Poison Or Something – Episode 4 begins with Sergeant Power (Denis Conway) arriving at the Casement Road crime scene and rushing away the spectators, including the podcast crew. Gilbert Power (Will Forte) and Dove Maloney (Siobhan Cullen) spend a few seconds debating over whether or not they solved the mystery while Emmy Sizergh (Robyn Cara) seeks out Sean O’Shea (Chris Walley), who has once again disappeared. Emmy soon learns that he’s also disappeared with her phone, which must have accidentally slid out of her pocket during their trip over.

Using a Find My Phone app, the group tracks Emmy’s phone to a nearby barn/warehouse when they hear what sounds like gunshots. Upon taking immediate cover behind a tree, they see several kids (Evan O’Connor/Tim O’Leary) running around with air rifles shooting seagulls out of the sky. Shortly after that, Sean and Seamus Gallagher (David Wilmot) emerge along with Pablo (Pano Masti) and Hector (Marouane Zotti). Once Hector and Pablo leave, Seamus ridicules Sean for giving the kids air guns and being later. This leads to Sean sharing the news about the bodies which appears to trouble Seamus.

Somewhat apprehensively, Gilbert agrees to search the barn/warehouse where they learn from Interpol agents, Charles (Peter Bankole) and Annika (Sabine Timoteo) that Bodkin is the center of an international eel smuggling operation. They are also threatened with jail time if they don’t cease their investigation of Seamus.

Later that evening at the O’Shea’s Guest House, Emmy tells the group that eel smuggling has become the most internationally committed crime in the world. Due to a dwindling population, the rising demand, and the price of eel, it’s quickly developed into one of the most lucrative trades. The discovery only excites Dove and offers more of an incentive, whereas Gilbert wants to forget about it. After some debate, Gilbert puts his foot down as the podcast owner and tells them the investigation is over.

The following morning, Dove is woken from her nightmare by Emmy’s banging and announcement that Gilbert wants to meet in 20 minutes. Already dressed, downstairs, and in the process of buttering his toast, Gilbert is interrupted by a knocking at the door. Upon answering the door, he’s punched in the face and dragged to the boot of a car Frank (David Pearse). While Gilbert is driven into town, threatened again, and released, Dove uses Emmy’s admiration for her to enlist her help to bring Seamus down.

As they make their way into town, Dove shows Emmy the newspaper article from the library. It appears that Sergeant Power was in the photo as well and that’s where she wants to start. It doesn’t take her long to track him to a local diner and accuse him of helping Seamus kill Malachy over his sleeping with Fiona. Much to her surprise, Power says there wasn’t any affair and blames the murders on the smuggling McArdle brothers, Jon-Joe (Lalor Roddy) and Desy (Gary Lydon). Power becomes upset and storms off when Emmy asks how Teddy’s (Ger Kelly) disappearance fits in.

As Dove decides their next best move is to link Seamus to the car recovered from the bog, they are interrupted by Jo (Mae Higgins) who offers her help for 20 Euros. Emmy is left to handle the payment while Dove leaves to find Sean. Elsewhere, Gilbert attempts to leave Amber (Ahna O’Reilly) a voice message but becomes tongue-tied and frustrated. Much to his surprise, he’s soon joined by Seamus with the very interesting proposal of taking care of his debt if he leaves his name out of the podcast. When Gilbert agrees they leave to go to the bank.

While waiting for a break in security at the impound lot, Emmy inadvertently reveals her sleeping with Fintan (Charlie Kelly). This later leads to an argument and Sean’s subsequent storming off when a break in the security pits them alone together. After Sean leaves, Emmy attempts to join Dove in the impound lot but is stopped by Garda Eoin (Sean Og Cairns) which leads to a conversation about podcasts and local football. Dove later shares her pocketknife discovery with Emmy. The knife has a similar insignia to the one Teddy puts on his work. Dove becomes belligerent and cruelly mocking when she realizes Sean left because he and Emmy got into an argument over her sleeping with Fintan. When Emmy becomes hateful, Dove reveals that this was her intention all along. She wanted to get Emmy in the right mindset to convince Fintan to question Teddy about what happened the night of the disappearances.

Elsewhere, Seamus hasn’t taken Gilbert to the bank, but to a meeting with Charles and Annika, who are posing as Japanese seafood buyers, interested in buying black-market eels. Although Gilbert is left behind in the vehicle, he hides. During the meeting, Seamus claims he doesn’t deal in eels because that would be illegal. That changes when Annika offers him 12,000 per kilo and promises to buy everything he has. After a bit of negotiating, they ultimately settle at 14,500 per kilo and seal the deal with a handshake. Sean is ecstatic but Seamus clearly has doubts and orders him to find out everything he can about them.

Fintan is on the phone with Claire (Liadh Ho) when Emmy shows up. She wastes little time bringing up finding Teddy’s knife or asking him to question Teddy about what happened that night. When she realizes he doubts her motives for uncovering the truth, she tells him that discovering the truth would also be good for him and Teddy.

Emmy becomes apprehensive about their plan when she realizes Dove wants her to record the meeting so they can use it as leverage against Power. When Emmy appears hesitant, Dove uses the story of being an orphan and carving out her own place in the world to convince her. Teddy is just as equally untrusting when Fintan visits him. Teddy becomes more trusting when Fintan shares the story about what happened to him that night. The pocketknife from the car brings him around even further which leads to Teddy admitting that it is his knife but it was one he had given to Sergeant Power as a birthday present.

Fintan later discovers that Emmy was recording his and Teddy’s conversation when he comes outside and finds Dove and her wrestling over the recording. This leads to him storming off and not long after that Emmy follows, leaving Dove all alone. Seamus makes yet another detour on his way to the bank. This one is more enigmatic, as it appears to be a random stop in the middle of the woods. It is soon revealed to be a hollow of sorts when Gilbert follows him. He doesn’t get long to survey the land because he’s scared back to the vehicle. Much to Gilbert’s surprise, he returns to the vehicle with 8 grand in cash.

Gilbert gets a look at Seamus’ anger when they visit Frank and he tries to finagle interest on top of the 8 grand. Seamus later admits that he has anger management problems and the confirmation of Malachy and Fiona’s death has only set him on edge. Gilbert asks him if seeing the bodies would help. Although he doesn’t answer, Gilbert is shown seconds later at Fagan’s (Amy Conroy) Pub where he enlists Dove’s help to distract Mary (Clodagh Mooney Duggan) so Seamus can see the bodies.

As Gilbert and Seamus spend several sentimental moments with the bodies, he admits that their death was his fault. Although he doesn’t exactly come out and confirm it, Seamus admits to stealing from the wrong people. It’s also revealed that Gilbert is recording everything. Back inside the funeral home, Mary steps away to give Dove a few minutes of privacy when she receives a call from Damien (Charlie Kemp). Her night becomes instantly ruined when she learns that she’s being extradited to the States to stand trial.

The episode ends with Seamus realizing that the female body still has all its original teeth, which would indicate that it wasn’t Fiona.

 

Bodkin Review

Unfortunately, this episode played out much like the previous one. As I’ve said, episode 3 was probably my favorite but also had the most flaws. I really enjoyed this episode as well but it also had more flaws than the others. Some of the scenes just felt, clunky, long-winded, and unnecessarily drawn out. I am enjoying nearly everything about the show, but I feel the extra runtime is killing it. 5, 7, or even 10 minutes doesn’t seem like a whole lot of extra time, but it is when you’re trying to analyze every little thing.

Along with the drawn-out dispute and scenes, there were times when some of the scenes just ping-ponged back and forth. I understand this can be an incredibly effective means of meshing or comparing two plots but it can also get annoying at times. Despite the complaints, I would still have to give the episode a fair rating of 5.4 out of 10.

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