Bodkin
As we begin watching the new Netflix black comedy “Bodkin”, the central character Gilbert Power, played by Will Forte, tells us upfront “When I began this podcast, I always said there won’t be a climax. I mean I never thought it would be useful or useful as such or at all”. This sets forth the reader’s Inclination towards the characters as it encourages the viewers’ somewhat psychological intolerance to the main difficulty associated with the genre their fake show is actually set in. In the series, an American podcaster Gilbert hosting a true crime show hires a researcher Emmy (Robyn Cara) about a former journalist Dove (Siobhan Cullen) working in Ireland who agrees to help her with the investigation of the long-closed truest crime show.
These amateur sleuths espouse different approaches and methods that allow them to reach out the other people in the town. Some love the TV series, some are very hostile to the guests. Yet, Gilbert and Emmy want to be all over the map possible and make one more box office hit, while Dove is losing her grip as she sinks deeper into the case and will do anything to reveal them. The three of them do not see eye to eye from the beginning but at the end of the series, they start to like each other and better still, their individual styles of conducting and running interrogations serves the team well.
From the first glares that the trio is receiving, it is obvious that Bodkin and its residents have some skeletons in their closets.
During their initial couple of days in the town, this prompts a sordid smeary mischief (thank goodness; there are no fatalities) and the arson of the driver’s vehicle. The lovely places of the town that reminds Gilbert quite a few times are actually a veil over a concealed tapestry of which each person in the society wishes to remain undisturbed such is perfect order. That is the most central issue in the series and it will help in the perfect depiction of the limitations in the true crime drama.
In the series, for the first couple of episodes, jaw-dropping things happen to the primary narrator who happens to come from a culture different from that of the place she is narrating about and of the I-can’t trust- you, culture of the people. Where it is a podcast or a documentary, the engagement which listeners or viewers have with the media that they consume is one of discord. From the first words he uttered, Gilbert impressed to Emmy that “the most dramatic tales are those that contain intrigues” which clearly suggest that he may be unable to see that the course he on has real life people. Dove on the contrary rightly equates true crime podcasts to public executions and puts herself Gilbert and Emmy into opposite corners of the play ground.
As the series unfolds, these inner works and conflicting themes of Forgive me, Bodkin don’t seem to have completely disappeared. However, they do shift to the background in relation to the real crime. From the fourth episode onwards, the series starts to explore supporting characters, giving voice to the people who are without the three protagonists’ knowledge, being taken advantage of by the third party. The most interesting here is undoubtedly Seamus (David Wilmont), one of the town’s most illusive, and powerful members. Dove is certain that he is the one behind the lenses for the three people that vanished that day, during the Samhain festival, Dove is however different in some aspects.
Gilbert thus spends most of these two episodes in the company of Seamus, trying to squeeze any information from the man he can. However, as is apparent to Gilbert and to us in their time together that there’s more to him than the casual talk he lets overpower him extent. For many people, the progressing feelings between the two seem to be very sweet – if such a word can be found in a black comedy and Forte and Wilmot are very well matched.
Since they are going around to clear a debt which Gilbert owes to a client in a bar, the two of them share their most romantic and adult failings with one another. The more sincere their relationship is, the more intense Gilbert’s need to prove to Seamus that he is nowhere near the bad person Dove believes him to be. Shadows, Conservators is the best relationship in a series which revolves around either time barrels or time tanks and lets the writing and acting of the show do justice.
In the end, “Bodkin” is successful in a myriad of thrillers and true-crime offerings. It weaves a compelling whodunit that features themselves with the development of their main hero and all supporting ones too. There is a series where chemistry between the cast is the backbone of the show and so it is a good thing that each and every one of them put in their effort. Dove’s stubborness and shyness combined with Gilbert and Emmy’s girly behaviour then allow the Americans to be detectives in the same vein as Dove. It is the variation on how they view the world as well as how they view their work which helps them break open the case and reveal that this cold case is possibly even hot.
In the first instance, however, it is not a case of that nature at all. It is in fact a very powerful shifter that has been dormant for more than three decades in the case of Bodkin. It has been festering for sometime now and because of the efforts of Dove, Gilbert and Emmy that will happen instead. All of the aforementioned ‘axes’ of every secret are voiced too briefly by a passing personage although the most intimidating ones remain in the secretive noggins of the most essential characters of the show. The plot development does not resemble a returning wave in shape and is the one of or maybe the most fun show of the year.
Underneath it all is a caution that not every issue should necessarily be resolved and that some, perhaps, are best left undisturbed.
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