Why you should be watching Bodies
Review Overview
Cast
8Concept
8Execution
8Ivan Radford | On 22, Oct 2023
A good detective drama gives you a solid mystery to sink your teeth into. Bodies, Netflix’s ambitious new crime thriller, gives you four – and they’re all really good.
Based on the graphic novel by Si Spencer, The series has an ingenious concept at its heart: we follow four detectives at different points in time investigating a murder. The twist? It’s the same body, in the same location.
We begin in 2023, as a far-right rally sends tensions spiralling in East London – so it’s perhaps no surprise when the street lights start sparking and exploding. But there’s something eerie afoot, as we witness similar energy outbursts occurring in 1941 and 1890.
Doing the detecting in 2023 is the straightlaced and dogged copper DS Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor), who is juggling her job with her son. In 1941, it’s bent copper and womaniser Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), who has to deal with antisemitic colleagues on top of his other problems. And in 1890, it’s Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller), a Victorian family man who finds himself getting into bed with an investigative journalist who happens to have photographs of the crime scene.
The various period details are at once stereotypical – from noir-tinged phonebooth threats in the 40s to the gritty single-mum drama of the 2020s – but also sumptuously realised, with beautiful and distinct costumes and cinematography. The cast, meanwhile, make the most of their characters’ situations, whether it’s Whiteman getting on the wrong side of a child witness or Hasan being followed by a teenager who seems to know the future, or Hillinghead’s secret personal llfe that threatens to upend his domestic stability.
And that’s before we – eventually – get introduced to Stephen Graham, the elusive star name lurking in the show’s credits. We find him in 2053, along with the final piece of the puzzle: Iris Maplewood, (Shira Haas), an endearingly sincere detective who wants to the right thing, to the point where she’s also honest about why she does what she does. Where Haas is movingly noble, Graham is enjoyably sinister and stoic, and the more time we spend with them, the more we start to try and tie the threads between them and the years gone before them.
Of course, halfway through the eight episodes, there’s no sign of concrete answers, with hints ranging from apocalyptic soothsayers to some kind of scientific manipulation or supernatural intervention. The more the phrase “know you are loved” pops up all over the timeline, the more intriguing it gets – and Bodies isn’t afraid of a bit of darkness or gore to keep us unnerved as well as invested. On that level alone, Bodies more than delivers as a cryptic crime drama with four mysteries wrapped in one – but thanks to a committed cast with just the right level of seriousness, it works as a human drama too.