Netflix’s Bodkin Is Another Bonkers True Crime Comedy with Strong Irish Flair

It’s fair to say that Irish culture has been having a bit of a renaissance in recent years, both on the big and small screen. To pick two off the top, The Banshees of Inisherin and Bad Sisters were both pinnacles in their respective genres two years ago, conveying an inimitable milieu with dry and dark humor that’s richly rooted in the Irish way of life. So Netflix’s brand new seven-episode series Bodkin—a cross between true crime drama and small-town comedy—fits the bill perfectly as another narrative drawing from the thematically fertile ground of The Island of Saints. And as its intricate plot reveals, there might be more sinners and criminals in Ireland these days than innocent and good-hearted people with nothing to hide.

Bodkin begins in pretentiously characteristic true crime fashion: with the deep voiceover of an American man recording a mysterious intro that intentionally says very little very well to pull you in. His name is Gilbert Power (Will Forte), whose podcast about his marriage falling apart has become an overnight sensation recently, which no one (including himself) expected. But before we’re introduced to his almost constantly dumbfounded expression face to face, we meet Dove (Siobhan Cullen), a proper investigative journalist working in London, who finds the key informant of her latest story hanged in his apartment. 

In the light of this horrible tragedy, Dove is adamant to keep going and expose the truth, but her editor at The Guardian says she needs to stop and keep her head down for a while. So he assigns her to an unrelated job in the tiny town of Bodkin, Ireland, where she joins Power and his overly-eager rookie assistant Emmy (Robyn Cara) to help them make a podcast about a 25-year-old mystery. A cold case in which three people vanished during the town’s Samhain festival, aka The Irish Night of the Dead.

As hard as Dove fights to wrap this trip up quickly and go back to her real job, she soon realizes that there might be an actual story here, too. Though most of the locals are excited to see the trio of podcasters bringing new blood into this sleepy town’s boredom, they also lie through their teeth to protect their own and prevent the truth from coming out. Their secrecy fuels Dove to dig deeper while also giving Gilbert an excuse to break his own rules and make another hit podcast (which he desperately needs to solve his financial and marital problems). And Emmy, wrapped up in all this, discovers that she needs to be more confident and determined if she wants to make it in this field and become successful—someone people look up to the same way she looks up to Dove and Gilbert.

The mystery and the myriad of secrets that keep multiplying as the plot thickens is the hook here to grab viewers, but it’s the characters and the lived-in, moody-yet-funny vibe that you’ll stay for until the end. There’s sparking chemistry between our trio, at first stemming from the clashing of American and Irish culture but later becoming more and more personal. Gilbert, Dove, and Emmy are just as messed up inside as some of the townspeople they’re investigating, and they’ll have to confront and interrogate their own conflicted feelings as much as they do their suspects. And the road to get there is filled with a bunch of bonkers happenings, including murder, yoga nuns, children with guns, surreal sightings, and a lot of Guinness consumed in the one and only pub in town.