We've spent the first two episodes of new Netflix period crime show Bodies learning about our detective protagonists and their separate investigations, and now with episode three, we're getting to know our prime suspects a little better too.
In Bodies, an identical naked body shows up on the streets of London in 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053, and we follow the primary detectives of each case as they try to unravel what happened Our meet the Bodies cast will help you remember who's who.
The third episode of Bodies is called 'All In Good Time' and it's a good time to meet the murder suspects, or at least people who might be able to point our detectives in the right direction. We meet the second character played by Stephen Graham, learn a lot more about Elias Mannix and nearly see one of our main characters turn evil.
So here's our Bodies episode 3 recap. While the show skips about in time a lot, we've ordered the events into each time period, so you can easily remember what happened.
A séance and an enemy in 1890
After a piano recital from his daughter, our bearded Victorian detective Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) meets up with his new journalist ally Henry Ashe (George Parker) to investigate the murder. They return to the scene of the crime and find an imprint from a cane: it's hexagonal.
Using this clue they go to a cane-maker and find the address of the only matching cane. They stake out the house and see that it belongs to one Sir Julian Harker (Stephen Graham, in his second role in the show after the 2053 version of Elias Mannix).
Ashe tells Hillinghead about Harker: he supposedly died in Burma in a war, and the man who returned looked eerily different. He's now really rich as he hosts séances that predict the stock market along with his "mother" (at least, the original Harker's mother) and are suspiciously correct.
A strange courier shows up with a letter from Harker, inviting Hillinghead to one of the mystic events. He decides to go along, in order to find fingerprints, in the hopes that they'll match ones found at the crime scene.
When Hillinghead goes to the séance Harker is clearly familiar with his work and career. Harker leaves before the séance begins, giving Hillinghead time to pinch the stopper of some sherry that Harker poured for him. This is for the fingerprints, not because he likes the look of it.
At the séance, the mother asks Hillinghead, a skeptic, whom he wishes to commune with. To rile the audience he says the man who was murdered, but the mother does get in touch with the spirit. We find out that the name of the victim was Defoe, he knows who killed him, and it was "ma-" (likely a reference to Mannix). Before this can finish, Hillinghead works out he was drugged with the sherry and collapses.
In an odd dream state, Harker and some friends (including Hillinghead's mustachioed boss) prepare him for something. They take incriminating photos of him 'laying' with a man, and tell him "know you are loved".
Some time later he wakes up in a forest. He returns to Ashe's home but he's still drugged and making little sense, so Ashe puts him in bed. They go to sleep and cuddle, and when they wake up, they sleep together in the other way.
On his way home, Hillinghead takes a detour. He returns to the scene of the crime, and in one corner of the alleyway, uses his knife to scratch out a sign that resembles the markings on the wrist that the body has. He also writes his name.
Whiteman makes a young friend in 1941
We pick up with Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) and some colleagues interviewing the young child who witnessed the man stuffing the body in a trunk. The child speaks in Yiddish, and Whiteman is the only one who understands it, so she tells him that she'll tell his colleagues of his deeds unless she pays him £10.
Whiteman offers her £2 but then the mysterious woman calls him, telling him to kill the child. He drives her away from the city, under the pretense of picking up the money from his home. He's being followed, and they have to hide in the car for a while.
The child notices Whiteman has chloroform and tries to escape, so he uses it to subdue her. He buries a pit for the body and seemingly shoots her...
... but later, when he's cooking some vegetables, she wakes up. She overhears Whiteman telling the woman on the phone that they're through, and Whiteman tells the girl that he faked killing her.
Whiteman does have to forcibly convince her not to leave, which isn't a good look, but he reasons that if she's spotted they'll both be killed. Instead, they have dinner.
Hasan ends the Mannix manhunt 2023
Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) is worried about the threat on her child's life, so her boss gives her some police protection. Despite this, Elias Mannix (Gabriel Howell) sneaks in. He insists that he didn't do the murders, but that "they" are going to make him say he did. However Hasan subdues the child and the police offers come to arrest him.
In interrogation, Mannix's lawyer (who was also mentioned by his foster families, the Morleys, last episode) tells Hasan and her boss that Mannix plans to confess. The boy goes along with it, seemingly against his will. So Hasan mentions that Mannix is allowed to swap soliciters if he wishes, and he does.
Mannix tells Hasan that the Morleys are the masterminds: they took the pictures of Hasan in his bedroom, they knew that the body would appear (and previous ones had) and told him and Tahir to go to it. Mannix also talks about a bomb, that Shahara will make him create, that will kill hundreds of thousands. If you'll remember from the 2053 scenes in episode 2, you'll know where this is going.
Before Mannix can tell Hasan more, her boss shows up. Mannix is getting sent away along with his foster mother, but the foster father will go free. Shahara isn't too keen on this turn of events.
At the episode's end, Shahara returns to the scene of the crime. She finds Hillinghead's scratches that he made 133 years ago, including his name.
Maplewood loses a doppelganger in 2053
Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) brings Gabriel Defoe (Tom Mothersdale) to see the wounded person who is still in critical condition, who is seemingly his doppelganger. However when Defoe gets close, the injured man has a seizure and dies.
A distraught Defoe insists that he doesn't know about terrorist group Chapel Perilous, and can't explain how he and the doppelganger have the same DNA.
Later, Maplewood goes to see the person who put him on this course, Elias Mannix (Stephen Graham, again) who tells her that the now-dead Defoe is the current one, but from the future. He predicts that it's the man two days from the future.
Mannix thinks Chapel Perilous sent Defoe back in time, and it's a sign of their power which could crumble the world. He asks a skeptical Maplewood to carry on following Defoe.
