Bodkin review: An off-kilter, darkly funny riff on true-crime hackery

True-crime podcasts have just as many fans as haters, and there’s a chance that Bodkin, the Netflix series from Jez Scharf that premieres May 9 about a trio of bickering podcasters, will appeal to both.

In a sense, Scharf’s mystery series, set in a beautiful, isolated Irish village, is optimal content for the Netflix binging model. It shares the protracted rhythms of typical true crime in that it’s brimming with detail while stashing its most salacious revelations for the end of each episode, almost as if it’s daring its audience not to hit play on the next one. Episodes are inundated with tin-eared true-crime clichés, but it’s done winkingly by Will Forte, who drops lines like “the more you learn, the less you know” and other such inanities. Its score, by Paul Leonard-Morgan, evokes the plinky earworm themes from investigative podcasts like Serial, a creative choice that seems almost Pavlovian in its design. Bodkin knows what it is, and thanks to this self-cognizance, it becomes more.

Yet, as good as Bodkin is, no amount of quality character work or engrossing mystery can kick enough dirt over how dumb it is to hear the word “podcast” repeated again and again. That might explain one of the show’s better recurring jokes: Gilbert (Forte), a Chicago-based podcaster eager to both please and impress, frequently tells folks from the provincial Irish village which gives the show its title that he’s doing a podcast. The retort we often hear, delivered in that politely barbed manner the Irish tend to excel at, is priceless: “And will people listen to it?”

The humor in Bodkin is, to put it mildly, droll. It sets a mood as much as the dramatic elements of Scharf’s story, and that blend of wit and melancholy mostly clicks. It makes much of the events that transpire in this fictional town feel both conceivable and ridiculous at the same time, even if those barbs are eventually sanded down by kindness and virtue before the end—an inevitability, perhaps, considering Bodkin is produced by Higher Ground executives Barack and Michelle Obama. Still, the series’ off-kilter approach is successful, by and large, and puts steam behind the many intrigues that uncoil during its seven-hour runtime.

This brings us to the case that delivers Dove (Siobhán Cullen), Gilbert, and Emmy (Robyn Cara) to the seaside town of Bodkin. Twenty-five years ago, three people went missing during the local Samhain festival—that’s the Gaelic festival to honor the dead, pronounced “sow-in”—which dresses up the story with a bit of the macabre. (“It’s a great lens for the podcast,” Gilbert tells his partners.) Looking at it dramatically, Samhain also speaks to the pressure valve in Bodkin that’s just begging to be opened and the elusive mystery aspects that so often dress up the tragedies exploited in true crime. Scharf initially uses the Samhain angle to distract from what’s really going on in this town, a clever sleight of hand that eventually gives way to a darker, sadder story about generational pain and the community that collectively bears its burdens.

On the eve of this grim anniversary, Gilbert, whose genial Midwesterness makes him a target of much scorn from Bodkin’s citizenry—to say nothing of Dove, who is like Lois Lane if she subsisted only on whiskey and didn’t believe in heroes—is sent by The Guardian to put together his story. It’s important to note who’s paying Gilbert and why because it reveals what Scharf thinks about the state of modern journalism and how it embraces sensationalized gimmicks as a financial crutch. (He also wisely uses this story beat to create strife between Dove and Gilbert early on.) Paired with Emmy, a researcher whose city-mouse naivete will soon be put to the test (as it must), Gilbert’s pursuit of the story dredges up skeletons he’d prefer were kept stashed away until his new hit podcast is in the can. Maybe even after that.

Scharf’s conceit is to criticize those indefatigable armchair journalists who exploit the true-crime fad to ill-considered ends, but that’s just the groundwork for his loftier dramatic ambitions. He also takes a good-natured jab at the viewer, who will doubtlessly have listened to enough of these podcasts to know when they’re being bullshitted, and it’s here where Bodkin’s fictionalized take on podcasting hackery gets a little absurd. Surreal contrivances such as a criminal ring operating in Bodkin, a strange wolf that periodically wanders into Dove’s view, and nuns serving questionable tea all pay off in surprisingly affecting ways, given how silly a lot of it is.

So what’s happening in Bodkin, and who’s responsible for much of this town’s ills? Is it the sodden police captain (Denis Conway) who menaces Gilbert and Emmy? Maybe it’s Teddy (Ger Kelly), the sulky but gentle blacksmith who was among the missing and holds onto profound depths of ache from this childhood trauma? What about the McArdles, the violent clan whose sordid criminal history looms over Bodkin like a whiskey-reeking overcoat? And don’t forget about that nun with the tea (Fionnula Flanagan), who has history with Dove that will need sorting before the Bodkin story can be filed with Dove’s put-upon editor (Charlie Kemp). It’s a right proper cast of red herrings Bodkin has assembled, all colorful in their own wonderful ways.

But an emphasis of praise must be put on David Wilmot as the shifty-eyed Seamus Gallagher, a local man with a musical soul and a penchant for sudden bursts of violence. Seamus is the source of much drama in Bodkin, and after a few hours spent with him, it’s clear he’s also its thundering heart. Seamus is a terrific character: He engages in an impromptu slow dance with Gilbert (to “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper) and, in one riotous sequence, helps his new podcaster buddy navigate a bit of local trouble using nothing but a staple gun. Throughout his various misadventures, Wilmot balances his character’s innate sadness with a register of danger. Whenever he’s around, especially during scenes with Forte, Bodkin flirts with greatness.

Of course, plot is just as essential as character in a story like Bodkin, and its podcaster mystery tour isn’t as intriguing or fun once the time comes to pull its loose threads into an appropriately messy climax. Yet as cluttered as Scharf’s ending is, it’s ambitious, and even when he’s eagerly underscoring his points about storytellers and their personal reasons for pursuing stories, they resonate because they feel true. Broadly speaking, the true-crime podcast is frustrating to engage with because any conclusion it reaches, when it bothers reaching for one, is hardly cathartic or even satisfying. Sometimes, listening to it feels gross. Bodkin knows this and so gives us a conclusion that is satisfying and bittersweet—hardly the stuff of seedy crime stories but sensational all the same.

Bodkin premieres May 9 on Netflix