If I said to you, “True crime podcasters set out to solve a mystery,” the first thing that will probably come to your mind is Hulu’s hit comedy Only Murders in the Building. In point of fact, though, what I’ve described is actually the gist of an upcoming Netflix series that I suspect will be right up the alley of Only Murders fans — it’s Bodkin, a seven-episode comedic thriller coming on May 9 and starring Will Forte as Gilbert, a wide-eyed American podcaster hunting for his next big story.
Ireland, of course, is a great place to find that (or, really, any) story. It’s a land of natural-born storytellers, of raconteurs with a gift of gab born around the hearth and in crowded and rowdy pubs. And juxtaposed against the rampant cynicism and wit that are the birthright of every Irish man and woman is a country of breathtaking natural wonder — in the form of everything from the green fields and rolling hills to foamy waves lapping at the misty shore.
Such is the setting for Bodkin, which was executive-produced by the Obamas and is built around a team of podcasters investigating the disappearance of a trio of strangers in coastal Irish town. That team includes a hard-bitten investigative journalist named Dove (Siobhán Cullen) who’s originally from Dublin but lives in London. She’s in the midst of a professional crisis and has a general disdain for any and all authority.
“I’m a journalist,” she laments at one point, “and I’m stuck consulting on a true crime podcast in the arse end of nowhere.”
And then there’s Emmy (Robyn Cara), an eager-to-please researcher who hides her own insecurities with her over-enthusiastic nature and who helps the always-sunny Gilbert organize the podcast. “I’ve always thought that Ireland is the most beautiful country in the world,” Gilbert cheerfully tells one resident he’s hoping to elicit information from. Impassively, she responds: “All I see is s**t. Fields and fields of s**t.”
It’s a statement that the viewer should perhaps take both literally and metaphorically, based on first trailer for the series that Netflix released this week. That’s because, once the podcasters start pulling on narrative threads, per Netflix: “They discover a story much bigger and weirder than they could have ever imagined. As our heroes try to discern fact from fiction — about the case, about their colleagues, and, most painfully, themselves — the series challenges our perception of truth and exposes the stories we tell ourselves to justify our beliefs or validate our fears.”