‘Bodkin’ Review – Will Forte’s Netflix Mystery Series Sticks the Landing

The Big Picture

• Will Forte showcases a new dimension to his acting in Netflix’s
  Bodkin
  .
• The picturesque setting of Bodkin, Ireland adds to the series’ appeal.
• Bodkin
  delves into the impact of podcasts on storytelling and the unraveling of its characters.

In 2018, former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obamafounded Higher Ground Productions. Their multi-year deal sought to bring both scripted and unscripted films and series to Netflix to give a more diverse voice to entertainment. Their first foray was the 2019 documentary American Factory, which won the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award the next year. They have produced several films and series over the past five years, but this year marks their first scripted series with Bodkin.

Created by Jez Scharf, the seven-episode series stars Will Forte as Gilbert, an American podcaster who is off to Bodkin, Ireland in an attempt to solve the mystery of three people who disappeared during a Samhain festival decades earlier. Joining him is his research assistant, Emmy (Robyn Caryn), and an Irish investigative journalist, Dove (Siobhán Cullen). Although comedy is Forte’s specialty, Bodkin, while having a few darkly comic moments, is something more serious and sinister. Going in, the Saturday Night Live veteran might be the name you know, but when it’s all over, he won’t be the one you remember the most.

What Is ‘Bodkin’ About?

Films and series about podcasters trying to solve a mystery are all the rage at the moment, and none may be doing it better than Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. At an initial glance, Bodkin, which stars three different characters, with one of the leads being a popular comic actor, might draw dismissals as a clone — but this show is no copycat. Although it’s labeled as a comedy, outside a few darkly humorous moments, it’s as serious as a series like this can get. The comedy it does have is not forced, but rather an awkward symptom of the residents of Bodkin due to the suppression of the mystery they’re surrounded by.

Bodkin centers on Dove (Cullen), an investigative journalist from Ireland, who left the country due to controversy and moved to England. There, she has found even more troubles. Unable to solve a case in Bodkin, Ireland about the disappearance of three young people during the Samhain festival decades earlier, Dove is informed by her boss that he’s bringing in an American podcaster to help her. Enter Will Forte’s Gilbert, who is Dove’s exact opposite. She is a serious person, one with such a dour expression and bad attitude that we know there has to be a story there, who detests that a lowly podcast host is being sent to assist her. Gilbert, on the other hand, is the happy-go-lucky American excited about the opportunity to meet people and tell a new story for his show. For him, this is an adventure, and accompanying him is his assistant researcher, a wannabe podcaster named Emmy (Caryn).

Bodkin is a beautiful, coastal town, a little place with old buildings, narrow streets, and rolling green hills, just like you imagine a village in Ireland would be like. It’s the ideal contrasting backdrop, a place of beauty and peacefulness, for a plot that centers on young people gone missing and hidden secrets. As one character tells our heroes, Ireland has never even had a serial killer before. Now, however, something evil has happened in Bodkin, and it’s up to a trio who doesn’t like each other to figure it out, exposing the town’s hidden past while their own trauma gets exposed in the process.

Will Forte Breaks Away From His Traditional Comic Approach in ‘Bodkin’

Will Forte is well-known for playing outlandish characters, whether it be from his years on SNL, the underrated FOX series The Last Man on Earth, or as the foul-mouthed dog hater in last year’s Strays. There has often been some seriousness underneath those over-the-top characters (he is terrifying in Strays, actually), and in Bodkin, Forte tones down his high-energy comedic approach to play Gilbert, who is at once an extrovert who loves to meet people and hear their stories while also being filled with inner turmoil.

Gilbert uses his charm and genuinely fascinated-by-everything personality to get the townsfolk of Bodkin to trust him. Many are excited to hear that he is a podcaster. They immediately smile, let down their guard, and open up to him in a way they wouldn’t if he was a cop, or a traditional reporter like Dove. Bodkin uses their reactions, even from people in such a small town so far away, to show how deep the new podcast obsession goes. That desire to dig deep into someone else’s life and know all of their secrets is fascinating, no matter where you’re from. It’s not fascinating, though, if you’re the one who has a secret that needs to be kept that way. Gilbert doesn’t know what to do when he comes across townsfolk who don’t want to speak to him at all, treating him like a cancer who has invaded their solitude and simple lives. Here, Bodkin is saying even more about the podcast wave and how it can dig too deep, and involves real trauma behind the storytelling.

Moreover, Gilbert has his own trauma. He might come off as happy and excitable, but he’s so much of a people pleaser that he’ll drink himself silly to fit in and get himself caught up in some life-risking gambling debts. His obsession with podcasting has also harmed his own life, with his actions pushing his wife away in a way that can’t be fixed. This is mostly handled well, but there is one scene, the only brief time we meet Gilbert’s wife when she comes to visit, that is so clichéd that you’ve seen it a hundred times before and know exactly where it’s going. It’s one of Bodkin‘s few weaknesses, as it falls prey to one too many tropes of the genre.

Siobhán Cullen, Robyn Cara, and David Wilmot Are the True Stars of ‘Bodkin’

Will Forte shows off his acting range as Gilbert, but he’s not the most memorable star of Bodkin. That distinction goes to Dove. Siobhán Cullen is coming off of another TV series, The Dry, but Bodkin could make her an international star. Dove is a bit of a cliché herself at first, that grumpy and serious character who hates everyone and just wants to solve the case herself. One scene even has her flip off a small child who has the guts to compliment her sunglasses, which she wears often. As the episodes go on, we learn more of her own story, and it’s one even more tragic than Gilbert’s. While he covers up his pain by ignoring it, Dove lives it full-time, destroyed by the guilt of how one of her stories led to someone’s death. She’s arguably a little bit one-note at first, but as Bodkin peels back the layers, she becomes fascinating. Whenever Dove makes any headway with the missing persons case, she opens up a little, letting others and the viewer see more of the real person inside.

Gilbert’s sidekick assistant, Emmy, doesn’t have much to do in the beginning other than stand in her boss’ shadow. She’s new to this, living the fantasy without knowing what to do. She soon shows that she can hold her own with anyone, and, through wanting to be both like Gilbert and dreaming of being like Dove one day, is a bit of both of them. Bodkin shows us someone young at the beginning of their journey who could end up like either Gilbert or Dove if she’s not careful.

There are two main flaws of Bodkin, starting with the fact that we never get to know much about the people who disappeared. It makes it harder for us to care about their story being solved when we have no attachment to them. We also have a scarce attachment to Gilbert, Dove, and Emmy as a group for most of the series. They have little chemistry together, which may have been purposeful, but in the final few episodes, they begin to click more as they find commonality, rather than focusing on the disdain that can get repetitive.

One character, however, helps remedy both of these issues. A bearded man who lives in the town named Seamus (David Wilmot) becomes a focal point in Bodkin when there are too many characters being interviewed. He is more mysterious than the main mystery itself, a man who is always angry and ready to hurt someone (he takes a staple gun to one man’s chest), but who also forms a bit of a respect with Gilbert and his group. Seamus can either be friend or foe, but you’ll have to wait until the end to find out which.

Bodkin isn’t as good as similar series, but it only gets better as each episode unfolds. It starts out with too many tropes and characters who don’t always click, but by the end, it finds its way and sticks the landing with a finale that’s both frightening and sweet. Bodkin is a series about telling stories that don’t want to be told — not just someone else’s, but Gilbert’s, Dove’s, and Emmy’s as well.

Bodkin is available to stream on Netflix.

WATCH ON NETFLIX