Bodies – Episode 1 “You’re Dead Already” Recap & Review

You’re Dead Already

In Bodies Episode 1, it’s 2023. Detective Hasan is involved in a far right protest and notices a man with a gun hiding behind a bin, and she chases him. He leads her to a naked dead body of a white male, with a gunshot wound in one eye. 

In 1941, Detective Whiteman is dealing with discrimination in the police department during World War II. This discrimination comes from Inspector Farrell, who implies that he’s a spy working for a secret organisation. He is ordered to retrieve a dead body on Long Harvest Lane and take it to a certain location. 

It’s now 1890, and we meet Detective Hillinghead, a closeted gay man who finds a body in a rookery and stumbles upon a journalist taking pictures of the scene. 

Back to the present day, and Hasan, a Muslim woman living at home with her father and young son, doesn’t think the Asian boy, Syed, who was found at the crime scene, committed the murder. She attends her father’s birthday party, and her senior officer calls her away to speak to Syed’s sister, Aaliyah. She convinces Aaliyah to reach out to Syed to convince him to trust her. Syed claims he had to lead Hasan to the body, as everything has already been decided and is playing out as planned. Hmmm…weird. 

Syed fires the gun at armed police, who follow him to his meeting, and Hasan saves him. But he shoots himself in the head, with Hasan unable to save him. Hasan remembers seeing two coffee cups in the food court where she met him and views the security footage to see who else he met with. 

It’s 1890 again, and Hillinghead visits the nosey journalist taking pictures and learns of what he knows. The journalist, Henry Ashe, is also gay and takes photos of other gay couples, and himself. Ashe tries to kiss Hillinghead, which leads to his arrest. He then notices a photo showing a man in a window near the location of the body. Ashe’s alibi would reveal what he was actually doing, putting him in a difficult position. He reveals that one of the men he was pictured with is the assistant police commissioner’s married son. Ouch, scandal. Ashe is in the clear, and Hillinghead must track down the man in the photo. 

Hillinghead visits the coroner and discovers there is no bullet in the victim, despite an entrance wound through the eye. The coroners from 1941 and 2023 find the same outcome. Confused yet? The coroner also reacts shocked to the picture of the man in the window, as he recognises him, telling Hillinghead to burn the picture or face death. 

Back in 1941, Whiteman is interrupted by Farrell when dumping the body. He pulls over Whiteman after following him, but before discovering the body, a German airstrike kills Farrell. The next day, Whiteman is tasked with solving Farrell’s death. When the police find the body inside the boot, he acts surprised. Whiteman faces the wrath of the people he was supposed to deliver the body to, and they demand he burn the police reports or face severe consequences. 

The episode ends with the introduction of a fourth detective and a brand new timeline. It’s now 2053, and Detective Iris Maplewood finds the body on Long Harvest lane. The twist is that the body is still alive in the future timeline. 

The Episode Review

Well….what a confusing and convoluted first episode in this new Netflix crime drama series. There are four, yes, FOUR different timelines to follow in this show, all focused on the discovery of what appears to be the same dead body found by different detectives. 

The idea behind this show is very original and potentially ground breaking, but it fails miserably in it’s execution, creating as many plot holes as bullet holes, and taking the audience on a mind-bending mess of a narrative. If time travel is done well, it can be very rewarding for the audience, but this first episode is an absolute mess from start to finish. You find yourself starting to root for a character, to then be upended into a completely different timeline with a new character. Just when you think three different timelines is more than enough to handle, they throw in a fourth one just to throw the audience off. The acting is quite good, and the settings are fairly immersive, but it’s too much to take on all in one go.