Unbearable

David tells her, "As for the bear, two bullets to the head. The first -- non-fatal -- was a straight-on shot. Bears' foreheads are sloped, so the bullet ricocheted off the skull, leaving a copper jacket, which peeled away and embedded in the hide." David pulls it out while Catherine takes a look at the dead bear's eyes. She looks up again, bothered. David continues, "The fatal bullet entered in the ear, lodged in the brain. I removed it already." Catherine picks it up and notes, "It's lead -- no copper jacket. So the copper jacket had to have come from the rifle. But this is from a handgun." "So [the hunter] shot one bullet from his rifle and another from his pistol," David shrugs. Catherine points out that Dead Shredded Hunter had neither a pistol nor a knife, so the bear's big gaping stomach wound is a mystery too. David points out that the gallbladder was removed post-mortem, and adds, "I can't tell you why." David is not up to date on the ridiculous atrocities men will commit.

For those of you who are also wondering what the big deal is, a quick and dirty explanation: bear gall bladders manufacture ursodeoxycholic acid (URDA), which has been shown in some tests to treat liver and gallstone problems. Although URDA can be synthesized from cow gall bladders, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine often contend there's no URDA like bear URDA. Since bears are getting scarce, and people are beginning to say, "Wait...you mean there's an alternative for manufacturing this chemical and you're not using because...why?" there's a hot market for wild bear gall bladders. Note I said wild; a concurrent practice that's sprung up to meet demand for URDA is bear farming, in which bears are raised in cages and milked of their bile twice daily. Critics contend this shortens the bears' lives considerably. Bear farmers, naturally, dispute this. The upshot is, we're facing a plotline in which we'll have to admit, once again, that when it comes to the way we treat other species on this planet, we're not covering ourselves in glory.

Poor Warrick is left to sift through Shredded Dead Hunter's personal effects. Unsurprisingly, they are shredded as well. Nicky comes in and tells Warrick he ran the vic's prints, to no avail. Warrick's feeling testy. He asks, "We found this guy 25 miles from civilization. Where did he come from?" Nicky figures that Dead Shredded Fred had company, so it's likely the missing guy drove them both out there. Warrick hands over Dead Shredded Fred's watch and comments that it's pretty high-end. Nicky counters that hunting's not a poor man's sport. And yet it's how a lot of poor people worldwide feed themselves and their families. Funny, that. Nicky then comments, "U.S. presidents still hold up dead ducks for photo ops." Well, if you're talking about that kind of hunting...not to jump the gun here or anything, but there's a distinction between the kind of photo-op hunting politicians do and real hunting.

We find out that Mark manages the steak house at the Tangiers -- and what is it with that casino? Do they have their own in-house bereavement counseling group, what with the incredible number of employees and loved ones who turn up dead there? Anyway, Mark got home at 9 PM; his mother-in-law had been taking care of baby Joey.

Amy tells Sara, "[Lori's] in love with her baby. She wouldn't go anywhere without him." Sara is giving the baby a look like, "Small, pink, wet, noisy...who in their right mind would love that?" She suspends her bafflement to ask, "What about Mark?" Amy tells her, "Mark loves her. He would never hurt her." Sara points out, "When a wife disappears, it's protocol to look at the husband." Amy rolls her eyes and sighs before saying, "I promised I would never say anything. Before the baby was born, she suspected he was cheating. But then Joey came, and last night at the club, Lori said things were great." Wow, Amy's sure selling the whole husband-and-kids package. Sara's eyes get even narrower. She asks if anything unusual happened at the club, and Amy relates a flashback in which some barfly kept hitting on Lori. Badly. With the line, "Can I ask you a question? It's critical. Am I your type?" Lori proves that she's no great wit because instead of answering, "No, I'm more into serifs," she's all, "I'm married." Her would-be swain claims she's lying because she's not wearing her ring. Yes, because the ladies love it when you challenge their rebuttal and call them a liar. It's a wonder this prize didn't have women clinging to each appendage.

Back in the present, Amy's saying that God's Gift to Women also goes by the name "Brad." Sara wants to know if Lori always runs around without her wedding ring. As the camera focuses on Joey happily gumming some chew toy, Amy explains that Lori had lost some weight and was taking the ring to get resized.

In the other part of the house, Brass is prodding Mark to go through his story once again. Lori called at 9:30 PM to check on the baby: "She said she missed him. She said she was going to be home by 11. I passed out on the couch waiting for her." Amy is backing up this narrative, saying the ladies stopped drinking at 10 PM and left an hour later. Sara asks about Brad, and Amy tells us that evidently, when you're God's Gift to Women, hints apply only to other, lesser mortals. Brad came sliding over the car on the power of his own slime and graciously offered Lori one last chance. Instead of rolling over his toes with her car, she just giggled. Not that it will help her now, but Lori could have used a copy of Gavin DeBecker's The Gift of Fear; if nothing else, she could have gotten rid of the idea that she owed this persistent jackball politeness. Amy says Brad seemed harmless. Well, if you consider a one-man campaign to eliminate couth in America harmless, then yes.

David tells her, "As for the bear, two bullets to the head. The first -- non-fatal -- was a straight-on shot. Bears' foreheads are sloped, so the bullet ricocheted off the skull, leaving a copper jacket, which peeled away and embedded in the hide." David pulls it out while Catherine takes a look at the dead bear's eyes. She looks up again, bothered. David continues, "The fatal bullet entered in the ear, lodged in the brain. I removed it already." Catherine picks it up and notes, "It's lead -- no copper jacket. So the copper jacket had to have come from the rifle. But this is from a handgun." "So [the hunter] shot one bullet from his rifle and another from his pistol," David shrugs. Catherine points out that Dead Shredded Hunter had neither a pistol nor a knife, so the bear's big gaping stomach wound is a mystery too. David points out that the gallbladder was removed post-mortem, and adds, "I can't tell you why." David is not up to date on the ridiculous atrocities men will commit.

For those of you who are also wondering what the big deal is, a quick and dirty explanation: bear gall bladders manufacture ursodeoxycholic acid (URDA), which has been shown in some tests to treat liver and gallstone problems. Although URDA can be synthesized from cow gall bladders, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine often contend there's no URDA like bear URDA. Since bears are getting scarce, and people are beginning to say, "Wait...you mean there's an alternative for manufacturing this chemical and you're not using because...why?" there's a hot market for wild bear gall bladders. Note I said wild; a concurrent practice that's sprung up to meet demand for URDA is bear farming, in which bears are raised in cages and milked of their bile twice daily. Critics contend this shortens the bears' lives considerably. Bear farmers, naturally, dispute this. The upshot is, we're facing a plotline in which we'll have to admit, once again, that when it comes to the way we treat other species on this planet, we're not covering ourselves in glory.

Poor Warrick is left to sift through Shredded Dead Hunter's personal effects. Unsurprisingly, they are shredded as well. Nicky comes in and tells Warrick he ran the vic's prints, to no avail. Warrick's feeling testy. He asks, "We found this guy 25 miles from civilization. Where did he come from?" Nicky figures that Dead Shredded Fred had company, so it's likely the missing guy drove them both out there. Warrick hands over Dead Shredded Fred's watch and comments that it's pretty high-end. Nicky counters that hunting's not a poor man's sport. And yet it's how a lot of poor people worldwide feed themselves and their families. Funny, that. Nicky then comments, "U.S. presidents still hold up dead ducks for photo ops." Well, if you're talking about that kind of hunting...not to jump the gun here or anything, but there's a distinction between the kind of photo-op hunting politicians do and real hunting.