If you're a fan of crime shows, murder mysteries, police procedurals or time-traveling sci-fi shows, then there will be something for you in Bodies, the Netflix eight-parter.
Bodies is about a mysterious corpse that shows up in a London alleyway... in four separate time periods ranging from 1890 to 2053. In each time period, inspectors have to get to the bottom of what's going on, though in our meet the Bodies cast piece you'll learn that some have secrets of their own.
The first episode of Bodies, entitled "You're Dead Already", sets up our four main stories and the important characters in each of them, with the investigations well underway in at least two of them. But it's also a confusing episode — after all, it keeps jumping between 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053!
To bring some clarity to the show, here's our Bodies episode 1 recap, with all the events that we saw over an hour re-ordered into chronological progression so you can easily follow it. Since we've shuffled events around into a more coherent order, you're missing some of the artistry and parallels made in the show, but at least you won't miss any details!
Facial hair galore in in 1890
Bearded police detective Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) is arresting a child for stealing food when one of his colleagues calls in a crime. He goes to it and it's a body in an alleyway, a scene we're going to see a lot through this episode.
A man was caught taking pictures of the body: this is Henry Ashe (George Parker), a journalist who stumbled onto the body before the police did. However Ashe can't provide much more information.
At the morgue, a post-mortem shows a gunshot wound to the left eye, markings on a wrist, a scar on the right head and fingerprints that don't match any record (these processes are carried out by our 2023 detective too). After cutting open the John Doe's brain, they find an entry wound but no exit wound and no bullet anywhere. Curious!
Hillinghead goes to Ashe's apartment to pick up the developed photos, and they see that there was a reflection of an elderly man in one of the windows. Hillinghead questions Ashe's alibi and we learn that he had been out taking self-portrait pornographic pictures of himself and another man. Then Ashe tries to kiss Hillinghead, which makes the detective arrest the photographer.
At the police station, Ashe confirms that his photo partner is the son of the police commissioner. Plus, the glorious mustache-wielding surgeon from the post mortem recognizes the figure in the photo, but won't give any solid answers. Instead, he tells Hillinghead to burn the pictures, or he could end up dead.
The war-torn streets of 1941
There's a war going on elsewhere on the continent, but moustachio'd womanizing detective Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) seems not to notice as he goes to work. His bosses tell him they're investigating corruption and smuggling in the force (especially a portly lieutenant who makes several antisemitic remarks toward Whiteman).
We immediately find out that Whiteman is the rat, as he receives a phone call from a mysterious woman telling him to pick up a body and dump it in the docks. She signs off with "know you are loved" but then all the lights in the station go out. Whiteman goes to find the body, and it's the exact same one that all the other characters find in different time periods. As he looks at it, a young girl sees him, but she runs away. He just loads the corpse into the boot of his car to take it away.
As Whiteman drives to the docks, air raid sirens start to sound, and the man is pulled over by his nasty lieutenant. The man knows Whiteman is the smuggler, and is about to look into our policeman's car boot when a bomb lands higher up the street, causing a building to collapse and kill the lieutenant. Whiteman escapes.
The next day Whiteman returns to his car, which is being investigated, acting innocent to it all, and as a result he's put in charge of the investigation. He uses this privilege to remove any identifying information from the vehicle and acts very shocked to find the body in the car's trunk.
After briefing his team Whiteman receives another call from the mystery woman, annoyed at there now being an investigation, even though Whiteman says he'll cover everything up. A woman whom Whiteman has been trying to woo overhears the exchange.
The modern-day investigation in 2023
We spend the most time this episode with our modern-day detective, Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor). She begins by going on a run, and then visits her father (whose birthday it is) and son (who stays with her father), before being drafted into work despite it being her day off.
She's working as police minding a far-right rally, but she sees a suspicious man hiding behind a bin. When he pulls out a gun she chases him through some alleys and across rooftops until she finds him standing over a naked corpse in an alleyway. He says he didn't do it before running off, and Hasan stays with the body.
When the body is collected later, Hasan's colleagues say that the cameras were disrupted by the power strike, however she says she didn't hear any shot. The police can still ID the gunman: it's one Syed Tahir.
Sharaha is pulled away from her father's birthday party by her boss, who tells her that the body had no bullet in it despite the gunshot wound, and that he needs her to talk to Tahir's sister. She does so, passing on her contact information to the woman.
The next day Shahara receives a call arranging to meet in Stratford's Westfield shopping center, and she meets him. He tells her that she was meant to find the body, and that everything is unfolding as some mysterious figure said... before taking his own life when police arrive. Before dying, he tells her "know you are loved".
Shahara is feeling miserable the next day but she remembers that Tahir had two cups on his table at Westfield, and uses CCTV to find an image of a boy Tahir met before her.
A glimpse into the future of 2053
The final scene of the episode finally introduces us to our fourth detective, Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas), living in the far-flung year of 2053. She's driving through a utopian London (utopian because it's clean) when there's a power surge, and street lights go out.
When the power returns, Maplewood asks her smart car if there was an electromagnetic pulse, and it directs her to an anomaly in a nearby street. The woman goes to the street and finds a body.
However after calling in the body, she's in for a shock, as it's not a dead body. Unlike our previous three mystery corpses, this one wakes up!
