Dove says that true-crime tales aren’t actual journalism, and whereas we’re led to imagine she is an ace reporter, she appears unfamiliar with one of many core features of stories gathering: incomes the belief of potential sources. She is surly and impolite to almost everybody she meets. She breaks right into a library after hours simply because she’s impatient. Again in London, she had promised to guard a whistle-blower’s id, however his identify leaked by some means, and he later killed himself. This arc by no means totally meshes with the remainder of the present, and it performs out largely in terse telephone calls. However every thing with Dove is so one-note, it’s onerous to see the specifics of her disrespect. Equally, Gilbert’s cash bother and failing marriage — extra telephone calls — really feel like tacked-on innovations somewhat than enriching character depth.
Will there ever be a present by which a feminine journalist doesn’t sleep with a supply or topic? The search continues. Emmy falls for the native tech wunderkind and Dove for the sharp funeral director. Gilbert too turns into awfully enmeshed, befriending Seamus (David Wilmot), an area fisherman with a, sure, fishy previous. Forte and Wilmot have essentially the most fascinating chemistry within the present: Gilbert is raring for good sound bites and Seamus likes to preach, however their deeper functions are at odds. Neither can totally masks his prickly mistrust, however each are determined for the connection anyway. It’s a harmful, fruitful combo.
In every single place our podcasters go, they’re met with delicate derision. Will anybody actually take heed to a present like that? they’re repeatedly requested. Nicely … not if these are the folks making it. “Bodkin” has a seemingly viable thriller at its middle, however Dove’s stubbornness means nobody desires to divulge heart’s contents to her, and Gilbert embodies the solipsistic triteness the present is critiquing however not fairly successfully spoofing. Time and again, he speaks of the ability of story, how tales form the world, how storytelling is definitely every thing. “Ultimately, we’re all simply tales,” he says at one level, and later: “What are we with out our tales?”
Superficially, “Bodkin” has all of the makings of a deal with — there are many snazzy one-liners and touching reveries in addition to some recent and ingenious violence. A lot of its twists do work, and there may be loads to critique in regards to the true-crime business and its mawkishness. All of us love a rustic mouse outsmarting town slicker, and the present, shot on location in Eire, makes marvelous use of Bodkin’s geography, the historical past of its land.
However as with many true-crime podcasts, all these evocative components collectively quantity to a narrative that’s in the end unsatisfying. “Are you doing that factor the place you say it’s about one factor, nevertheless it’s truly about one thing else?” a lady in a bar asks Gilbert after he explains why he’s on the town. No, he says, he doesn’t try this form of present. Possibly “Bodkin” ought to have thought-about it.
