Bodkin

For the majority of its 7 episode runtime, really except the last two episodes the show is really well done. Gilbert's unnaturally chipper attitude and Emmy's seeming ditziness paired with Dove and the towns somber attitude works really well.

It's atmospheric and feels somber but moves with a quick pace and the humor that is there is really well done and the trio follow a whole lot of leads and find out more information and secrets with every passing episode.

The settings and scenarios all seem real and the actors do a great job in bringing their characters to life, especially the guy who plays Seamus.

But the last two episodes needed to be three. There's a wildly rushed ending to an Emmy plotline, major information introduced too late to work as well as it should, conflicting/muddled information with regards to one of the father son duo's and Gilbert acts like a twit well past when he's proven himself not to be.

That said, the climax is what the show wanted to build to and it is well done, tying basically everything up neatly and doing a lot to salvage its two sloppiest episodes in an effective way.

Good show, worth a watch, given another episode or two it could've been great.

Bodkin focuses on a trio of clashing personalities who are investigating disappearances in rural Ireland for a podcast. The early episodes are engrossing and dryly funny, particularly in the contrast between reality and the stereotypical American perception of Ireland as an idyllic ancestral utopia. As the series progresses the tone becomes darker and the narrative fragments. It gets progressively less funny but it remains engrossing. And then there's the seventh and final episode, an unsatisfying disappointment that wraps everything up with a goofy setpiece, fails to provide closure on the fate of the most interesting character, and steals its denoument directly from B. J. Novak's Vengeance.

But in the end, I could barely finish this thing.

The overall vibe reminded me of Hot Fuzz with Only Murders in the Building.

I've been a fan of Only Murders since s1 and was hoping this show to be pretty good. It is said to be a dark comedy but it didn't feel like it most of the time.

I also sense some Hot Fuzz vibe out of it but maybe it is because of the setting. I would honestly love it more if it was like Hot Fuzz too.

I think it was just too slow and not that interesting. I got lost in the overall plot and was too lazy to backtrack to catch up with it in the end.

So yeah... it was just another meh series for me.

The dark-comedy-Irish setting works pretty well in this series. 'Ah, must be an Irish thing'-moments are mixed with comedic WTF-moments but not to the point where you lose focus.

I especially liked the performance of David Wilmot as a grunty Irish old man and Siobhán Cullen as the annoyed journalist. I hope she has the chance to star in bigger productions after this. The acting of Will Forte was a bit unfitting in the beginning but it gets better soon.

They story itself is pretty good but not masterclass. Classical thriller story where more and more is revealed during the series. Some minor plot holes in the end and unclarified things but I guess they have left them in for a possible second season.

Solid fun watch for a free weekend.

PS: Have absolutely no clue where people come from when they mention violence to animals. Not a single animal in distress is shown.

The beginning of the show was very promising, the first 4 to 5 episodes were very dark and moody with a touch of humour and good acting. The start of what seemed to be a solid story. Maybe a tad too much storylines but overall enjoyable to watch.

Some of the many characters were irrelevant to the core of the story and disappeared into thin air, a lot of loose ends. Others weren't looked into enough.

Then came episodes 6 and 7... honestly, I haven't seen such a bad ending of a show since Game of Thrones. It was a bit laughable really. Like many reviewers here I was really disappointed.

Such a shame.