Bodkin – Season 1 Episode 4 “Poison or Something” Recap & Review

Poison or Something

Episode 4 of Bodkin Season 1 opens with a close-up of the two bodies that were found in the car in the last episode. Sergeant Power turns up and tells those in attendance to go home. Dove thinks Seamus may be responsible for the murders.

The podcast team don’t have a lift home as Sean isn’t around. However, Emmy is able to track his car using her phone. They find the car and Sean too, who is with Seamus. Sean is with his young friends shooting seagulls with the airguns from the previous episode. As the team hide, they hear Sean telling Seamus about the bodies being found in the car.

In a warehouse, the team find large vats of water. When Dove investigates, she falls into a vat. After climbing out, she is covered in eels. That’s the least of her worries as the team is approached by two people – a man and a woman – with guns. It turns out they were the people that previously tried to run Dove over.

The man tells them they’re from Interpol. The woman then says Bodkin is at the centre of an international eel smuggling operation. They threaten the team with arrest if they jeopardize their criminal investigation. They also tell them to steer clear of Seamus.

Back at the house, the team talk about what happened. Dove talks about Seamus’s supposed involvement with the smuggling operation. Despite this being the basis of a good story, Gilbert tells them it’s best to leave Seamus alone. 

That night, Dove has a nightmare about the whistleblower who killed himself. He’s hanging from the ceiling while eels slip out of his mouth.

In the morning, Frank arrives and punches Gilbert. He then puts Gilbert in the back of a car and drives him somewhere. When Gilbert is released, Frank threatens him again before driving away.

In Gilbert’s absence, Emmy and Dove investigate on their own. Dove shows Emmy the newspaper picture showing Malachy with Seamus. Also in the picture is Sergeant Power.

The two of them confront the sergeant in a cafe. Dove questions him about the picture. She tells him she thinks Seamus killed Malachy and Fiona and that he had something to do with it. The sheriff tells them it was the McArdle brothers (gangsters) who killed the two, not Seamus. When Emmy asks if Teddy was involved, the sheriff gets angry and tells her his son was with Fintan. After he leaves, Dove tells Emmy she doesn’t believe a word he said. 

Elsewhere, Gilbert is feeling sorry for himself after calling his wife. Seamus turns up in his car and tries to cheer Gilbert up. He has a favour to ask Gilbert. If he’s not mentioned in the podcast, he will pay Gilbert’s debt to Frank. 

We cut to Emmy and Dove, who are in the back of Sean’s car. They are keeping an eye on the car that was found in the bog. It’s being guarded by a police officer. A little while later, when Dove is checking the car, Emmy and Sean have a conversation. When she tells him he’s not interested in him in a romantic sense, he drives away. 

Emmy then distracts the policeman while Dove searches the car.  Dove finds a knife with a cross on it that is similar to one of Teddy’s knives she saw earlier. She and Emmy question the connection between Teddy and the bodies that have been found.

Meanwhile, Gilbert is in a car with Seamus. Seamus pulls over the car to attend to a “little business.” When Seamus leaves, Gilbert watches him go to a boat where Sean and the people from Interpol are waiting. We cut to the meeting between them. The Interpol agents claim to be working for a consortium of Japanese food buyers with an interest in eels. Seamus is suspicious of them so doesn’t confess to eel smuggling…until the agents raise what they’re willing to pay. He agrees to the deal. 

When Seamus returns to Gilbert, he doesn’t reveal what his business meeting was about. Gilbert doesn’t reveal that he had already met the Interpol agents either. 

We cut to Emmy who is with Fintan. She wants him to take the knife to Teddy and make amends. Emmy thinks the knife might make Teddy remember what happened to him on the night he disappeared. When she meets with Dove moments later, Dove tells her to record the conversation between Fintan and Teddy. 

The scene shifts to Teddy and Fintan speaking inside of Teddy’s workshop. Outside is Emmy, recording the conversation. Fintan apologizes to Teddy for ditching him. He then shows him the knife that was found in the car. Teddy says it had been a gift to his father. After hearing this news, Emmy runs to Dove who is waiting nearby. She tells Dove the car in the bog must have been Sergeant Power’s and not Seamus’s. She thinks the person that Fintan saw walk out of the bog was the sergeant.

Dove and Emmy get into a scuffle when Dove wants to hear the recording herself. A moment later, Fintan turns up and realizes Emmy had been recording him. He then drives away.

Seamus drives to the Hollow and leaves Gilbert in the car. Gilbert gets out anyway and finds a teddy bear in the trunk of a tree. When he hears Seamus returning to the car, he quickly runs back and gets into the passenger seat so Seamus doesn’t know he’s been anywhere.

When Seamus returns to the car, he gives Gilbert the money needed for his debt. Gilbert wants to know where he got it but Seamus is elusive. He tells Gilbert that he squirrelled it away and that he promised himself he would always look after Malachy and never be poor. 

We cut to Dove and Emmy who aren’t speaking to one another. We then return to Gilbert and Seamus who are at the traveller camp. Seamus gives Frank the money. When Frank makes a joke about the payment not being enough, Seamus turns violent and staples money to Frank’s body.

Back in the car, Seamus apologizes to Gilbert and explains that he used to have anger problems. We don’t think those issues are a thing of the past!

Later that night, Gilbert notices the tension between Emmy and Dove. Dove leaves the pub and visits Mary, the lady she bonded with in a previous episode. 

Gilbert takes Seamus to the morgue to see the bodies of Malachy and Fiona. Seamus recognizes Malachy from his sixth toe. He wonders if whoever killed them tortured them first. He then tells Gilbert how he had imagined they had run off together. But deep down, he knew the truth. He links their deaths to the McArdles, who apparently had a vendetta against him.

Meanwhile, Dove gets bad news from her boss. He tells her there is an extradition order to bring her home. Back at the mortuary, Seamus realizes the female body isn’t Fiona’s. This begs the question: Whose body is it?

The Episode Review

Just when we’re getting closer to the truth…we’re taken further away. At least we know one of the bodies belongs to Malachy. But as for the other? Who knows!

Bodkin’s twists and turns continue. The mystery is enticing but we hope the payoff will be worth the wait. Too often in shows like this one, we are left with tantalizing questions that result in less than satisfactory answers. We’re hoping Bodkin will be a rare exception.

In the first episode, this Netflix show offered a healthy balance of fish-out-of-water comedy and mystery thriller. It now seems to have abandoned the comedic elements, judging by the last couple of episodes. This is a pity, as Will Forte is a talented comedy performer. But the show remains watchable, thanks to the deepening mystery and the complexity of its characters.