Police officers stumble across several severed, rotted, feet on a beach. When Booth and Bones go to investigate they are greeted by a Podiatrist by the name of Dr. Fillmore, an old acquaintance of Bones. When it’s determined that the feet actually fall on the Canadian side, Fillmore pulls rank and says he’ll be doing the investigation to spite Brennan for dismissing his expertise. Her previous thrashing in a professional journal was so severe that it left Fillmore with a paralyzed arm which becomes a focal point of the show.
Fortunately, Fillmore agrees to come to the U.S. to work with Bones (with the feet). This episode is full of erroneous foot trivia (like how much a foot sweats and how much your butt protrudes by wearing heals.) When he gets to the lab, he’s greeted by Hodgins, Cam, and Angela. When he starts working with Dr. Brennan they butt heads a bit while she awkwardly tries to make up, but Fillmore will have no part of it. His spouting of facts reminds me of Mr. Nigel Murray.
Sweets talks to a Canadian “dude” who took the boots off one of the victim’s feet “Oh, mannnnnn!” When Brennan finds out that the feet came from the University of Hogansburg, she figures that the feet must have come from “body farm”, but discovers that they only lost 7 bodies in a storm 8 days ago, but Brennan informs they have a feet of an 8th person – what fun would the show be without a murder after all?
Hodgins finds out that the extra pair of feet belonged to a very expensive pair of shoes ($2000) which have a serial number and quickly verifies the foot belongs to the shoe through a computer graphic – and Angela is quite impressed. Booth and Bones travel to the body farm, and she’s in 7th heaven as she sees the bodies in varied states of decay and gets absolutely giddy when a body explodes in front of her. They talk to the owner of the body farm and find out the shoes belong to one of the student assistants, Dylan McElroy, who went missing a while back. Booth and Bones locate Dylan’s room mate who is selling off his expensive shoes. It turns out that his room mate is just trying to get cash owed for rent, but then we find out he was dealing drugs… Based on our “30 minute rule” (which Julie and I believe that characters introduced about half way through are the likely suspect), it’s the room mate.
Before the first commercial break, we also find out Cam secretly got her daughter Michelle accepted to a prestigious college (Columbia) despite Michelle’s desire to go to a community college – following her boyfriend Derek. The delivery message was accidentally opened by Hodgins who gives Cam “a disapproving look”. Cam’s parental duties continue as later we find Michelle weeping over a breakup with Derek. Michelle says that now she cannot go to the same college as Derek and Cam tries to hide her enthusiasm and lets Michelle she “has an idea”. When Sweets finds out about Cam’s subversion, he’s also upset, but Cam is only there to find out how to break it to Michelle. Sweets won’t have any part of it and she flat out tells him to “Shut up!” claiming that she’s doing this for Michelle’s benefit “You’ve never put anyone else’s interests above your own”, but Sweets retorts “What kind of example are you setting for Michelle?” as Cam walks out of his office.
Sweets tries to talk to Fillmore to help repair the “wound” he bears, but the young shrink gets the brush off. Sweets tries to explain to Fillmore that his paralyzed arm is a manifestation of his frustration toward Dr. Brennan. When Fillmore states that he has issues with conflict in general (because he’s Canadian), Sweets fires back “Because your Canadian or because your free?”
Back on the case (an the lab) Fillmore and Hodgins determine that the body farm was farming more than bodies – they find pollen from marijuana along with some “mite silk” in the shoes taken from the Canadian “dude”. When Booth and Brennan get back to the farm they meet a crotchity groundskeeper and a young “impressive” student assistant (never did catch his name.) Out in the yard, they find some of the weed along with some of the mite silk Hodgins reported in one of the shoes. The motive is set that Dylan was at that location and had to have seen the plants – someone wanted to cover their tracks.
The body farm owner first admits he didn’t know anything about it, but later recants because he didn’t say anything earlier because it would have sounded suspicious – a likely excuse we’ve heard a number of times before.
In the lab, Hodgins collaborates with Angela and finds an odd collection of bugs that should not be together unless they came (to the party) “for the food”. Angela walks from that scene to Dr. Fillmore who is examining feet and also delivers an offhanded insult to non-present Brennan. Fillmore determines that Dylan was killed by two different weapons – some kind of cutting power tool. While Angela is impressed again, Brennan doesn’t express her appreciation when the message is relayed to her in the truck with Booth as they drive back to the body farm. Booth tells her that she should really apologize properly so sew things up, but she’s still reluctant.
In the final scene, Fillmore analyze the foot facts along with potential weapons to quickly determine (with Angela’s help) the weapon was a riding lawnmower. Hodgins finds out the eclectic collection of bugs came for a special bug food that was put on Dylan’s body to hasten decomp and throw off the time of death. One suspect had an alibi for the “false” time of death. It turns out to be the boy genius assistant at the body farm. The reason – Dylan’s weed was growing over his project that called for baren soil, but his project was ruined. He was upset with Dylan and, well… you know.
So back to Michelle and Cam – now at the restaurant… Cam tells Michelle she’s got a pass to Columbia and Michelle says “I learned a lot from you”, rips up the application and says “No shortcuts”. She’s going to work for a year, save money, and get in to Columbia herself.
Penultimately (in the lab), Fillmore loses his temper and rips on Brennan while she attempts to say something, but keeps getting interrupted. When he’s done she comes back with a very nice professional compliment about his skill and talents. Now that things are patched up – Sweets, being the goon he is, throws a steel cup at Fillmore, expecting him to catch it but only ends up hitting him square in the head – much to the shock of Fillmore and Bones. After a brief pause, Fillmore raises his previously incapacitated arm to rub his bumped head and everyone is relieved at his “recovery”.
Finally, at the bar, Bones and Booth have a great final scene about regretful thoughts and being too truthful – leaving us with the usual smile on our faces for net time.
Closing comments: The murder story took a while to get going, and like all good Bones shows, took us down a few false leads to keep us guessing. Had Julie been here, we would have been shouting throughout the show “He did it!” at every new character. Not very sporty, but part of the fun of this show. She may have gotten a little squeamish by all the graphic rotting bodies. While you expect to see that sort of thing in moderation on this show, this one seems to have gone over the top at the body farm. On a personal/character development note, I like how the relationship between Cam and Michelle is developing. Cam’s blast at Sweets was very maternal and justified. Aside, when is Angela and Hodgins’ baby due anyway?
Rating: 9/10
