The ‘Fresh Body’ On Bones That Went Too Far For Producer Stephen Nathan

It wasn’t just the bodies on “Bones” that made viewers uncomfortable. In fact, the cast themselves often felt unnerved by elements of their own show, with one serial killer in particular truly terrifying star Emily Deschanel. Then, there was the time “Bones” (sort of) predicted a real-life tragedy with the season 9 episode “The Mystery in the Meat,” in which a food scientist basically becomes canned food. But while the showrunners could evidently put up with terrifying serial killers and canned human bodies, one particular fake corpse went a step too far.

In season 7, episode seven6, “The Crack in the Code,” Emily Deschanel’s Temperance “Bones” Brennan and David Boreanaz’s Agent Seeley Booth investigate the appearance of a detached skull and spine at the American Heritage Museum, below a message written in human blood on a national monument. The episode introduced a new villain named Christopher Pellant (Andrew Leeds), who had a penchant for leaving his victim’s body parts in various places, and it was one of these victims that Stephen Nathan cut out of the show.

Speaking to AssignmentX, the executive producer explained that “The Crack in the Code” was the only time he’s ever had to remove something from “Bones.” He continued, “There was a shot that I said, ‘We’ve got to cut it out of the show, it’s just too horrible’ [laughs]. It was too horrible, it just took me out of the show.”

It seems the issue was that this body was a fresh kill, with Nathan explaining that they usually “have more decomposed bodies,” adding, “But this was a freshly dead person — a dead body that [the production team had constructed] and the way he looked in a couple of shots was just too awful.”