From the tumultuous ending of last season, we find Booth & Brennan in the UK to attend conferences. They are then called upon to help solve a case in collaboration with a pair of investigators from London. One of the investigators is killed and our pair must find the killers at all costs. Once back in the US, an explosion in an outhouse reveals a body left in the sewage and turns out to be a reality TV host with a long list of people that might want him dead and Booth and Brennan are left to narrow down the suspects. Booth’s son Parker finds a severed finger which the track to an illegal dog fighting ring. The owner of a dog, ordered his dog to kill the victim who was trying to expose the dog-fighting ring. Brennan is attracted to the dog, Ripley, and wants to take him away and take care of  him.

She gets a collar that reads “Ripley Brennan.” Booth has bad news: they put Ripley down. Brennan is saddened. “It wasn’t Ripley’s fault. People made him do what he did.” They bury Riley with an emotional Brennan saying a few words. Next case is of a mentally toubled scifi author during which they have to get Zack’s help. In the course of the case, Zack admits to Sweets that he didn’t kill the man he admitted to have killed – but he found out his home address and Zack only confessed because his actions led to the man’s death. He did kill him, but not literally. Sweets wants to tell Brennan right away but Zack stops him. Next the remains of a despised office manager are discovered in an elevator shaft and Booth & Brennan have to figure out which employee killed her. Next the find the remains of a female pastor who it turns out started life out as a man and had a sexchange operation before becoming a pastor. A corpse is found inside a crushed car like those used in car sculptures made by an artist named Geoffrey Thorne. Evidence leads to the art gallery where Thorne displays his work.

A superb episode in when a corpse is found on a plane in which Brennan & Booth are enroute to China and they must find who the killer is before they land. They then have to go undercover in a circus to find out the killer of a pair of performing cojoined twins. When Booth’s bitter hockey rival is found dead, he is a suspect so FBI Agent Payton Perotta joins Brennan in the investigation. Payton also joins Brennan to solve murder of the woman might be linked to the possession of an age-old prop of Excalibur from a famous French movie, when Booth is recovering from a bad back. Next the lab is thrown into immediate lock down when  an unknown substance oozing from the remains of a corpse they are cleaning and they realize they have only 24 hours to unravel the mystery before the bones disintegrate. Next the team discover that a dead pregnant 16-year-old high school volleyball player, and are shocked to find that nearly half of her teammates are either pregnant or already have had babies from the same father.

An image of the Virgin Mary turns out to be a bloodstain at a cardboard recycling plant Booth and Bones find a flattened body inside a compressed bale of cardboard. The line of suspects grows longer when the team discovers that the marriage-obsessed young woman had a fiancé as well as numerous boyfriends from a cell-phone dating service. Next an actual skeleton of a musician is used as a stage prop for a black metal band. When the head of Sachi Nakamura, the sister of Booth’s friend, is discovered in Washington, D.C., her brother Ken, a detective from Tokyo, flies in to aid the search for his sister’s killer. The investigation leads to an elite escort service, and the team must race against the clock when Sachi’s roommate is missing as well. A college is found dead in a mascot uniform. The season ends with Booth having an operation to remove a tumour in his brain. While in a coma he dreams all of the regular characters are seen living different lives. Booth and Brennan are married and own a nightclub called “The Lab”, but when a body is found at the club, Detectives Cam Saroyan and Jared Booth are called to investigate. However, not everything is as it seems. For example, Caroline Julian, who is a federal prosecutor is a defense lawyer, and Sweets is the frontman of the bandGormogon, who was a cannabalistic serial killer. When he wakes up from his coma he has lost his memory and does not recognize Brennan.

This season also sees Angela finally getting her divorce after a long tussle with her ‘husband’ but due to differences on having kids, Hodgins & Angela break up which is even more painful for Hodgins. Angela briefly begins an affair with a former lover, a woman artist. Cam adopts the 16 year old daughter of her former lover who died recently. And the team discovers the true identity of The Grave Digger, who almost kills Booth but is later apprehended.