They were simply trying to record a podcast when Gilbert (Will Forte), Dove (Siobhán Cullen), and Emmy (Robyn Cara) landed in a small Irish town — but the story they found was far bigger than they imagined. What they thought was one case revealed several unexpected twists and hidden truths.
These were buried beneath decades-old events that had left a mark on the whole community. Now, what exactly took place that night in this peaceful coastal town? And how do nuns who teach yoga, Interpol, black market traders, a drowned car, and a suspicious number of eels connect to everything?
Three podcasters walked in as strangers and left tangled in decades of lies (Photo: Bodkin/Higher Ground Productions)“You need the full seven episodes to break it all down,” Cullen explained during her chat with Tudum. “That’s one of the show’s strongest elements. Each time you feel like you understand things, something new changes it — one twist leads to another, then a misleading clue throws you off again.
I don’t think there’s a straightforward way to crack the mystery without following the journey of the main trio.” Below, Cullen and the rest of the cast, alongside creators Jez Scharf and Alex Metcalf, attempt to explain how this entire story wrapped up.
What happens in Season 1 of Bodkin?
Plenty of the locals weren’t comfortable with outsiders snooping around their lives, yet the three podcasters refused to back off. Gilbert tried using friendliness to get answers, Dove applied her investigative experience more forcefully, and Emmy, even though she sometimes felt out of her depth, made valuable contributions.
Together, they uncovered leads that tied into the case of three missing people and exposed an illegal eel-smuggling ring that stretched far beyond the town. What appeared to be a simple story — three people disappeared, what happened to them? — quickly proved to be far more complicated.
Several residents, both helpful and obstructive, played roles in the investigation: there was young driver Sean O’Shea (Chris Walley); Garda Sergeant Power (Denis Conway); his son Teddy (Ger Kelly); the elusive black-market dealer Seamus Gallagher (David Wilmot); and Sean’s adoptive mother, Mrs. O’Shea (Pom Boyd).
Seamus took the case personally because he believed his girlfriend Fiona and his brother Malachy vanished together. He assumed they had run away with each other until Dove followed her instincts and found Sergeant Power’s car hidden in a bog, containing two dead bodies.
One was Malachy, but the second was not Fiona — it was a woman named Greta, a traveler. Elsewhere, Sean was working to help Seamus close a deal for a batch of smuggled eels. The eel market, surprisingly, is extremely lucrative, which attracted supposed buyers from the yakuza, who later turned out to be undercover Interpol officers trying to end the operation.
And Seamus himself wasn’t who he claimed to be. His real name was Jackie McFadden, a well-known Northern Irish smuggler with long-standing tension with the McArdle family, who were also involved in criminal trade.
So, what happened the night of Samhain? Also … what is Samhain?
The ancient festival called Samhain (said as “sah-win”) has deep Celtic roots. “It connects to old myths,” Walley explained to Tudum. “It was thought to be the night when spirits of the dead returned.” Forte added, “Samhain is the original Irish version of Halloween. Similar to Día de los Muertos, it’s about honouring the dead.”
Scharf felt the festival offered a strong symbol for the show’s themes. “This is a tale about people confronting their pasts, and Samhain represents that — one night when what’s buried can come back up,” he said.
As the festival was being celebrated again in Bodkin in the present day, Gilbert, Dove, and Emmy began connecting all the remaining clues. Just when they all gathered for the revived Samhain event, a trailer packed with eels exploded.
Although it killed many of the animals, none of the people nearby were hurt, except Sean, who lost a thumb in the blast. But back in the 1990s, on that same Samhain night, Seamus received a warning that the McArdles were on their way to Bodkin. He was desperate to get Fiona and Malachy to safety.
Things got messy when Teddy and Malachy clashed over Fiona — Teddy killed Malachy using a brick. While trying to dispose of Malachy’s body, Sergeant Power, Teddy’s father, accidentally ran over Greta and, panicked, hid both bodies in the trunk and drove the car into a bog.
And what happened to Fiona?
Fiona made it out of Bodkin alive and ran to the convent on Inish Mac Thiere, where she took refuge among nuns who kept bees. But she was hiding something deeper — she was expecting a child. She passed away during childbirth, but her baby, a boy named Sean, survived.
Mrs. O’Shea didn’t adopt him from Romania as believed — she left the convent and raised him in Bodkin as her own.
So is Seamus Sean’s father?
Yes, that’s correct. Sean was never adopted from Romania. He was born in Bodkin. Seamus, or rather Jackie McFadden, is his biological father, and Fiona was his birth mother. Mrs. O’Shea remains the woman who raised him.
Walley pointed out how the storyline reminded him of a familiar pop culture reference: “There are clear links to Star Wars, like Luke losing a hand — and I lose my thumb.”
Where did the eels come from?
Scharf joked that he and Alex Metcalf knew early on that blowing up a trailer of eels was essential for the story. “It became our mission,” he said. But on a serious note, Metcalf revealed that the eel concept wasn’t part of the original pitch.
Dove didn’t believe in luck, but she knew a buried car meant trouble (Photo: Bodkin/Higher Ground Productions)The writers later discovered just how common eel-smuggling is across Europe, particularly in Ireland and Northern Europe, and decided it was too strange and perfect to leave out. “Once we read that eel smuggling is one of the biggest wildlife crimes in this region, we thought, ‘Why wouldn’t we use it?’
It’s bizarre and fits perfectly.” Scharf added, “If you search it online, there are countless photos of law enforcement busting illegal eel farms. It’s wild — and what’s more, we still don’t understand how eels reproduce. Nobody’s ever witnessed it. We can’t breed them in captivity.”
In the series, Seamus even says, “I hope we never find out,” which Wilmot found amusing. “It’s nice to know that there’s still some mystery out there,” he told Tudum. Interestingly, some scientists may have just begun uncovering the answers.
What happens to the podcasters now?
Gilbert, Dove, and Emmy each brought their emotional baggage to Bodkin, but being in that town helped them reflect on their pasts in unique ways. Forte mentioned that Gilbert’s approach to work changed slightly after their experiences.
“Gilbert starts to reconsider how he does things, probably due to the influence of the other two. He becomes a little more grounded, a little more truthful with himself,” he said. Cara described how Emmy improved her skills. “Dove challenged her. It made Emmy bolder and more committed to the job,” she said.
And Cullen reflected on Dove’s transformation. “Dove spent time with two people who always seem cheerful and optimistic, and it was difficult for her at first. But by the end, it softened something in her. She allowed a bit of light into her life, and that made a real difference,” she said to Tudum.
