By Krystal Torres ’25
Bodies is a show that everyone must watch. When I was watching Bodies, I remember gasping every ten minutes because of the shocking plot twists. Another reason I loved Bodies was because each episode left me wanting to know more and left me on the edge of my bed.
Bodies is a crime thriller, mystery, and science fiction show. The release date was October 19, 2023. Since it is a limited Netflix series, it is only available on Netflix, and it has eight episodes, each episode being about an hour long. This show is rated TV-MA due to gore, language, nudity, smoking, and violence, so it’s probably not appropriate for little kids.
The overall plot follows four different detectives, from four different time periods, investigating a murder. However, in each timeline, the body is the same, with the same wounds in the same place. The only thing different about each murder is the detectives who are investigating it and their time period. One show that Bodies reminded me of was the show The Umbrella Academy, since they both are science-fiction and are mainly about time travel.
When watching the first episode, for the first 20 minutes you might feel confused and most likely will not understand what’s happening. As the episode progresses, however, you start to understand it more. There are also some parts where you are left feeling uneasy or scared. If you feel like there is going to be a jump scare, there most likely will be. This usually happens when the characters are walking on “Longharvest Lane,” the alley where the bodies are discovered each time. One of the times I found myself feeling scared was when DS (Detective Sergeant) Hasan (played by Amaska Okafor) was walking into a mansion to investigate during the contemporary time period of the show, and she discovered all the bodies.
Something else you might feel while watching is confusion. In this show, the phrase “Know you are loved” is said after every sentence by certain characters – it is their way of finishing a conversation and dismissing themselves. This might seem confusing at first, but eventually, it is explained why they always say that. In the 2053 time-period, for example, everywhere you look you see the letters KYAL, which stands for “Know you are loved.”
This show is also extremely gory. In the very first episode, after DI Hillinghead (played by Kyle Soller) discovers the body and it is taken to the morgue to be examined. In the 1890 time period, they show the mortician cutting open the victim’s head to look for the bullet hole. They show the entire brain and all the blood!
One of the best things about this show is how the characters and settings match each different timeline. For example, the way the characters talk and dress is accurate to their time period. In 1890, men wore top hats, monocles, formal shirts with ruffles around the cuffs and neck area, and dress pants, while the women wore dresses that had many layers to them and wore their hair in tall, extravagant styles. That is very different from how they dressed in the other timelines. Furthermore, in 1941, London was under attack by the Germans and would have airstrikes almost every other day. These attacks were because of WWII and they were called blitz attacks. The directors of Bodies made sure to include this to make that period seem more realistic. There was one episode where blitz attacks were happening and all the people had to evacuate to a bomb shelter.
One of the actors that stood out to me most was Gabriel Howell, who plays young Elias Mannix. Elias Mannix is the reason behind all the different timelines and the bodies. It is not until later in the season that we find out the truth behind Mannix, and Howell is only shown in the 2023 timeline as a young boy who was adopted because his biological mother was young when she had him and was an addict. His adoptive parents weren’t the best to him, and all he wanted was to feel loved. Howell does an amazing job of portraying this character who is always in distress and uncertain. His emotions feel raw and real and make the viewers sympathize with him.
My favorite part of the whole show was when they showed the split screen of all the detectives and it slowly zoomed out into a bunch of smaller squares. This was my favorite part because it was all the detectives realizing the key to the mystery they were trying to figure out, and also the most shocking part of the whole show. This was a moment of shock and realization. I would recommend this show to sci-fi fans and people who like murder mysteries. However, if you are squeamish, I would not recommend it!
The Raider Press 