• Mary Chang - Alice Lo
• Joseph Han - James Hong
• Nelson Han - Leonard Wu
• D.C. Cop - Eric Stonestreet

Featured Music

• "You" by Fisher

Notes

• This is the first time that we see Bones and Booth holding a bone without gloves.
• This is the first episode in which you see Booth wear his "Cocky" belt buckle.
• This is the first time that Brennan refers to herself as "Bones", previously showing no affection for the name, she now accepts her nickname from her partner Seeley Booth.
• Angela tells Dr. Brennan that she has worked every day since they have met, and that Dr. Brennan has never gone on vacation. This is untrue, because instead of going to Darfur, recently she went on vacation to North Carolina to reconnect with her brother. Brennan talks about it with Booth, on the car ride to the train wreck accident in the episode "The Titan on the Tracks".
• Booth lists Brennan's former boyfriends before Sully in order:
  • "the physicist that couldn't tie his shoes."(Pete)
  • "the former professor that was jealous of your success."(Michael Stires)
  • "the guy that you found on the Internet and him being some kind of recruiter for a cult."(David Simmons)
  • "the guy who cut off his own brother's head because he thought he was possessed by a witch."(Will Hastings)

Anthropological/ Cultural References

• Chinese Ghost Marriage
• Bride buying
• Chinese Death Rituals
  • Burying the body
  • Giving gifts to the dead person
  • Giving money to the dead person for good fortune

I don't know what that means

• Booth makes reference to the movie Cast Away. He says that Sully will "end up shipwrecked on an island talking to a volleyball," just like the movies main character Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks).

Quotes

Brennan: Doctor Saroyan said no bones, so know what that means? I'm back on vacation. No bones, no Bones. That... I was the second "bones".

Saroyan: Very witty.

---

Brennan: What do you want?

Booth: Breakfast.

Brennan: I'm not hungry.

Booth: Oh, come on, huh? What are ya gonna vomit when we come across one of those, uh, horrific cases?

Brennan: I don't vomit.

---

Booth: Give it time, Bones, okay? Give it time. Everything happens eventually.

Brennan: Everything?

Booth: All the stuff, okay, that you think never happens – it happens. You just gotta be ready for it.

---

[speaking about William Chang and Li Ling Fan]

Angela: They kinda go together.

Saroyan: Because they're deceased?

Angela: Yeah, but more than that. They are exactly the same level of hotness.

Saroyan: Which is zero, because they're skeletons.