The Man in the Bear
Encyclopedia
"The Man in the Bear" is the fourth episode of the first season of the television series, Bones
. Originally aired on November 1, 2005 on FOX
network, the episode is written by Laura Wolner and directed by Allan Kroeker
. The plot features FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth
and Dr. Temperance Brennan
's investigation concerning a human hand that was found inside a bear in Washington state.
Once there, Booth and Brennan meet with the sheriff and the local doctors. The victim is a young male but only one person has been reported missing — a woman by the name of Ann Noyes. Brennan sends the bone fragments back to the Jeffersonian, where her assistant, Zack Addy
, debrides them and finds indentations belonging to bite marks from a human — Brennan realizes the killer is a cannibal
. Since a cannibal would get sick with prion disease
, Brennan visits local coroner Dr. Andrew Rigby to ask him if he has met with any patients with such symptoms. He says that he has not.
Back at the lab, Dr. Jack Hodgins
examines the bear scat
Brennan had sent to him and finds a flap of skin with a tattoo, which turns out to be a Haida Sun motif, when recreated by Angela Montenegro
. From the tattoo, the Sheriff is able to find the victim's identity via a missing persons check. The victim is Adam Langer, and according to the Sheriff, he used to come up to Aurora to visit Sherman Rivers, the town's Native American Park Ranger. However, when Booth and Brennan go to question Rivers, he escapes into the woods.
They find Rivers the next morning in the woods. From the evidence Booth and Brennan gathered from Rivers' house, they are convinced that he is a poacher
, but not the cannibal. With Hodgins' expertise and Rivers' help, they find the crime scene in the woods, where they also find a perverse version of a medicine wheel
and two dead bodies belonging to Adam Langer and Ann Noyes, whose heart has been removed.
Based on adipocere
formation, Brennan estimates Ann Noyes has been dead for about a week. When it is revealed that Adam Langer was seeing local veterinarian Dr. Denise Randall, Booth and Brennan corner her at a local bar, where they get her to bite into a block of dental medium so they can check her teeth marks. However, Brennan points out that Randall had no motives for killing Ann Noyes and that they are more likely looking for someone who is clinically insane. Meanwhile, Zack finds more marks on Ann Noyes's sternum, which Brennan determines to be made by a sternum spreader. She realizes that Dr. Rigby would have seen this beforehand but did not mention it because he is the cannibal. Booth and Brennan find Rigby in the process of cremating
the bodies; Brennan knocks Rigby out with a bedpan.
During the episode, Hodgins and Zack vie for the attention of the parcel delivery person, played by K. D. Aubert
, who later turns out to be bisexual, choosing Angela over Hodgins and Zack.
, Bones attracted 7.99 million viewers in its Tuesday 8:00 pm ET timeslot on the episode's original airdate, ranking third in total viewers in its timeslot.
and the Merced River
, familiar sights in Yosemite National Park
, California
.
Though Brennan prides herself on making purely logical conclusions, the idea that the cannibal is likely to have a prion disease is pure conjecture based on very little fact. In New Guinea, cannibalistic natives were discovered to have a high incidence of kuru, a type of prion disease, forever linking the disease to cannibalism. However, the disease is only transferred through cannibalism, not caused by it. Thus, the killer would have had to consume the flesh of someone with a prion disease in order to have the disease himself. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which is the most prevalent prion disease found in humans, has an incidence of 1 to 2 cases per one million people per year, making this seem unlikely. In addition, when discussing prion diseases at the end of the episode, Booth says that he is becoming a vegetarian, to which Brennan replies "or just don't eat people", implying that prion diseases are only caught via cannibalism, supporting her conclusion that a cannibal is more likely to have the disease. In truth, the cannibal could have acquired variant CJD, or mad cow disease, through consumption of contaminated animal meat. In fact, before the particulars of transmission of CJD were known, it was often transferred through surgical equipment or Human Growth Hormone injections. Along these lines, someone unlinked to cannibalistic acts can still have the disease. A cannibal may be more likely to obtain the disease because they consume more human flesh than the average person, but with the incidence of CJD so low, it is hardly a viable lead for a murder investigation and certainly not evidence to be used unless they link the disease to one of the victims.
Bones (TV series)
Bones is an American crime drama television series that premiered on the Fox Network on September 13, 2005. The show is based on forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology, with each episode focusing on an FBI case file concerning the mystery behind human remains brought by FBI Special Agent...
. Originally aired on November 1, 2005 on FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
network, the episode is written by Laura Wolner and directed by Allan Kroeker
Allan Kroeker
Allan Kroeker is a Canadian film and television director, cinematographer, screenwriter, film editor and film producer. He has the distinction of directing the series finales for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise...
. The plot features FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth
Seeley Booth
FBI Special Agent "In charge" Seeley Joseph Booth is a fictional character in the US television series, Bones , portrayed by David Boreanaz. Agent Booth is a co-protagonist of the series alongside Dr...
and Dr. Temperance Brennan
Temperance Brennan (Bones)
Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan, Ph.D. , is a fictional character portrayed by Emily Deschanel in the American Fox television series Bones...
's investigation concerning a human hand that was found inside a bear in Washington state.
Summary
To Brennan's dismay, Booth takes her, with Dr. Goodman's permission, to small town Aurora, Washington, to identify the victim whose arm was found inside a black bear. From a photograph taken of the arm, Brennan sees that the victim had his arm cut off by a saw before the bear ate it.Once there, Booth and Brennan meet with the sheriff and the local doctors. The victim is a young male but only one person has been reported missing — a woman by the name of Ann Noyes. Brennan sends the bone fragments back to the Jeffersonian, where her assistant, Zack Addy
Zack Addy
Zachary Uriah 'Zack' Addy, Ph.D is a fictional character in the television series Bones. He is portrayed by Eric Millegan. The character was introduced as Dr...
, debrides them and finds indentations belonging to bite marks from a human — Brennan realizes the killer is a cannibal
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
. Since a cannibal would get sick with prion disease
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies , also known as prion diseases, are a group of progressive conditions that affect the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans. According to the most widespread hypothesis they are transmitted by prions, though some other data suggest an...
, Brennan visits local coroner Dr. Andrew Rigby to ask him if he has met with any patients with such symptoms. He says that he has not.
Back at the lab, Dr. Jack Hodgins
Jack Hodgins (Bones)
Dr. Jack Stanley Hodgins IV, Ph.D., is a fictional character in the American television series, Bones. He is portrayed by T. J. Thyne. Jack is introduced to the series primarily as an entomologist/forensic entomologist, but also as a mineralogist/forensic mineralogist, a palynology/forensic...
examines the bear scat
Feces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
Brennan had sent to him and finds a flap of skin with a tattoo, which turns out to be a Haida Sun motif, when recreated by Angela Montenegro
Angela Montenegro
Angela Pearly-Gates Montenegro Hodgins is a fictional character in the television series Bones , portrayed by Michaela Conlin...
. From the tattoo, the Sheriff is able to find the victim's identity via a missing persons check. The victim is Adam Langer, and according to the Sheriff, he used to come up to Aurora to visit Sherman Rivers, the town's Native American Park Ranger. However, when Booth and Brennan go to question Rivers, he escapes into the woods.
They find Rivers the next morning in the woods. From the evidence Booth and Brennan gathered from Rivers' house, they are convinced that he is a poacher
Poaching
Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws. Violations of hunting laws and regulations are normally punishable by law and, collectively, such violations are known as poaching.It may be illegal and in...
, but not the cannibal. With Hodgins' expertise and Rivers' help, they find the crime scene in the woods, where they also find a perverse version of a medicine wheel
Medicine wheel
Medicine wheels, or sacred hoops, were constructed by laying stones in a particular pattern on the ground. Most medicine wheels follow the basic pattern of having a center of stone, and surrounding that is an outer ring of stones with "spokes", or lines of rocks radiating from the center...
and two dead bodies belonging to Adam Langer and Ann Noyes, whose heart has been removed.
Based on adipocere
Adipocere
Adipocere , also known as corpse, grave or mortuary wax, is a wax-like organic substance formed by the anaerobic bacterial hydrolysis of fat in tissue, such as body fat in corpses...
formation, Brennan estimates Ann Noyes has been dead for about a week. When it is revealed that Adam Langer was seeing local veterinarian Dr. Denise Randall, Booth and Brennan corner her at a local bar, where they get her to bite into a block of dental medium so they can check her teeth marks. However, Brennan points out that Randall had no motives for killing Ann Noyes and that they are more likely looking for someone who is clinically insane. Meanwhile, Zack finds more marks on Ann Noyes's sternum, which Brennan determines to be made by a sternum spreader. She realizes that Dr. Rigby would have seen this beforehand but did not mention it because he is the cannibal. Booth and Brennan find Rigby in the process of cremating
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
the bodies; Brennan knocks Rigby out with a bedpan.
During the episode, Hodgins and Zack vie for the attention of the parcel delivery person, played by K. D. Aubert
K. D. Aubert
Karen Denise "K.D." Aubert who usually goes by K.D. Aubert is an American actress and former fashion model.- Early life :...
, who later turns out to be bisexual, choosing Angela over Hodgins and Zack.
Music
The episode featured the following music: -- Looking at the world from the bottom of a well - Mike DoughtyMike DoughtyMike Doughty is an American indie and alternative rock singer-songwriter. He led the band Soul Coughing in the 1990s, and in the 2000s, became a solo artist...
- Big Me - Peter HimmelmanPeter HimmelmanPeter Himmelman is a singer-songwriter from Minnesota, who formerly played in the band Sussman Lawrence.-Family life:He is Bob Dylan's son-in-law, being married to his daughter Maria Dylan...
Production details
The episode was written as the series' fifth episode but broadcast as the fourth. According to Laura Wolner, writer of the episode, the idea for the episode came from her interest in cannibalism and that it would be fascinating to see "teeth marks on bones that turned out not to be from an animal, but from a human". Also by having a different setting, the character of Temperance Brennan could be explored further.Response
As a lead-in program for HouseHouse (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...
, Bones attracted 7.99 million viewers in its Tuesday 8:00 pm ET timeslot on the episode's original airdate, ranking third in total viewers in its timeslot.
Trivia
The episode is set in Washington, near Mt. Rainier, yet later in the episode we see Half DomeHalf Dome
Half Dome is a granite dome in Yosemite National Park, located in northeastern Mariposa County, California, at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley — possibly Yosemite's most familiar rock formation. The granite crest rises more than above the valley floor....
and the Merced River
Merced River
The Merced River , in the central part of the U.S. state of California, is a -long tributary of the San Joaquin River flowing from the Sierra Nevada into the Central Valley. It is most well known for its swift and steep course through the southern part of Yosemite National Park, and the...
, familiar sights in Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Though Brennan prides herself on making purely logical conclusions, the idea that the cannibal is likely to have a prion disease is pure conjecture based on very little fact. In New Guinea, cannibalistic natives were discovered to have a high incidence of kuru, a type of prion disease, forever linking the disease to cannibalism. However, the disease is only transferred through cannibalism, not caused by it. Thus, the killer would have had to consume the flesh of someone with a prion disease in order to have the disease himself. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which is the most prevalent prion disease found in humans, has an incidence of 1 to 2 cases per one million people per year, making this seem unlikely. In addition, when discussing prion diseases at the end of the episode, Booth says that he is becoming a vegetarian, to which Brennan replies "or just don't eat people", implying that prion diseases are only caught via cannibalism, supporting her conclusion that a cannibal is more likely to have the disease. In truth, the cannibal could have acquired variant CJD, or mad cow disease, through consumption of contaminated animal meat. In fact, before the particulars of transmission of CJD were known, it was often transferred through surgical equipment or Human Growth Hormone injections. Along these lines, someone unlinked to cannibalistic acts can still have the disease. A cannibal may be more likely to obtain the disease because they consume more human flesh than the average person, but with the incidence of CJD so low, it is hardly a viable lead for a murder investigation and certainly not evidence to be used unless they link the disease to one of the victims.
External links
- "The Man in the Bear " at Fox.com