This article contains spoilers for Bodkin episode 5, "Peace in Our Time". 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 fifth episode splits the drama plainly into three parts, charting the fallout from the big revelation that the other body in the morgue is not Fiona's. Seamus takes off to seek answers about Fiona's whereabouts (and Gilbert goes along for the ride), Dove has a wild night out with Mary and hassles Ruari Power, learns about Teddy's role in the whole mess and learns who the new murderer is, whilst Emmy discovers the identity of this new victim and finds that someone else from the Bodkin community has been lying to them.
Here's a full recap of everything that happened in Bodkin episode 5. For ease, we've divided it up into three chunks, detailing everything that each of our core trio went through.
Gilbert's adventure
The episode opens in the morgue. Rocked by the realization that the other body is not Fiona, Seamus dashes to his car, determined to visit the McArdles and get some answers about her whereabouts this instant. Gilbert chases after him and climbs in the car.
Together, they head for an American-style diner, where they meet "The King" (aka Ed), an Elvis superfan who knew Seamus from his days as Jack "The Badger" McFadden. Seamus tells him he wants to speak to the McArdles; Ed won't help, insisting he's got a legit business to worry about. Noting the lack of customers, Gilbert offers to do some free advertising for the place on his podcast, and Ed relents, so the pair hit the road again.
In the car, Seamus tells Gilbert about his rivalry with the McArdles. They were rival smuggling groups; at some point in the past, Seamus got wind that the McArdles had access to semtex (plastic explosives), and after ratting them out to the authorities, he and his brother swept in and took up much of the group's business. Now this was fine, for a period, but after the Good Friday agreement was signed, Seamus was surprised to find Oisín McArdle kicking his door down one day, threatening to do all manner of terrible things.
In a fit of rage, Seamus killed Oisín and tried to warn his brother to take Fiona and escape, setting the farm alight and then fleeing to Bodkin. If anyone knows what happened to Fiona, its the surviving McArdles. The following morning, they're parked outside Brónagh McArdle's pottery store. Seamus readies a gun and prepares to go inside, but Gilbert stays his hand. Seamus instead tells Gilbert to go in and distract her, so he can sneak through the back.
Gilbert makes a rookie mistake when he enters; he calls Brónagh by her name, even though they've never met, and she threatens him with a shotgun kept under the counter. Luckily, Seamus comes in just in time, gun in hand. He tells Gilbert to take the other weapon and then asks about Fiona's whereabouts. The problem is, Brónagh's never heard of Fiona, or the town of Bodkin, for that matter. Believing she's telling the truth, the pair leave Brónagh's shop. And as they head back to Bodkin, Brónagh calls someone about the visit from her "old friend"
On the drive back, Seamus admits he's going to have to leave Bodkin behind now he's blown his cover. Gilbert stops the car when he sees a woman (revealed to be Dove) fall out of a tree. He checks on her, but she starts laying into him for telling Seamus about the bodies being in Power's car. Seamus, however, did not know this... until now. He'd stepped out of the car, overheard this fact, and sped off. But as Dove reveals, he's going to struggle to kill Ruari Power; the Sergeant is already in hospital after having a heart attack.
We cut to Power's hospital room. Seamus walks in and holds a gun to his chest, demanding the truth. Power tells Seamus that Malachy approached him on Samhain night to help him and Fiona escape, but says Fiona never showed. Power went to look for her and when he came back, he found both his car and Malachy were missing. He didn't tell anyone about the car as he was worried about Teddy being left alone.
Seamus promises to kill Teddy if he thinks Power has lied to him but storms out of the room. Gilbert tries to calm him down, but Seamus is too angry about being lied to, and then he pins Gilbert to the ground, demanding to know what else he might be keeping from him since he knew about Power's car. Gilbert tells him not to make the deal with his Japanese connection because they're Interpol officers. And whilst he's on his chest, Seamus makes Gilbert answer a call from Amber, who has decided to come to Bodkin herself. And after Gilbert gets a text from Emmy confirming she knows who the body is, we transition over to Dove, to see how the last day or so has played out for her.
Dove's confrontation
We go back in time to Dove's phone call with Damien. She doesn't take the extradition news well, and Mary comes back to check on her. When she asks if she can help, Dove says there is: they go to a bar and start drinking, hard. After her turn on stage for karaoke, a drunken Dove kisses Mary then stumbles outside, pint in hard.
Ruari makes a sly comment about her behavior; Dove comes back into the pub to confront him. This conversation quickly turns sour. Dove starts telling him she knows it's his car in the bog and that Teddy's connected because of the knife; this is what prompted Ruari's heart attack. Emmy and Teddy were among the crowd who witnessed the argument.
Dove wakes up at the funeral home. Mary and her daughter are working on breakfast, but after a disagreement about best parenting practice, Mary kicks Dove out. Wandering down the road, she spies her coat hanging in a tree and finds her phone in the road. After tumbling from the branches, we see the chat with Gilbert from her perspective. Gilbert was concerned about the ethical implications her extradition has for the podcast, but she counters with the fact that he has befriended Seamus and taken his money to pay off Frank. And then the conversation turns to Malachy's body and Ruari's car, prompting Seamus to drive off.
Dove next seks out Teddy to apologize about what happened Ruari but also to explain what she's learned. As she tells him Ruari had the bodies in his car and warns things might get tough for him, Teddy says this doesn't make sense. He says things get 'mixed up' in his mind, but he believes he killed Malachy and Fiona, and even has memories of blood and a brick in his hand.
After that, Dove pays Ruari Power a visit, demanding to know why he let Teddy believe he's a killer. Power says he'll tell her what she wants, so long as she promises to protect Teddy from Seamus. He explains that he went to find Fiona, but when he returned to his house, he found a room covered in blood, and Teddy held a brick in his hand. Power says Teddy and Malachy had had a fight about Fiona, and Teddy had struck Malachy, not knowing his own strength. He set out to try and protect his son, but he struck a New Age Traveller with his car whilst out trying to hide Malachy's body. So, he sunk his car and both bodies to the bottom of the bog, because he feared what Seamus would do to his family.
Emmy's discovery
Emmy was in the same pub Mary and Dove had gone to, but she was spending time with Fintan. Emmy keeps rattling off all these criticisms about Dove, but Fintan believes she still desperately wants the reporter's approval. When the confrontation between Dove and Ruari Power takes place, Emmy tries (and fails) to pull Dove away from him; she just ends up pulling her coat off. Whilst people scramble to get help for Power, Emmy asks Fintan to take her away.
Driving through the night, Emmy has him stop the car; outside, she throws the coat up into a tree. So that's that mystery solved, at least. The following morning, Emmy's awoken by one of Fintan's assistants, asking if she wants any breakfast or coffee. She gets dressed and seeks him out, telling him she wants to go back to the O'Shea guest house to check on Dove. He gives her another pep talk, encouraging Emmy to stop chasing Dove and do what she wants, and she gives him a kiss and heads off.
She returns to the guest house, finding Sean having his breakfast. He hassles her about spending time with Fintan, but she shuts him up. Mrs O'Shea reveals that neither Gilbert nor Dove came back to the house last night. When Emmy checks her phone, she finally reads the text from Gilbert that confirms the body wasn't Fiona's.
We cut to the funeral home again, where Emmy examines the body. She finds the victim was wearing a bracelet with the name "Greta" engraved on it. When she reviews her recordings, Emmy remembers that Maeve (who worked with Frank to collect his debt from Gilbert) mentioned she had missed the Samhain Festival because she was giving her friend, Greta, a lift to Dublin. So this was clearly a lie!
Emmy contacts the others, saying she knows who the body is and asking them to meet her at the Travellers' site. There, they share their latest findings: Power was responsible for Greta's death, Teddy killed Malachy, and so on. The big question is: why did Maeve lie about Samhain?
The trio searches Maeve's caravan for evidence. They struggle to find much info, but Emmy finds a photo of her enjoying all the fun of the festival, and then Dove comes in with an ultrasound scan. But it's not Maeve's: the scan belonged to Fiona Doyle. So Fiona was pregnant when she disappeared!
The episode then cuts to Seamus on his ship. He's on the phone with Sean, ordering him to call off the deal with the Japanese sales reps. When he ends the call, he spies smoke billowing in from the hatch above him. He tries to free himself, but the latch is locked from the outside, and the final shot shows the ship is on fire.
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.
