This article contains spoilers for Bodkin episode 7, "Empty Your Pockets". Bodkin is a slow-burn Netflix dark comedy that follows a team of true-crime podcasters as they investigate a number of disappearances in a small Irish town.
Bodkin's final episode sees all the secrets coming to the fore, leading to a quite literally explosive finale that sees Dove and Emmy scrambling to save Gilbert from an angry Seamus who is threatening to blow his smuggling den directly below all the Samhain festivities sky high. Here's a full recap explaining how Bodkin episode 7 wrapped up this twisty tale.
Dove makes a deal
Bodkin's season finale opens with the McArdles arriving in town, before cutting to Dove and Gilbert in a holding cell. Tensions run high between them; she confesses she found Krtek dead, but just stole his laptop to tell her story, without reporting his suicide. When he says Krtek took his own life because she didn't give up on the story, she gets mad and accuses him of being just as exploitative, cracking up sources to make his podcasts. Gilbert's soon allowed to go free, and the pair part on poor terms.
Emmy's back at the guest house, trying to find legal support for Dove's extradition. Out of nowhere, Seamus bursts in, looking for Sean and demanding he return his stolen goods. He slams the door on the way out and a ton of crockery falls and smashes on the floor. Emmy comes down to help her pick things up and lets slip that she knows all about Sean. At the station, Dove is taken out of her cell and put in a van. But before she can be taken away, she overhears the Interpol officers talking about catching Seamus and gets their attention, promising she can bring him to them; in exchange, she wants them to say they never found her. As insurance, they clip a tracker to her ankle.
Gilbert returns to the guest house, finding Emmy and Mrs O'Shea chatting about Fiona. She tells the podcasters Fiona wanted her to keep Sean far away from Seamus, but she failed. She also admits she burned Sean's car to try and scare them and stop them from rooting around; Maeve then had the idea to torch Seamus' boat, but he escaped somehow. Mrs O'Shea then asks Emmy to go to Sean's hideout in the woods and tell him to give back the eels, as she thinks he will listen to her. She also asks for their word that they won't tell Sean who his father is... though Gilbert is secretly recording the conversation under the table.
Meanwhile, Dove goes over to Seamus' place and tries to speak to him. Unfortunately, the McArdles arrive, and he climbs into his panic room. Dove threatens to tell them where he is, so he reluctantly lets her inside, too. The gang checks his house but can't find him, and they listen as the McArdles talk about how much they want to off Seamus. Seeing he's not here, they leave (after shooting Seamus' dog), announcing their plan to find "The American" Seamus brought to Brónagh's shop. When they're gone, Dove tries to convince Seamus not to go to the ground, seeing as they're after Gilbert, but he's not interested in helping.
Dove returns to the guest house. There, Gilbert tells her Sean is Seamus' son. She tells him the McArdles are after him because they think he can lead them to Seamus. He obviously can't, but doesn't know what to do. Dove hatches a plan that will fulfill her deal and save Seamus' life: if they tell him Sean's his son, he'll come back to town for the deal, where he'll be arrested, meaning the McArdles won't be able to kill him. Gilbert eventually agrees, and Dove uses his phone to reach out to Seamus, telling him they know where Fiona is.
Emmy meets Sean and tries to convince him to stop the deal with the Yakuza, though he's convinced he can become this big-time smuggler with his water tank full of eels and wants to use the money to go back to Romania, where he still believes he's from. Unconvinced by Emmy's claim that he's driving into a sting operation, Sean starts to drive his tanker away; Emmy climbs on the back and calls Mrs O'Shea to tell her Sean's going through with his deal.
Seamus slips the net
Amidst the chaos of Samhain festivities, Seamus grabs hold of Gilbert in the street and asks for the truth; Gilbert starts to tell him what they've learned about Fiona and Sean, which he struggles to take in. After being forced to duck into a side street because of the McArdles being nearby, Seamus grabs Gilbert and decides he's taking him with him to the deal. Dove spies Seamus taking him out of town and calls Interpol to tell them the sting operation is on.
Sean arrives at the drop-off point and is annoyed to find Emmy and then Mrs O'Shea there too. Seamus wanders in: Sean expects this to be a fight, but Seamus drops the bombshell that he's Sean's father. Sean refuses to believe him, and Seamus heats up, drawing his gun and training it on Mrs O'Shea, blaming her for keeping Fiona's secret and keeping Sean from him. Sean intervenes, grabbing the pistol just as Seamus fires and lifting it, so Seamus instead shoots off his son's thumb. Interpol attempts to make the arrest, but Seamus takes Gilbert hostage and disappears.
Emmy hassles Dove about her deal with the officers and how Gilbert and Sean have gotten hurt. Dove reluctantly admits she has used people to get what she wants, but because she feels sorry for herself, Emmy can't motivate her to come along and help save Gilbert. Whilst paramedics attend to Sean, the officers start laying into Dove for ruining the operation, but Emmy calls them out for being incompetent. And when she threatens that everything they say is being recorded (a complete lie), they clam up pretty quickly. Impressed by Emmy's quick thinking, Dove is moved to action. And since Gilbert's sent them his location, they seek him out, stealing Sean's truck to get back to Bodkin, pronto.
Seamus whisks Gilbert away and eventually takes him to his hideout. Having uncovered he still had a recording device on him during the drive, he plans to give the podcast "the ending it deserves". His smuggling hideout happens to be directly below Ailbhe's Hollow, the festival's epicenter. Seamus has Gilbert restrained in the corner and proceeds to unbox some of the semtex he stole from the McArdles all those years ago. Since all his troubles started with these explosives, he plans to end things with them, too.
Interpol follows Dove's tracking bracelet to the scene, and the McArdles are hot on their heels, dressed as ghosts; everyone's essentially just trying to find Seamus and Gilbert. Below ground, Seamus gags Gilbert with his microphone and primes the explosives, taking the detonator and leaving him behind. Gilbert struggles to free himself and plays the audio from his recorder. Just as Dove and Emmy are about to give up the chase, they follow the sounds and find Gilbert underneath the party.
It's raining eels
They free Gilbert and he tells them Seamus' plans. Dove sends Emmy to get everyone off the hill whilst she goes after Seamus. Gilbert gets up to help, and falls flat on his face: the others only cut his hands free, not his feet!
Above ground, Emmy spots Fintan on stage and tries to convince him to tell the crowd about the bomb. Fintan doesn't believe her and is all focused on his whole "Bodkin 2.0" vision. Annoyed, she breaks the sound system by pouring his pint on it, cutting the music entirely. Annoyed, he calls security, so Emmy flees into the crowd; she runs into Teddy, and drags him over to a tractor that had been used in the processions beforehand. She gets Teddy to sing one of his songs; the crowd turns to listen. When the drummers get involved, they organically form a procession behind the tractor, and everyone's led safely away from the hill.
Dove follows the smugglers' passage out to a small beach and bursts the dinghy Seamus has prepared with a knife. Seamus readies the detonator, and Dove tries to talk him down by telling him she understands how he feels. They're similar people, they "blow up" everything they do, she tells him he can't claim to be a victim; like her, he chose the life he leads; she even offers to detonate the semtex for him.
As they're talking, both the officers and the McArdles appear on the top of the nearby cliffs. She nods to both groups, and says he can still choose between his fates; going to prison, or dying at the hands of the McArdles. Gilbert manages to free himself and approaches the bomb, but has no idea what to do next.
Back on the beach, the McArdles walk down to confront Seamus. He turns to Dove and claims responsibility for Sean, Malachy, and Fiona, but admits he feels nothing... and then blows the explosives. And since Dove and Emmy parked Sean's truck on top of the den, it starts raining eels. It's left ambiguous what happened to Seamus.
Emmy and Dove rush to the crater to find Gilbert. Dove scrambles into the center, desperately looking for any sign of him. As she digs at the debris with her hands, she starts crying... which is precisely when he appears right next to Emmy. All is well after all.
The following day, the trio gets one last lift from Sean. Gilbert decides he needs to seek out a better story for himself; he really doesn't like the person he became whilst trying to tell Bodkin's story, so he throws his dictaphone into the water before they pile into the car and leave Bodkin behind, whilst Gilbert ponders his next career move.
Back in London, Emmy pitches for a spot on The Guardian's Special Investigations team, whilst Dove pays a visit to the convent she was raised in. There, a nun shows her Sister Geraldine had kept all of her old stories in a scrapbook, and a box of her old toys. Dove then surprises the nun by telling her she's working on a podcast about her and brings out a dictaphone to start telling her story.
Bodkin is now available to stream on Netflix. Looking for your next watch? Check out our list of the best Netflix shows for What To Watch's top recommendations.
