Netflix Bodies episode 6 recap: The day the world explodes

Spoilers ahead for Bodies episode 6

Bodies episode 6 begins on doomsday in 2023 and Detective Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) is determined to put a stop to the bomb before it can go off. With Barber’s (Michael Jibson) true identity as Elias Mannix’s father Daniel Barber revealed, she turns to the counter-terrorism unit to make her case. They don’t exactly believe her until Hasan reveals the key left for her at Barber’s flat.

That key leads to a vault in the oldest part of the Harker & Co. bank that was created in her name in 1941, it’s enough to convince the counter-terrorism agent that Hasan, and all of this, is true. Inside the vault is the massive nuclear bomb that will go off once Elias triggers it.

Barber has taken teen Elias (Gabriel Howell) onto a boat so they’re away from London when the bomb detonates. He contacts Hasan and tells her where to meet them. Once there, Barber plays the final record recorded by Mannix/Julian Harker in 1941, before he died.

This one is directed at his younger self. Older Elias tells the younger one that he understands his suffering and that the reason for all of this is so he can have a future where he knows he’s loved, where everyone knows they’re loved and taken care of. Unfortunately, he had to live in the gutter with no one around to love him as a child to make him understand why the bomb has to go off.

However, Hasan manages to talk Elias out of pressing the button and the counter-terrorist agent sneaks aboard the ship, killing Daniel Barber. With Barber dead and Hasan now in control of the remote trigger device, they contact the men back in the bank vault to defuse the bomb. Crisis averted. For now.

In 1890, Detective Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) cannot bring himself to frame Henry Ashe (George Parker) for the murder, and instead confesses to the murder himself. He gets arrested while revealing the truth about this and his sexuality to his wife Charlotte (Amy Manson), while his daughter, Polly (Syvonne Karlsen), eavesdrops on the conversation. Hillinghead is taken to prison.

In 1941, Detective Charlie Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) is brought into the police office by Polly Hillinghead’s son, Hayden (Michael Shaeffer), who is also implied to be the son of Elias Mannix. Hayden gives Whiteman a choice. Either he go down for all the murders, including Esther’s, or he agree to work with them. Whiteman takes matters into his own hands, as usual, and attacks Hayden, stabbing him with a broken bottle.

Then he goes to Harker’s house where he finally kills Polly (Greta Scacchi) while she’s playing a familiar tune on the piano. He turns his gun on the ailing Julian Harker, who already knows what’s about to occur, as it was established already a cop would shoot Harker at 99 years old in his own home in 1941. That’s exactly what happens. Whiteman kills Harker and then gets arrested. He’s taken to the gallows to be hanged for his crimes.

In 2053, Elias Mannix (Stephen Graham) is able to jump through The Throat and restart the entire loop, though not before Hasan shoots him at least once in the leg—giving Julian Harker his limp in 1890. Despite everything, Detective Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) does not try to stop Elias, even when he finally admits to her that he’s the one responsible for the bomb. Hasan is helpless to stop them as she also takes a gunshot to the chest and lies there bleeding out.

And right after Elias steps through the portal, Gabriel Defoe (Tom Mothersdale) chooses to follow him, hoping he can catch him and stop him for good. But it plays out exactly like it always has! Maplewood fires her gun and shoots Defoe in the eye just as he steps into the particle, his body splitting between the four different eras and the bullet dropping in 2053, hence why it doesn’t show up in any of the autopsies from the past. Maplewood is the one who murders Defoe and this is the moment that his body is transported to 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053.

Back to 2023, it seems like maybe the loop has been broken, though I think anyone watching can tell something more is about to happen. First, Hasan checks in on her dad and son. They didn’t get out of London, but are safe in a town close by. She promises them they can return home soon.

Then she gets permission to transport Elias back to jail, but he asks to visit his mother, Sarah Mannix (Natalie Gavin) first so the next time she sees him isn’t in prison. Sarah can’t bring herself to speak with Elias face-to-face. She doesn’t want to see him and Elias is forced to watch as his mother, once again, turns her back on him. It’s the catalyst that sets things into motion.

Elias has been holding onto a tiny piece of paper given to him by Barber, or from the trigger, this whole time. On it is a cellphone number that will trigger a secret, secondary detonator in the bomb. A wired-in mobile phone. When he realizes his mom won’t even give him the time of day, he jumps out of the car and steals a phone from some nearby teens.

Hasan gives chase, but Elias has already made up his mind. He says his future self was right all along and all he wants is to know that he’s loved. He dials in the number and the bomb detonates, killing hundreds of thousands of people, including, presumably, Hasan’s son and father.

The final moments of Bodies episode 5 show the adult Elias Mannix landing in 1890, his latest time travel mission a success. He also has the tally marks tattooed on his wrist, the same ones Defoe’s body carries—though I noticed that when Defoe went back in time, he did not have that tattoo. Does it happen later? Is that a potential change in the loop? We’ll have to wait and see in the final two episodes!