Bodies – Episode 2 “Do You Know Who I Am?” Recap & Review

Do You Know Who I Am?

In Bodies Episode 2, in 2023, Hasan and her team head to the foster house of Elias Mannix, who was the boy in the yellow jacket seen with Syed. Mannix was raised in a care home with Syed and adopted by the Morley family. Hasan searched for Mannix in the Morley house after barging in with her team, but he was nowhere to be found.

Hasan interrogates The Morleys about their adopted son’s disappearance, and they seem not to care, as they seem to know where he is. She investigates further and finds a strange video of Mannix talking about a nightmare about killing a baby. Mannix utters the words “Know You Are Loved” at the end of the video. What does this mean? 

The next day, Hasan’s colleague Rick finds CCTV footage of Mannix in his foster father’s truck, after supposedly going missing. She interrogates the Morleys further after confirming they lied. The mother mentions a place where Mannix might be. Hasan then goes to the location, but Mannix is not there. Hasan continues her interrogation, and the mother starts uttering gibberish about the future. She then cuts her own tongue off when she realises she’s revealed too much. Hasan tells Rick to stop searching the location, but before he can leave, a huge explosion breaks out and kills him. 

1980 – Hillinghead is asked to stay off the case by the commissioner. He heads home to burn the evidence of the man seen on the glass window. He can’t bring himself to burn it properly. Henry Ashe visits Hillinghead and asks him to return the photo, but the detective kicks him out. But he meets with Henry later and has the photograph and says he wants to solve the case with him, but discreetly. 

1941 – Whiteman is instructed by the agency to kill someone to frame him for the murder of Farrell. He tries to kill a man called Lea Cozen, a convicted rapist and an ideal candidate to pin the murder on. He puts a bullet in his head, staging the scene as a suicide, putting evidence there to frame him. Whiteman tells the agency that the job is done, and the lady on the other end of the phone says “Know You’re Loved”

Moving forward to 2053, Iris Maplewood is working for a company called KYAL (Know You are Loved). She watches television with her neighbour, and a memorial piece for the bombing in 2023 comes on. Iris lost people in that bombing. The next day, Maplewood was told to back off the case of the person found shot in the eye on Long Harvest Lane. Iris can’t help but think there’s more to this case than meets the eye. No pun intended. She runs a DNA test on her clothes, which have the man’s blood on them. The man is a professor called Gabriel Defoe. He was born in London in 2022. 

Iris discovers Defoe is dead, and his body is under observation by scientists at KYAL. Commander Mannix had manipulated her into giving her life to serving him and the organisation. The commander is obviously Elias Mannix, whom Hasan was searching for in 2023. Iris visits the college where Defoe was a professor and begins interrogating people. Turns out, Defoe is alive and walks in. Iris points her gun at him and asks about his real identity. Defoe tells her he had no idea what happened to him. Iris tells him she wants to speak to him about his own murder.

The Episode Review

The first episode of this series was rather jarring with the four different timelines going on in the space of an hour long drama, but once you get used to it, there are some redeeming features that prevail in episode two.

There’s no doubting there are some big production values here, with a particularly spectacular explosion this week. But there is a feeling that the fourth timeline creates too much confusion to the plot. It’s clearly leading up to something, but the journey there is proving to be a bit of a slog.