Reading Time: 2 minutes
Based on Si Spencer’s graphic novels, this Netflix show is a time-travelling, mind-bender of a sci-fi thriller, in which four cops in four different timelines, come across the same naked corpse of a man, lying in a London alley. He has been shot through an eye, and there is a mysterious hashtag-like tattoo on his arm.
In the present time, detective Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) chases a gun-toting teenager and stumbles on the body. While she pauses, the boy disappears. Because she is a hijab-wearing Muslim, she is sent to interview the suspect’s sister, because they are Muslims too. Even though they do not trust the cops, Shahara’s sincerity brings Syed out into the open, but she is unable to save him. The meaningless death of a young man leaves her angry and guilty. Then another teen suspect talks strangely about a bigger plot for which Shahara will be a catalyst and he the perpetrator. She is expectedly baffled and uneasy, more so when her young son is threatened.
In 1941, Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a Jewish detective whose colleagues are antisemitic and suspect him being on the take (rightly as it turns out), is tasked by his unseen criminal bosses to dispose of the very same body, but a Luftwaffe bombing causes disruption of the plan. Another detective is killed and Whiteman is given charge of the case, having to deflect blackmail by a cheeky young girl who had spotted him on the scene.
Going further back to 1890, detective Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller), finds the body in the same alley, placed in the same pose. A photographer who was shooting the corpse, inadvertently captures the killer’s reflection in a window. Alfred is warned against investigating the case, and told to burn the photos, but when he quietly carries on, he gets into trouble with the powerful suspect.
The last detective, Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas), is in the future, when society is controlled by high-tech gizmos and a sinister ‘Commander’ (Stephen Graham), who picks the young cop for a special mission, which is not as simple as it sounds.
Each time, there is an unexplained power surge, and street lights explode. In every time frame, the catchphrase, “Know you are loved” is used, not always with a clear context.
As the eight-part series progresses – often breaking into split screen to capture the cops at work—the connections between the past and present start to appear and also make sense in the suspend-disbelief world of sci-fi. The changing periods also mean different production design that goes from Victorian to noir to current realistic to fanciful futuristic—all very well done. The alley remains, however, with the same name—Longharvest Lane– which in a fast-growing city seems unlikely, but maybe not impossible.
The elements of cop dramas like car chases, shooters and bombs overlap with séances, secret Masonic handshakes and blackmail plots.
Created by Paul Tomalin, directed by Marco Kreutzpaintner and Haolu Wang (who handle four episodes each), Bodies is thrilling and fascinating, densely packed with intrigue, requiring careful viewing to keep track of all the tangled threads.
Bodies
Directed by Marco Kreutzpaintner and Haolu Wang
Cast: Amaka Okafor, Kyle Soller, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Shira Haas, Stephen Graham and others
On Netflix
