Bones 4.17 – “The Salt in the Wounds” Recap

But back to the darling desiccated corpse, shall we? Vaziri begins the rundown of the body, complete with onomatopoeia. No, really that’s one of his “quirks”. Witness: There’s trauma that was caused post-mortem from the drop (‘Bonk.’), some red fibers that get Hodgins’attention, a broken thumb (‘Snap.’), a fractured finger (‘Crack.’), and damage to the wrist — Hodgins helpfully provides the ‘Pop.’Vaziri’s seen it before, in child abuse, a sixteen year-old girl handcuffed to a radiator to protect her virginity, but before he goes into more detail, Angela, my Angel of Topic Change, arrives with a positive ID on the desiccated deceased. Ashley Clark, missing three weeks.

Because she can and often does, Angela starts talking about her relationship and how she and Roxie are going to get a dog. Hodgins had her pegged as a cat person and I give him a point. Moving right along, she introduces herself to Vaziri, who totally misheard Roxie’s name as Rocky, ‘like, pow? Like the famous boxer?’Ever the helpful one, Bones corrects him, condescending that perhaps his religion won’t allow him to accept Angela having a relationship with another woman. Cam actually looks panicked as she verbally cuts off the massive HR violation in progress by bringing up the inordinate amount of relaxin in Ashley’s body. What is that? A hormone secreted during pregnancy. The dessicated darling Ashley was pregnant. There’s a final shot of corpse porn and we go to the…

…techno music of necrophiliac credits.

The obligatory meeting with the grieving parents is in full swing when we return. Ma Clark can remember exactly the last time she saw Ashley — the teen was worried about smelling like the preserves they’d been making at a school dance. Tactfully, Booth asks if there had been any ‘developments’in Ashley’s life, anything they’d notice. The parents assume he means drugs, but both Booth and Bones say no and after a millisecond of hemming and hawing, Booth asks if they knew their daughter was pregnant. The parents are shocked, SHOCKED! to say the least. Especially Ma Clark who starts going on about how close they were and how Ashley told her everything. Neither of them even know who the father could be. With her usual lack of subtlety, Bones asks about the injuries they saw on the initial x-rays. Ma Clark gets defensive, and hostile, but Pa Clark is handling himself well, acknowledging that they have to ask, but telling the Duo that Ashley was an athlete — they can and should ask her chiropractor about the injuries.

…Me? I’d maybe refer the nice agents to a primary care physician because chiropractors don’t set bones, or treat sprains, or keep the kinds of records that we’re really looking for. But then I’m not on this show and the writers just want to see how many ways I can screw up the word ‘chiropractor’before my spell-check starts smoking.

So off to the not-doc we go where the ‘˜practor starts listing off Ashley’s injuries. Bones gets the Kewpie doll prize when she adds the finger and wrist injuries and comes up with volleyball. Even Booth scores points this round by accurately recognizing ‘jumper’s knee’from its more clinical description. Booth asks if the ‘˜practor knew Ashley was pregnant and he says no, she didn’t mention it at her last appointment. From her high horse, Bones tells the ‘˜practor that for a non-medical doctor, he was quite helpful. Winning the round and knocking her off, he tells her that she’s not a medical doctor, either. Booth is amused. As am I.

Ohhh, cool — skull removal time, and with an awesome TMI, shot, too. There’s no internal hematoma so the fractures noted earlier were definitely post-mortem. Vaziri postulates it’s from tumbling out of the salt-bin (‘Clunk’). Bones, who is, even more so than usual, a raging ass this episode, bursts into the room demanding to know why the bones haven’t been de-fleshed yet. Cam calmly tells her she’s not done with her autopsy yet, and Bones, completely undeterred, says that if she can’t have her bones they’ll never find cause of death. With the patience of the mother of a five-year-old, Cam notes that if there’s no flesh she can’t find the cause of death. Bones makes a case for damaged, desiccated flesh telling no tales, and Cam counters with re-hydration. See, the salt prevented tissue decomp, and even Vaziri concedes the possibility of reconstituting the flesh for a proper autopsy. I wait for Bones to round on him with a ‘Who’s team are you on anyway?!’It doesn’t happen and I’m sooooo glad. It must be coming later, isn’t it? Standing firm, Cam says she’s going to re-hydrate and do a full autopsy besides, who’s the boss again? Unfazed, Bones tries to claim a ‘freebie.’Cam claims a ‘freebie decline’.

That’s a win for Cam and a stomping exit for Bones.