Bodkin – Season 1 Episode 6 “Ends Justify Means” Recap & Review

Ends Justify Means

Episode 6 of Bodkin Season 1 begins with Dove staring at her reflection in her laptop. We then cut to the harbour where a crowd is gathered, looking at Seamus’s burnt-out boat. The Interpol agents are there too. They want a local policeman to help with an extradition order they have been given. The person they want him to arrest is Dove.

We cut to Dove who is at her laptop. She is looking at information related to the Official Secrets Act. This includes info about prison time for anybody found guilty of breaching it. Dove is understandably concerned.

It’s breakfast time at Mrs O’Shea’s but before they eat, Dove points Gilbert and Emmy to a discovery she has made. She has found Mrs O’Shea’s cincture from the Sisters of Mercy, the order we met in a previous episode. Mrs O’Shea, who we now know was a nun (as well as a nurse), discovers them, becomes angry, and tells them to leave. Breakfast is cancelled!

After eating breakfast at a cafe, Emmy and Dove leave Gilbert at the cafe where he is waiting for his wife. We then cut to the eel warehouse, where we discover Seamus is still alive. Sean is in the warehouse and Seamus tells him the McCardles were responsible for the fire. He then tells him he might have to leave town.

We return to Mrs O’Shea who is on the phone talking to somebody about “slowing down” the podcasters. A moment later, the policeman arrives at the door looking for Dove. She isn’t there. 

Dove and Emmy are at the convent where they hope to see Sister McDonagh. Sister Bernadette tells them to wait in her office. Tea and cake are served but the niceties end when Dove asks Bernadette about Fiona. Bernadette doesn’t talk about the missing woman. Instead, she tells Emmy how the nuns at the convent took Dove in and that Dove then burnt down the chapel. 

Dove doesn’t go along with this story. But before an argument breaks out, Bernadette is called away. Dove tries to leave but discovers the office door has been locked. Thankfully, she is able to break out. She and Emmy head to Sister McDonagh’s room, where Dove enters while Emmy keeps watch outside. During her conversation with Sister McDonagh, Dove discovers Fiona is actually Sister Dominica and that she has been hiding out at the convent. 

Meanwhile, Gilbert is with Amber. She wants him to sign the divorce papers. He wants her to change her mind but she’s unhappy that he spoke about their marriage in his podcast. Reluctantly, Gilbert signs the papers. 

Back at the convent, Dove and Emmy are in a room full of other people. Dove begins hallucinating and thinks she can see her mother who is surrounded by nurses. When she snaps out of her daze, she and Emmy go to the spa which is populated with naked nuns. Emmy questions one of the nuns about Sister Dominica and then discovers Dove has wandered away.

We then cut to Dove who is hallucinating again. She is having visions of her younger self being tortured by the nuns at the spa. When Emmy brings Dove back to reality for a moment, Dove tells her Sister Bernadette spiked her tea. As Dove has more visions of her past, Emmy discovers the nuns are running some kind of underground drug operation. She phones Gilbert and tells him the nuns are drugging everyone. She also tells him not to drink the tea.

Emmy leads Dove to the chapel, where the nuns keep bees. Dove has a vision of the chapel on fire, which she presumably started when she was a girl. As she starts to come round, Emmy speaks to Sister Dominica who turns out not to be Fiona. Presumably, Sister McDonagh had been confused.

We cut to Gilbert who is making his way to the convent. He runs into Teddy and Maeve. Teddy is questioning Maeve about what happened on the island but she won’t give anything away. When Gilbert calls her out for lying about being in Dublin on the night of the Samhain festival, he tells her he knows Fiona was pregnant. 

Maeve finally reveals her story, which includes hitting Teddy with an oar after thinking he was Seamus coming after Fiona. She then took him to the convent to get medical treatment from a nurse – Mrs O’Shea. 

More of the story is revealed when the three of them meet up with Emmy and Dove at the convent’s cemetery. Maeve tells them Fiona stayed at the convent under the care of Mrs O’Shea while pregnant. She was hiding from Seamus and the McCardles. 

Just then, Bernadette arrives, angry at the sight of the group at the graveyard. But she softens when she sees Maeve. Bernadette then tells them Fiona went into labor early and died, along with the baby. At that point, Dove collapses.

We cut to Seamus who is with some people wanting to buy the eels. However, the eels are gone. Seamus thinks Sean has taken them.

We return to the convent where Dove tells Bernadette she was smoking in the chapel. That’s how she ended up burning the place down. We learn Dove’s mother was an addict and that she left Dove at the convent while she went somewhere to get clean. But after getting clean, she didn’t want to see Dove again. 

Bernadette mentions the grave she dug for Fiona and the child and then leaves. When Dove talks to Gilbert and Emmy about this, Gilbert suspects Bernadette was lying about the date this happened. At that moment, the police arrive with one of the Interpol agents to arrest Dove. Bernadette had called them. 

Gilbert intervenes and gets pepper sprayed for his troubles. Dove is then led away by the police. We then hear a conversation between Emmy and Bernadette. Emmy realizes Fiona’s baby didn’t die. Mrs O’Shea took the child back to the mainland after Fiona had died. That child is Sean, the person Mrs O’Shea had claimed was a Romanian orphan. Emmy also realizes Seamus was the father. Bernadette is visibly shocked by Emmy’s knowledge of the truth.

We then cut to Sean who is making a deal with the ‘Japanese buyer’, unaware that she works for Interpol. Meanwhile, Gilbert and Dove are on the boat heading back to the mainland. He sees the decorations at the Samhain festival and thinks one of them looks like him!

The Episode Review

Finally, we get answers. Fiona and Teddy disappeared on the night of the Samhain festival because they were at the convent. Teddy was being looked after while Fiona passed away giving birth to her baby. Presumably, Teddy had killed Malachy previously, though this wasn’t clarified in the final reveal.

We’re left with more questions though. Why are the nuns running a drug operation? Why are they spiking people’s tea? Why does one of the festival masks resemble Gilbert? 

With one episode to go, we’re sure things will be wrapped up. We hope so anyway, as this is one series that veers from the logical to the bizarre.