Bodies – Episode 5 “We Are One Another’s Ghosts” Recap & Review

We Are One Another’s Ghosts

The 1941 timeline starts Bodies Episode 5. Whiteman comes to terms with the little girl’s death while nursing a stab wound to his stomach and enters a synagogue. He confesses to the rabbi that he’s responsible for a little girl’s death and is consoled.

Whiteman sneaks into the commissioner’s office and threatens him with a gun. He tells him about his past and reveals he has debts from gambling and did what he could to pay them off. 

The commissioner helps with Whiteman’s stomach wound, and Whiteman says he wants justice for the little girl’s death. Turns out, it was the receptionist who told the lady about Whiteman confessing to the crime and framing Cozen. 

Whiteman finds the old lady, who is called Polly, and takes her to a deserted place to ask her why she killed the little girl. She says she had no choice. The commissioner turns up and arrests Polly for killing the girl and Whiteman for murdering Cozen. As this is happening, an officer called Hayden Harker arrives on the scene. He shoots the commissioner dead and arrests Whiteman. He uncuffs Polly, who he calls mother and utters that same line, “Know You Are Loved.”

2023 – Hasan is found inside the locked room at the Harker house by Barber and his team. She tries to show them the bodies, but they have gone. Barber takes Hasan off the case to preserve her mental well-being. Hasan goes home and receives a call saying that the fingerprints collected from Julian Harker in 1890 match Elias Mannix. 

Hasan meets with Elias in prison and asks him about Julian Harker. Elias says he hasn’t heard of him. She tells him his fingerprints match Harker’s, and this surprises him. She asks him about his birth parents, but Mannix only remembers his mother.

Hasan runs a search and finds Elias biological mother, Sarah Mannix, who is still alive. She meets Sarah and tells her about her son being arrested for murder, causing her to have a breakdown. Hasan asks about the father, and Sarah tells her his name was Danny, the son of rich banker Julian Harker. Turns out Danny’s real second name was Barber, revealing Inspector Barber to be Elias Mannix’s father. 

Barber has taken Mannix away with him, with the police unable to trace them. Hasan gets into Barber’s apartment and finds an old vault key on the table. She hears the voice of an old Elias Mannix on a gramophone, telling her she can’t stop the future, and that they would eventually meet. 

1890 – Hillinghead is determined to prove that Harker is the murderer. Harker is taken to the station where he admits to being in the photograph and demands to speak with Hillinghead alone. He wants him to frame Henry Ashe for the murder of Defoe. Otherwise, he will release the photos of Hillinghead with the dead body at the seance. 

2053 – Iris is handcuffed and inside a truck with Lorna and Defoe. As the truck reaches the destination, Defoe covers her face with a hood and takes her to a secret place. The hood is pulled off, and she is confronted by a woman who turns out to be an elderly version of Hasan, who is the leader of Chapel Perilous. 

She tells her that four people discovered the bodies, revealing photos of Hillinghead and Whiteman. Iris asks her if she was a police officer, and she reveals she was and had interacted with Mannix in 2023. Mannix travelled back in time and formed a cult in 1890 to put in place events that would lead to the detonation of a bomb in London in 2023. 

His plan was to create his own utopia, and he said that Iris Maplewood would be important, but Iris doesn’t believe it, and Hasan holds her hostage. Hasan and Defoe take her to a room where they have the time machine, known as Throat. 

Iris throws up in shock of it all, and can’t bring herself to believe it all. She pretends to believe to get herself uncuffed and tells Hasan she has called the KYAL to rescue her from the chapel. Commander Mannix shows up,as Hasan, Defoe and Lorna make a run for it. Mannix finds Iris, and she leads him to the room that the Throat time machine is in. 

The Episode Review

This episode is by far the most convoluted of them all and will have many viewers scratching their heads in complete and utter confusion. You get the impression the writers are making it up as they go along at this point, as  everything has become totally muddled with all four timelines.

Stephen Graham is a fantastic presence on screen, but it feels like he is very underused in this role. He should probably give Martin Scorsese a call to cast him in his next project to save him from making subpar time travel shows like this one.