Image Credit: Fox via Wikipedia
"The He in the She" is episode seven of season four of Bones, the forensic drama television series loosely based on the novels and life of anthropologist Kathy Reichs. Half a woman's body is found on a beach, but when the other half is found, it also suggests that the victim was male.
Image Credit: darksouls1 via Pixabay
Skeleton in the Water
This episode opens with two men on a beach, supposedly fishing but by the sounds of it quite high on something. Then one sees something in the water. Which turns out to be a human skeleton.
Half of a Woman
Booth and Brennan are at a session with Sweets - not that anyone is saying anything - when Booth gets a call regarding said skeleton and both dash out of the room. Cam is already at the scene with yet another one of Brennan's grad students (they are using a lot of these; this one, Mr. Nigel-Murray, a Brit, is a mine of useless information). Brennan wants her student back in the lab, so sends him back in her car. The corpse, or the badly degraded half they have, suggests that the victim is a woman. They need the other half of the body though.
Mr. Nigel-Murray's Interesting Facts
Video Credit: Time1Productions via YouTube
The Dead Woman is Only Five Years Old - Officially, That Is
The victim had breast implants and other plastic surgery. The implants are traceable, and the victim is a woman who has been missing for three weeks. She also had no official existence dating back longer than five years and lived in an end of the world location. Which is odd. Brennan suggests Witness Protection, given the extensive physical alterations and the place she had moved to, but Booth say the U.S. Marshals deny it. They might be lying though. The woman turns out to be a pastor - which results in yet another discussion on religion between Booth and Brennan.
Image Credit: Rob Darby via Freeimages.com
The Rest of the Body Suggests the Woman is also Male
The bottom of the body is found, and this half of the body shows the victim to be male. And female. Hence the title. The victim had had gender reassignment surgery, and was formerly male. Booth and Sweets do not enjoy Brennan's description of how part of the operation is carried out. Booth suggests that perhaps one of her congregation objected when they discovered that their pastor used to be male. Brennan suggests that perhaps a man did not like the revelation after an intimate relationship. At this point it isn't even known how the deceased died, or was murdered, or even who she was before she became a she. Some of the congregation, which includes people with poor histories, are less than helpful.
Image Credit: John Hughes via Freeimages.com
The Woman is a Man Who Was Declared Dead Six Years Ago
Then Angela makes a sketch of the woman as a man - and at that point they recognise who it is. A pastor who disappeared six years previously in Thailand and was declared dead. A very famous television pastor, of the sort that rakes in money. With a wife and son. Her/his wife says that her husband would not have had a sex change operation. Only he/she did. So, why did he change his sex and disappear to a remote island community? The son had a crisis of faith, regarding the commercialisation of worship, after his father disappeared.
Bones Season 4 Trailer
Video Credit: OnBonesFan via YouTube
