If you're like us, the ending of Bodies probably left you scratching your head in confusion... but if you'd got through the previous seven episodes of this time-jumping Netflix crime drama, then you're probably used to it by now!
Bodies began with the same mysterious dead body showing up in the same location over four time periods: 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053, and over the eight parts of this show we've gotten to know our detectives (you can meet the Bodies cast here) and the mystery at the heart of the show.
With Bodies episode 8, the story concludes (for now, though there might be a Bodies season 2), but it's an action-packed finale with even more twists and turns. So let's recap what happened in the finale, and in the show itself!
Spoilers ensue, if you haven't seen the previous episodes you can check out our guides to the other episodes of the Netflix series, or visit our meet the Bodies cast guide to catch back up on who's who. So let's jump into Bodies episode 8.
Bodies episode 8 recap
Maplewood leaps back in time
After jumping back through the portal into 1890, Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) finds the name "Hillinghead" scratched in brick in Longharvest Lane. In 2053 Gabriel Defoe and the old version of Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) presume that, because they're still there, Maplewood failed.
We see Hillinghead write his confusion, as in episode 6, and as he does so another police officer tells him that there's a crippled woman in the cell who wants to speak to him. Hillinghead ignores this request, but once he's thrown in jail for the murder (as in episode 7), he's neighbors with Maplewood anyway.
Maplewood tells a skeptical Hillinghead that she's the one who shot the body, and once she shows him the markings on her wrist (which match the body), she tells him the entire plot of the show. Maplewood tells him that he's being taken away to be killed, and that he needs to speak to Mannix to change his heart.
The carriage confrontation between Hillinghead and Julian Harker / Elias Mannix goes as we saw it in episode 7 — until Hillinghead starts telling Harker that he knows his true identity. The Victorian detective rattles this time traveler, however Hillinghead eventually gets killed by the police sergeant as before.
A new version of events
We see lots of the same events of episode 7, with Harker marrying Polly Hillinghead and starting a family with her, however the whole time he's more distant and cold after the detective's words. Once pregnant Polly, curious at what's troubling Harker, wanders around his mansion and finds the body of Defoe. She demands answers and Harker has to tell her the truth — but in a far less compassionate way than before. He tells her that she has to stay with him, as her leaving would create a paradox to destroy them all, but she's clearly not happy about it.
Then we jump forward to 1941, and the Julian / Polly marriage is clearly not happy. She wonders why he never told her how either of them was going to die, as states that she hopes she's the one who kills him. When Polly leaves to kill Esther, Harker records a secret second record, and when Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) arrives to shoot him (as in episodes 6 and 7), the aging man tells the police detective to get the vinyl to Shahara Hasan.
Whiteman runs from the police due to Harker's commands, and after passing by Longharvest Lane eventually finds himself surrounded by armed police in the local pub that several characters have frequented through the show. He smokes a final cigar in the pub before being gunned down by the surrounding police officers.
In the future, Hasan and Defoe find one extra carving in the brickwork, that Whiteman must have added when he passed through. It says "Hasan - Pint / Whiteman". Hasan starts to find her memories of the past altered, including when the archivist told her about Whiteman's fate, which is updated to reflect the new way he died. Unfortunately, this pub was destroyed in the nuclear blast.
A record of the future
Hasan jumps through the time portal to 2023, and goes to the pub. She finds the portrait hanging up of Whiteman, which has the wrist markings scrawled into the frame. She opens the picture up and finds one extra vinyl recording, the secret one that Harker made.
This older version of Hasan goes to see Sarah Mannix, Elias' mum, just as the younger Hasan and the younger Elias Mannix are en route (as you'll remember from episode 6, this previously preceded the boy setting off the nuke). As the young duo approaches, the older Hasan calls the two, and plays the vinyl for them over the phone loudspeaker.
The message conveys how bad old Mannix feels about setting off the bomb. The younger version briefly considers setting it off, but rips up the paper with the code on it. He starts crying and, unlike in episode 6, his mother comes out to comfort him, while the two versions of Hasan hug. However Elias Mannix and older Hasan then vanish.
Next thing we know, young Hasan is in her home, and when she asks her father what day it is, we find out that it's his birthday. If you recall, that's the day the show started on on episode 1. We see her go to the protest and not find any mysterious body, and also witness Whiteman and Hillinghead have the same uneventful day in their respective time periods.
After her shift, Hasan gets a cab to her father's birthday. She starts to rant to the cab driver, who somehow knows her name... and that's because it's Iris Maplewood!
Bodies ending explained and FAQs
You'd be forgiven for having lots of questions after that Bodies ending. Some of the twists in the show make sense when you think about it, but some really don't. Just don't think about it too much!
Why is Maplewood in 2023 at the end of Bodies?
It's a bit of a shock to see Iris Maplewood in 2023, as we already knew that she was only a young child in that year, and even though she jumped back in time to 1890, there's no way she's survive another 130 years without aging a day.
However, there's an easy reason that she's there. You'll remember how, when Gabriel Defoe fell through the portal, his body was scattered to multiple time periods in the past and present? Well, that clearly happened to Maplewood too. While one version was thrown to 1890, copies must have been pasted in all the other time periods that Defoe showed up in.
Does that mean the same happened to Elias Mannix? Uh...
What happened to Elias Mannix?
At the climax of the TV show, a young Elias Mannix is talked out of detonating the bomb by a vinyl recorded by the older version of him... and then he promptly vanishes from existence. So where did he go?
Well, by not setting off the bomb, he stopped the chain of events that caused him from 2053 to go back in time to 1890, and therefore sire his own great-great-great-grandfather. He broke the time loop that caused his birth, and therefore ceased to exist.
Is this a paradox? Uh, maybe — best to file this under 'don't think about it too much'.
What happened to each character in the end?
In previous episodes, we'd seen the deaths of several of the characters, but the finale presents many of them a do-over. Here's the ultimate fate of all of the characters:
- Hillinghead never finds the body, but he does still bump into Henry Ashe and they have a mutual attraction. Does Hillinghead follow up on it, or stay with his family? Either way, he never makes an enemy of the dangerous Julian Harker
- Whiteman never acts as a corrupt cop for Polly Hillinghead and is clearly a nicer man, letting Esther run away with some stolen food. He is still a Jewish police officer during World War II though so it's probably not the perfect life.
- Hasan gets to live in a world that isn't blown up by a nuclear weapon in 2023, so he child survives. The mysterious reappearance of Maplewood could jeopardize that if there's a second season though.
- Maplewood is somehow around in 2023 (at least one version of her), and we don't get to see what the 2053 of this timeline is.
Why do the bodies show up on Longharvest Lane?
It's never explained why the bodies all show up in the same place on Earth, in the empty-looking alleyway of Longharvest Lane. The time portal is shown to be in a very different place in London, so it's not like it's the solely temporal travel.
Again, don't think about this too much.
What do the wrist markings mean?
When people (dead or alive) travel through the time portal, they're easily denoted by wrist markings that weren't on the body before the jump. This becomes a handy code for characters to indicate things related to the time travel plot.
However, why do these markings actually appear in the first place, given that they're the only physical change to the traveler (besides ending up naked)? This isn't explained.
Why can't the 2053 characters travel back in time to kill Elias Mannix?
In episode 7, it's explained by Defoe that "the universe" doesn't want them killing Mannix, and so they can't simply pop into the time portal and murder their enemy. That's why they instead have to resort to the diplomatic answer.
It's not explained whether "the universe" has any opinions on any of the various other members of the Mannix family tree, killing any of whom would have the same effect in preventing Mannix's birth.
Why didn't the characters...?
As with any time-travel story, there are countless different ways you could solve the problem that would be endlessly more logical and convenient than the 130-year-spanning option Maplewood, Hasan and Defoe went for.
The characters didn't, though, so it's best not to think about it too much.
Wouldn't the characters changing the future therefore change the past and stop them from changing the future in the first place?
In fiction, there are different views of how time travel would work, and obviously Bodies doesn't subscribe to this view. And to think any further into it just makes the brain hurt!
Wait, so what was Elias Mannix's master plan?
Before our detectives manage to collectively sow the seeds of doubt in Elias Mannix and pass the vinyl between time periods to stop him, Elias Mannix had a master plan that's probably a little confusing. But it goes like this:
- Roughly 2010: Elias Mannix is born, and is given up by adoption to the Morley family, who introduce him to a cult that's determined to make a better world.
- 2023: a young Elias Mannix is convinced to set off a bomb in central London which kills around 500,000 people.
- Between 2023 and 2053: Elias Mannix creates an authoritarian group called The Authority, which creates a more peaceful and equal society than the one which preceded 2023.
- 2053: Elias Mannix hires Iris Maplewood to find the group 'Chapel Perilous', which has created a time travel portal. She's successful, and upon finding the portal, Mannix jumps back in time to:
- 1889: Mannix pretends to be Sir Julian Harker, who died in the war previously, and ingratiates himself into the Harker family to gain their power. Using his knowledge of the future, he can invest wisely and give financial advice, quickly growing his fortune. He also forms a cult around his words.
- 1890: Mannix meets Polly Hillinghead, daughter of the detective who's investigating the body of another time traveler, and eventually has a son with her, Hayden. He also buys a bank in central London and prepares a vault in the middle of it with space for a nuclear bomb.
- Between 1890 and 1941: Mannix's cult is passed to a new generation of members, and the aging man starts recording messages on vinyl to people in the future (or past, in his timeline).
- 1941: Mannix and Polly are killed by Charles Whiteman, in retaliation to the death of young Esther, which ends the chain of events that began when Polly tried to get Whiteman to hide the body of one of the time-traveling versions of Defoe.
- Between 1941 and 2010: Hayden has a child, who has another child, who has another child, and this final child is Danny Barber: Elias Mannix's own father. When he has a kid with Sarah Mannix, the time loop repeats itself. In this period of time, the cult expands and also has time to construct a nuclear bomb in a London bank.
- Then, history repeats itself. It's implied that the loop repeats itself countless times before Hasan, Defoe and Maplewood manage to change it.
