Netflix's New Series Bodies: A Dark remake?
I have spoken before about how much I loved the German sci fi show Dark. It's brilliant, complicated, engaging...a masterpiece in television. I've seen a lot of discussion about Netflix's new mini-series Bodies, based on the graphic novel, and how it compares with Dark. At this point, I don't think it's as solid a series but I've only just begun. What do you think?
Attention: Below are SPOILERS for Episode 1.
Bodies on Netflix: Episode 1 Recap
Episode 1: “You’re Dead Already”
Note to self: Is there a clue in the intro?
2023
Shahara Hasan is training for a 10K. She comes home and gives her dad a bday card. Her adorable son is adorable. Okay, Netflix, we see how you've set up the character already.
She had the day off but had to come in due to rioting. London, what's going on? Are these white guys cosplaying Templars? Racist remarks are directed at her because she’s brown and wears a head covering.
Hasan wants to chase a “suspicious Asian male.” Wants to, but is not given the go-ahead over her radio. Streetlights fizzle out. Coms go down. She sees the male has a gun and gives chase. There’s some parkouring.
Comes across him standing over a prone naked body. “This isn’t me,” he says while holding a gun on her. He won’t tell her his name. He runs away. Body takes precedence so she stays.
She sees a strange tattoo on the body’s inner wrist and that he has an eye gouged out. A wound too? Coms are back so she radios for help and gives street: Longharvest Lane (what other language is that written in?)
1941, time shift. It's happening.
Detective Charlie Whiteman arrives to the show, in a sharp suit and even sharper part. He's in an office with someone who is clearly higher up on the food chain. Seems there's been some officer misconduct and they suspect a snitch. He is Jewish so therefore a target of some very blunt racism. Yikes. Is that how it's going to be, show? We had a brown woman in a head scarf and now this.
His immediate boss asks him about it and he agrees there may be something going on. But not with the beat cops. It’s higher up, he suggests. (Slang alert: I've just learned what an Anderson shelter is...was. I love learning colloquialisms!) He gets a Very Mysterious Call. His instructions? Pick up body and dump it. Oh, HE is the corrupt cop.
Lights flicker. We've seen this before, dear viewer. And street lights blow. They attribute it to wartime. Well...cuz it is. It’s raining and nighttime, all of a sudden. Whiteman finds keys in the wheel well of a car that isn't his and drives off to do as he was told on the phone. Is he being followed?
My mind wanders: when did cars first get headlights? This is the second time I’ve tried to get into this show. Will it stick this time?
Ok, Whiteman is being super mysterious. He sees the body in the same spot as the 2023 timeline cop. Hmmmm. Notices the tattoo and missing eye. We see it’s the same street: Longharvest Lane. Duh duh duuuuuuun!
1890
Ok, is that a bowler or derby hat? I must know. Street light hisses and blows. This again. So this is the Whitechapel district. Jack the Ripper territory. We pass some men dressed as ladies of the night. Hi! Then, new (to us) cop, Alfred Hillinghead, sees the same body, same position, same street, same tattoo, same missing eyeball. Journalist gets his camera taken by a cop on the scene. A scuffle ensues. Man, do you know how much a camera would have cost a person in 1890?!
Hillinghead sends Officer Webb and his fists away and the journalist, whose name we learn is Henry Ashe, thanks him. Ashe reports he heard the lights exploding and saw the body. Out of journalistic interest, he began to take pics. Hillinghead says he can have his camera back but not the plates. He asks where he develops his plates and learns that Ashe lives around the corner. Hillinghead says he’ll check in when the plates are ready. Ashe wants to take more but the detective says NOPE, it’s a police matter now. Ashe is dismissed. Hillinghead takes off hat (derby/bowler?) and kneels to inspect the body. Once again, we see all the similarities with the other time streams. And BOOM back to the present.
Sergeant Hasan’s examined by a coworker to see if she’s concussed. Luckily, she isn’t. She is sort of chewed out for following the guy with a Glock. No one heard a gunshot. I’m a bit lost on the hierarchy of police. Do we learn coworker's name ever? Hasan is sent home, which hey, it’s her day off, as she’s said.
They have CCTV so they find the guy with the gun and he has form. But they are using the American phrasing for it: police record. Ok, Netflix. I see you and your motivation/algorithm. Also, I love the trope of detectives and cops walking really fast through their offices discussing case details where everyone can hear them.
Back to 1890. Sort of. We get treated to post mortem procedures in the current time and 1890, side by side. I like this. Lots of slang I need to look up! Ok, back to just 1890. Sleeves up, boys! Let’s take a look at the corpse. Noted that there was no blood at the scene and no one heard a shot so he must have been shot elsewhere. He is fingerprinted. Current: victim is declared a John Doe, no bullet casings, no exit wound, guess a 9mm round even though it’s a hollow wound in the eye socket. 1890: more tropes about pathologists talking about mundane stuff while peeling back someone’s skin to get a look at the skull.
Ladbroke, we see in the subtitles, is the pathologist’s name. Current and 1890: let’s take a look at the tattoo now. 1890: “Fenian or Hebrew claptrap.” More racism. Geez. Current: “It’s not far-right.” Lots of back and forth here. Ladbroke thinks it might be, ahem, an advertisement that the victim is available for sexual activities for pay.
Hasan wants the scar looked at. Oooo okay, we see brains. Ladbroke shows Hillinghead that strangely there is no bullet in the skull and no exit wound.
Bodies on Netflix: Episode 1 Recap continues
Back to Whiteman in 1941 looking at the body in the street. Girl in a red coat clatters around in the trash behind him. She runs. He starts to follow, doesn’t want to leave the body, then we hear the air raid siren. Remember, we are in London in 1941! He shoves the body into the trunk and speeds away. Over the radio, we hear an alert for a bombing raid in East London. (Is Whitechapel in East London? Wikipedia says yes, Americans.)
And ooooo he *was* being followed. By racist guy, maybe? He tries to outrun his tail, who now has the police siren blaring. We see bomber planes above, dropping ordnance. Whiteman pulls over and yup, it’s racist guy, Inspector Farrell, we saw earlier in his office. Inspector Farrell spews racist stuff but yeah, he’s caught him. Farrell wants his share now that he knows Whiteman is doing a bit of side business. He leans in and takes the keys, preparing to open the trunk. And wouldn’t you know it, right at that moment, a bomb drops. Whiteman climbs out of the wreckage without forgetting to get his hat. Man, those social norms regarding clothing are so strong. Farrell is lying underneath bricks. He’s done. Whiteman stumbles away.
Back to Hasan. She goes to her dad’s bday party and scoops up her cute son who is worried about the wound she received near her eye. Hasan’s family time is interrupted when Barber (is he DCI? What is his title, Netflix?) drops by with info on the John Doe’s MRI. No bullet. He shows Hasan a picture of Guy With Gun’s Sister. And lo and behold, she is wearing a head covering like Hasan so Barber says she has a better chance of getting info out of Aaliyah, the sister. Okay, wow. Hasan takes the picture and agrees to try to meet the sister at a station.
Sister knows the deal and Hasan gets right to the point. They go to a little coffee stand and the sister spills. Her brother was worried police would think he killed someone. How did he get the gun? Hasan gives sister her own number and says she will make sure he’s brought in safely. Can she go get bday cake now? Surveillance van guy taps her phone in case the sister calls.
Hasan starts to return to the party but sees someone in a yellow mac watching her from a nearby bus stop. We cut back to Hillinghead. Netflix is pulling out the stops with all the Canva-like transitions. Teehee. Hillinghead drops by Ashe’s place looking for developed plates. He and Ashe have a weird energy.
Hillinghead sees someone in the background in one of the pictures. There is a reflection of a gentleman in a top hat. Inspector pushes Ashe on why he was in the area and wants proof of where he was. Ashe reveals some racy pictures of men in various stages of undress and clutches, even one with himself in the photo. Sodomy is punishable by jail time or death in this era so Ashe was taking a big risk here. He tries to kiss Hillinghead but ends up in handcuffs, arrested. Okay, I get where they're going with the energy between these two. So we have 3 detectives so far: one is a brown woman who wears a head scarf, one man who is Jewish, one man who may be gay. I get it.
Bodies on Netflix: Episode 1 Recap continues
1941: Whiteman discovers he’s lost his lighter. CLUE, Netflix screams at us. He arrives at the scene and is put in charge of investigating the death of the racist Farrell. He tries to be slick and act like he didn’t know a body was in the trunk. He uses this excuse to search for his lighter, which he palms. Oh look here, he practically says, look what I’ve found! His boss seems suspicious but is then distracted by the body.
You all know I love an evidence board and hey, they have one! Whiteman speechifies to his detectives since he’s been put in charge of this case. He warns that Farrell will not be slandered but instead they should be motivated to find “the truth.” Dude. You really are something else.
Whiteman gets a call. I can tell by the voice that Greta Scacchi’s character has called. She says, “We wanted the body, not a murder investigation. You failed.” Remember? Whiteman is up to nefarious deeds and that’s why he was left a car the night before. She ends her conversation with, “Know you are loved, Sergeant Whiteman.” Curious. She didn’t say it very lovingly.
Hasan is cooking with her cute son when she gets a call. It’s Aaliyah’s brother, Syed, Guy with the Gun. He wants to meet in public in a shopping center. She has to run out on her family again. She argues over speakerphone with Barber about how to bring him in. He’s there, having what looks like two cups of coffee, and Barber orders her to wait. But of course, she doesn’t. She asks him to give her the gun before the other officers arrive.
She assures him she believes he didn’t commit the murder. He gives us some mysterious dialogue: “everything they said was going to happen, has. So is what’s gonna happen next.” Uh…bad feeling, guys. “I was supposed to sh…(was he going to say “shoot”) You were meant to find the body. That’s what had to happen. That’s what I was told.” Hasan replies, “You’re not making sense.” He returns, “And neither will you soon. I promise you on that.” I have a really bad feeling about what he’s going to do since they are on the second floor of a shopping mall with an open area and escalators right behind them. (I was wrong. It's worse.)
Officers are coming. An announcement comes over the mall intercom to evacuate. He pulls out the gun and shoots blindly behind him, alerting the officers. Syed aims at her saying, “It’s too late. It’s over.” Snipers get into position while she struggles to disarm him. They fall together with him gaining the upper hand. He says, “Know you are loved” and shoots himself through the mouth, spraying blood and brains all over Hasan. Yikes. Poor Syed. Poor Hasan.
That phrase is going to come back over and over, isn’t it? We see Aaliyah crying and angry with Hasan. She even spits on her. Grief, you guys. Barber tells her she did everything she could.
Bodies on Netflix: Episode 1 Recap continues
Back in 1890, Hillinghead is processing Ashe’s arrest when Ashe tells him that the other guy in the picture with him is the married son of the assistant commissioner of police. That’s his alibi. But we didn’t think he was the killer, did we? (Slang alert: molly house)
Ladbroke and Hillinghead chat in the morgue. Hillinghead shows Ladbroke the photographs when he notices the reflection. Ladbroke absolutely recognizes the man but lies. He seems afraid. He turns to leave but says, “Burn it…if you value the life you have.” Hillinghead threatens to go above his head if he doesn’t tell him the name of the gentleman. Ladbroke responds, “Then you’re dead already.” 1. We have our title, folks. 2. Ok, this conspiracy runs deep, dear viewer. He leaves with one last parting shot: “That’s all the warning I dare give you.”
Next, Sahara Hasan is in a pub, writing Know You Are Loved on a notepad and look look look we see a photograph of Hillinghead with other officers on the wall. She asks her colleague about the ballistics on Syed’s gun. (Note: her colleague has some awareness of religious holidays and abstaining from alcohol because she asks her if she’s drinking this month. Nice!) Colleague (were we ever given her name?) says it doesn’t match up with the residue on the John Doe. Hasan vows to find out who the John Doe is. She rushes out after she has an insight when seeing their two glasses on the bar. She remembers the two coffee cups! Checking the CCTV, she shows her colleague and they run back the video til they see who was sitting with Syed. That person stares right into the camera. She has seen him before, outside the bday party the previous evening. He's been watching her.
1941, Whiteman arrives at the morgue. We get side by side of our three timelines. All our detectives are deep in thought. Then we get our fourth timeline: 2053.
Why do writers and art department folks think futuristic people all have baby bangs? Cue street lights flickering and crackling. We know what’s up, don’t we? Car even malfunctions, stops, and asks Detective Maplewood, the driver with the baby bangs, if she’s alright.
Maplewood asks for a scan for an electromagnetic pulse. Car finds an anomaly on, guess where, Longharvest Lane. The entrance to the lane is shut off but she gets inside. She finds…the John Doe who is not yet dead.
And that’s our first episode of Bodies (streaming on Netflix), guys. What do you think? Should we continue? Are you watching this show? Let us know!