Bodkin

I thoroughly enjoyed Bodkin and highly recommend it to mystery fans who like small town mysteries with quirky characters.

This was so much fun...it starts with an American podcaster named Gilbert Power, who is played endearingly by the funny Will Forte. He had success in his first podcast season solving a cold case. The key to his success was really the fact that he opened up emotionally and shared what he and his dying wife were going through. Since the first season his podcast has struggled, but he is on a trip sponsored by a British newspaper to look into a missing person's case in the small Irish town of Bodkin. To accompany him on this trip is a Pollyanna-like young assistant named Emmy (Robyn Cara) and a dour investigative journalist named Dove Maloney (Siobhán Cullen). Dove wants to be anywhere but playing sidekick to a fake journalist like the podcaster Gilbert.

The beauty of this small town mystery is all the quirky characters...like their driver Seán, who thinks he is an Albanian orphan adopted by his single mom and as such listens to Albanian rap music, Seamus who may or may not be a smuggler, Teddy who sings like an angel and is an amazing blacksmith...but has suffered a brain trauma, Maeve and Frank who live like hippies...or their own version of it "Peace, Love, and Pay your xxx debts.", a nun named Mother Bernadette who is running a nunnery that is more like a spa/yoga retreat, then there is the local boy Fintan who made big with his server farm etc and now is back home wanting to reinstate the town's Samhain...then there is the thespian undertaker...the list just goes on and on.

The town hasn't celebrated Samhain since three locals went missing twenty years prior on that night. This is the mystery that our gang of three is looking into. The podcasting element was entertaining, especially since they poke fun of it and it's popularity. The mystery was actually decent and I loved the twists and turns. The one character I found difficult to watch was Dove, her ends justifies the mean's attitude was really tiring and frankly watching her be downright cruel to people was not entertaining. The reverse was true about Seamus and his kind treatment of Gilbert especially over his troubles with his wife...which was surprisingly tender and heartfelt.

The comedy was great and we found ourselves laughing out loud...the mystery however is what really kept us involved till the very end. I loved seeing everything come together. I was able to solve parts of the mystery before they were revealed, but it didn't hamper my enjoyment.

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.

I feel compelled to review some of the reviewers of this quirky, well written and acted caper in order to set the record straight.

Anyone who attempts to compare it to 'Broadchurch, 'Unforgotten' or 'CSI' has truly missed the point. It's more in the genre of 'Dead Like Me' and 'Hot Fuzz' or even 'Only Murders in the Building' only darker and with less deadpan and slapstick humor.

One who gave it a 1 rating because a dog was shot begs belief. Plus they argued it was seen writhing in blood and was purely gratuitous without contributing anything to the story. This couldn't be further from the truth. It was basically killed 'off camera' and exposed exactly what that violent family was all about. It also confirmed that they would have killed Seamus' brother and Fiona had they found them years earlier. It was a shocking and senseless act on their part which proved they meant business in their hunt for Seamus. I, for one, totally expected it. It also gave us another opportunity to witness the softer side of Seamus.

This, plus all the other low scores, don't affect it's well-deserved 7 as a show worthy of at least checking out. It's compact so it's a great binge-watch. It's either your cup of tea or it isn't.

This original series takes the viewer through many plot twists and turns with lots of red herrings and cliff hangers at the end of each episode that leave the viewer wanting more. Towards the end of episode 5, which revealed a lot of answers, I was hoping there would be more and was very happy to see the Netflix info that there were two more episodes to go.

The basic premise has been well documented by other reviewers. A positive, upbeat one-hit-wonder American podcaster (David Wilmot) who, in spite of a flagging career and financial and marital problems comes to the ficticuous west coast Irish town of Bodkin to document a 25yr old missing persons mystery.

Three people went missing during their annual pagan festival and he hopes a closer investigation of the facts for his podcast will renew his fame. He never anticipates solving the mystery but with the aid of his young, wide-eyed novice researcher (Robyn Cara) and the addition of a disgraced investigative journalist from the 'Guardian' (Siobhan Cullen), they begin to dig deeper into the mystery. She smells a real story and although her boss just wanted her to lay low with these guys to avoid censure for her part in the suicide of a whistleblower she was working with, she can't help herself getting them deeply involved and taking the podcast to a whole new level.

There are as many real life elements as stereo-typical and ludicrous ones which keep this show darting between mysterious drama and dark humor. I, personally, would have liked it to have been a bit more obviously humorous but the mystery unfolds in such surprising ways I was still hooked.

I disagree with others who felt the reveals were anti-climatic ... I think they worked well with the pacing and tone...but I have to admit I was disappointed with the ending. I wanted different outcomes for the three musketeers but that's colored by my set of values and by the fact I may have begun to take it all a bit too seriously.

It's been difficult to try to describe this inventive series without giving away any spoilers.

The acting was great from the whole ensemble, the writing clever and inventive, the pacing was a bit chaotic and the scenes a bit choppy at times but not nearly as much as in 'Hot Fuzz' which I really loved but felt it was often like different movies cobbled together in the way they switched from slick 'The Borne Identity' scenes to 'Midsomer Murders' at it's best. This was not the case here but the introduction of the incompetent and OTT Interpol agents certainly are a case in point. The show would slow down and speed up awkwardly at times and often the humor following a serious or personally revealing scene just didn't quite work for me. I wonder if the lack of fluidity was somewhat related to the switch in directors during the series. This is normal in episode fiction but perhaps a few of these directors were not as capable of keeping the delicate balance and continuity of this specific style of show as well as others. I think you have to be aware this is not going to be your typical true crime mystery series and stick with it past episodes one and two. You're in for a treat... or at least a very different viewing experience.