2 out of 5

Created by: Jez Scharf

I don’t look fondly on many of the trends that have emerged in movies / films during the 2020s. While I guess you can look at these as “post-pandemic” trends in some ways, there have also been some flashpoints with technology – admittedly perhaps hastened by that forced alone time – that have encouraged things like second screen viewing tics (in which material or themes are almost purposefully pantomimed, under the assumption that we’re all half-watching).

Bundled with these trends, and thus kind of a trend of its own, is a general inoffensiveness to non-shortform media, separate from a “crowd pleasing” inoffensiveness for which mass appeal media might aim, and also not some variant of attempts at representation. Rather, it’s an embrace of… normality. Which all seems well and good, but it’s at the cost of the hyper-reality I’d say is expected of most fictional media: that thing that allows us to leave some moments off the screen, and / or boil complex concepts into themes and summaries, and / or craft a beginning, middle, and end to any given scene. The normality embrace wants everyone to feel like they’re part of the story, and for things to not get too scary or mean, ya know. Bodkin’s take on this is to do an odd couple + fish-out-of-water dark comedy, but just kind of tip-toe into those shadows before waving to the viewer, letting ’em know we’re safe, and not really force their characters to interact so much as just exist at the same time.

In Bodkin, a disgraced journalist (Siobhán Cullen) is sent away from the spotlight of controversy to go assist an American podcaster, Gilbert (Will Forte) on a story centered in her hometown, which gives the show its name. “Dove” – the journalist – wants nothing more than to get back to a story she was working on, and nothing less than to work on a pithy podcast piece, but when there’s the opportunity to potentially solve the mystery Gilbert is there to document, she takes advantages of his resources (including an assistant, played by Robyn Cara) to gather clues, either pushing Gilbert out of the way or dragging him along as needed, and things get more and more small-town twisted as the trio dig up the past.

This is definitely an acceptable premise, and even beyond that, Bodkin makes good on some of its ingredients, with Cullen staying true to her character’s miscreant nature but effectively massaging in her arc’s scripted growth along the way, David Wilmot – playing a local – a great dry wit throughout, and some appreciably odd plotty quirks. But this all gets overridden by the aforementioned normality, which affects the tone of the entire series, start to finish: we can’t revel in Bodkin’s weird rituals without someone immediately explaining they’re not weird; the story’s intended push and pull between Gilbert’s desire to tell a tale and Dove’s desire to find the truth, no matter what, splits the difference by doing neither approach, delivering offhand details in a humdrum manner. And though each character has a clear intended trope to play into, foibles are quickly addressed, so we can get back to tonally tip-toeing through each episode.

Though it maybe sounds like I’m asking for things to be more shallow, it’s more that there’s a skill to shaping material for your format and genre; perhaps that does mean shallowness for some shows, but in Bodkin’s genre, it requires much more precise scripting and directing than we get.

Will Forte, for example, is misdirected here, which is unfortunate, because his against-type casting – Gilbert is mostly played straight – definitely works at moments, but then there’s a tell-tale lack of confidence in the remainder, like should we let the dude do his comedy shtick here? And I might be improperly lambasting the directors for that, when it could fall on Forte’s choices; either way, it muddles what could have been a really interesting part of the show. More certainly on the script, though, is Cullen’s part, as the “need” to lighten up her character’s abrasiveness results in unrewarding asides with her that feel tacked on. The actress perfectly fills up her screentime with subtext without this stuff. And Cara gets the thankless role of being superfluous: a character who was likely intended as a type of comedy relief in a way – a bumbling assistant – and then a producer’s note required her to have agency, which, again, just blanderized her part instead.

…Which is probably a good time to mention some of the producers, as they included: Barack and Michelle Obama, with Bodkin being the first scripted TV production from their company, Higher Ground. It’s hard to imagine that this didn’t impact the tone in some way, and maybe is also responsible for the series’ demographic aim being confusing, with some of the podcast jokes very dated – i.e. “does anyone listen to podcasts?” barbs being funny to the olds – while the core tale feels like it’s struggling to skew a bit younger than that.

I really did appreciate exposure to a wide range of Irish bands during the opening and closing credits.