When the remains of a couple are discovered in a cave at National Park, the team must piece together the identity of the man and the woman as well as solve the crime. After interrogating two viable suspects, the team identifies the woman as a marketing executive who also served as her partner’s AA sponsor, providing clues that lead them to expose the truth. Meanwhile, Booth’s girlfriend and Afghanistan war correspondent, Hannah Burley, makes a surprise visit. After meeting Burley and sensing the couple’s genuine happiness, Brennan re-evaluates her own relationship with Booth, and he tries to teach her that love is not always logical.

When Booth and Brennan are called to investigate decomposed remains found at the Jersey Shore, the team IDs the victim as Richie “The V” Genaro, a 23-year-old who partied the night before at a popular nightclub. Booth and Brennan question Genaro’s peers and the club bouncer, and Brennan surprisingly proves her pop culture savvy and anthropological expertise after watching what she believes to be a documentary on the inhabitants of the Jersey Shore, but was in actuality a reality show set there. Meanwhile, at the lab, the team grows fond of Booth’s girlfriend, Hannah, and Angela tries to keep her pregnancy a secret.

After the skull of a promising young dancer is found lodged in concrete at a construction site, the team must first figure out what happened to the victim’s skeletal structure. After learning the victim quit ballet to pursue hip hop, Booth and Brennan uncover another layer of evidence that points them to a suspect who had a secret relationship with the victim. Meanwhile, when Hannah is put on assignment in a dodgy part of town, her safety is jeopardized and her life is put in critical danger.

Booth and Brennan’s next case leads them to a crime scene where a human carcass has literally melted into the dashboard of a charred truck. As the team investigates the case, they discover a gunshot wound in the victim, but learn that neither the fire nor the bullet was the cause of the victim’s death. Additional clues lead them to a local high school where the victim’s wife is a teacher. As a student-teacher relationship begins to surface and a pattern takes shape in the lab, the team is able to track down the murder weapon and solve the crime. Meanwhile, Sweets resists the temptation of allowing his feelings for Daisy to interfere with helping her pass a government psychological evaluation, and Hannah attempts to break the ice and warm up to Booth’s son Parker.

Brennan gets a glimpse into her own life when the body of a brilliant and career-driven surgeon is found in a rough neighborhood with multiple fractures in her skull and no indication as to how or why she was there. While the team investigates the case objectively, Brennan struggles to separate her own life from the victim’s as she perceives many parallels between them the more she learns about the victim’s past. Meanwhile, evidence found at the crime scene brings the team closer to solving the case, but it’s Brennan’s unique perspective that propels her to retrace the final events of the victim’s life. With the reassurance of a new friend and Jeffersonian security guard, Micah Leggat, Brennan makes a discovery about herself and learns a lesson about taking chances.

An unidentifiable body is discovered in the shower of an upscale home belonging to a young female socialite. With the help of nosey bones expert and Jeffersonian “squint” Clark Edison, skeletal reconstruction and evidence in the drain reveal that the victim was a young girl employed by a counterfeit handbag distributor. The team learns that the victim supplied counterfeit purses to her socialite acquaintance, and after interrogating the self-centered socialite and sifting through footage on a hidden camera, they discover evidence linking them to the murderer. Meanwhile, Angela and Hodgins discuss their future home and where they want to raise a family, and Booth opens up to Hannah about Brennan’s feelings for him

A BMX rider’s remains are discovered on the roof of a warehouse after a failed bike stunt. While Booth and Brennan interrogate the victim’s fellow riders, Hodgins and newly mellowed “squint” Fisher identify the numerous fractures in the victim’s skeletal structure, and Angela recreates the series of events that led to the fatal accident. Meanwhile, Sweets turns to Booth for advice about his relationship with Daisy, and Booth makes a decision about his relationship with Hannah.