Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bodkin’ On Netflix, Where A Trio Of Podcasters Find More Than Just A Cold Case In A Tiny Irish Village

Ever sat down to watch a show that you’ve heard a lot about, with actors in it that you really like, and say to yourself, “Is that all there is?” Sure, the show is pleasant enough, but you thought there might be… more. That’s the feeling we got when we watched the first scripted series from the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions.

BODKIN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see scenes of London. Then a voice says, “My name is Gilbert Power. When I started this podcast, I didn’t expect to solve anything. I didn’t expect it to change my life. Most of all, I didn’t expect Dove.”

The Gist: Dove (Siobhán Cullen) is a hard-nosed reporter for The Guardian. We see her walking into the flat of one of her sources, only to see that he hanged himself. She’s startled by a man who looks like a demon, but all he wants is to go to the Halloween party upstairs.

Dove’s boss tell her that the higher-ups at the paper are incensed that she lost a primary source for her investigation. He orders her to lay low by assisting Gilbert Power (Will Forte), a popular true crime podcaster the paper is partnering with, in a cold case investigation in Bodkin, Ireland. “True crime podcasts aren’t journalism; they’re necrophilia,” she says to her boss. Besides, she hasn’t been in her home country for years and doesn’t want to go back. But she has no choice.

When she gets up to Ireland she meets Gilbert, who is regaling their researcher, Emmy Sizergh (Robyn Cara), with his very personal view of mysteries. “There’s only one true mystery: The human heart,” he says. As they’re driven into town by their driver Sean O’Shea (Chris Walley), Gilbert mentions that they’re there to research the disappearance of three unrelated people at the town’s Samhain festival 25 years prior. But he’s also marveling at the Irishness of where he’s going, much to Dove’s discomfort.

Dove is annoyed by Gilbert’s relentless positivity and his view of Ireland as a land of quaint buildings and people doing Riverdance, when she knows the truth, which is why she left for London. When they visit a touristy pub to talk to locals, Dove pulls them out to go to where the “real Bodkin” is, which is a more local place. There, Gilbert ingratiates himself to various locals, including Seamus Gallagher (David Wilmot). In the meantime, Dove gets to hear drunken old guys talk about magical horses.

The next morning, as Gilbert and Emmy interview people about the disappearances, Dove goes off on her own, investigating a “bigger” story off an observation she made of Sean, who now isn’t answering his phone, the night before. When Gilbert and Emmy talk to Sergeant Power (Denis Conway), the local Guard officer at the time of the disappearances, he pretends to get drunk to throw them off the trail of their investigation. Dove goes to Sean’s house, where she sees Seamus; she follows him out to a cliff, where he hurls some flowers into the water.

Gilbert is surprised when Emmy shows him a file she grabbed from Sergeant Power’s house. Dove is chased and clipped by a car, with two men in ski masks telling her that all three of them should go home.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Bodkin, created by Jez Scharf (it’s also the first scripted series from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions), has a bit of Only Murders In The Building combined with one of many small-town murder mystery shows you can find on Acorn TV and BritBox.

Our Take: Bodkin is one of those shows where you watch and hope that there is something there that’s more than what you’re seeing, but you know deep down that the “something” may never materialize. It’s got a lot of good parts and some potential to be a darkly fun show to watch. But the first episode was underwhelming and just made us want to watch shows with similar themes that we enjoyed more.

It seems to be setting up the whole culture of true crime podcasts, given Dove’s constant disdain for it and Gilbert’s relentless positivity and desire to scene set rather than actually do some investigative journalism. Then again, it may end up being a story about Gilbert, Dove and Emmy coming together to reveal something about Bodkin that the people there don’t want revealed, with the three of them becoming closer in the process. The voice over at the beginning of the first episode sure makes it feel that way.

But Only Murders has already treaded this ground in an effective way, with an apartment building being the equivalent of the small coastal village in Ireland. So the keys here are going to be how engaging the mystery is and just what kind of chemistry this trio has.

What we will say is that if anyone can play Gilbert, who seems to be unrealistic in his view of podcasting and Ireland but also has a bit of a dark side, it’s Forte. He’s proven in the past that he can play positive but not naive, smiling on the outside and crying on the inside. We get hints that Gilbert’s got things going on back in the States that aren’t so great, and the more we learn about that, the better. And he and Cullen play well off each other; Dove’s sullen practicality needs to be there to offset what Gilbert brings. We’re not sure yet about Cara, who plays Emmy, but even if she’s just there as a young go-getter, we’ll be fine with that.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: “Stories can change us. Stories can kill,” we hear Gilbert say as Dove limps up the road after getting that threat. She sees the same wolf she saw at the B&B the day before, and says, “Fuck off, wolf.”

Sleeper Star: David Wilmot’s character Seamus Gallagher is obviously going to be a big factor in this mystery, and his character’s introduction to the podcasting trio is a fun scene to watch.

Most Pilot-y Line: Dove can be mean as hell, like when she tells Emmy that her first name “is a very twee name, like you’re a Bronte sister or something.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Bodkin is relatively light and pleasant to watch, but we’re not sure if the show is going to get much deeper or more interesting than what we saw in the first episode.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.