Dove is a headstrong and unrelenting journalist who continually puts herself in danger’s way to get to the truth at any cost. Siobhán Cullen plays the character in the Netflix thriller series, Bodkin.
Dove, short for Dubheasa Maloney, is an investigative journalist for The Guardian.
She’s working on the NHS corruption story when her informant Krtek commits suicide as his name and identity are leaked, which she had ensured would remain synonymous.
Her editor Damien tells her she’s being pulled out of this story and sent off to Bodkin, Ireland, where she must consult their true-crime podcaster Gilbert Power, and the researcher Emmy Sizergh.
Dove has no interest in podcasting or doing anything in this small Irish town, or its 25-year-old mystery of 3 disappearances on the same night of the Samhain festival.
A painful past
Dove’s mother was a heroin addict and when she was just a little girl, she took her to a convent and left her there. Dove would ask for her mother but she’d not return.
She did return once but she wasn’t interested in meeting her daughter at all. When she grew up a little, Dove was smoking one day when she inadvertently set fire to an abbey there.
Rumors spread later on that she did it deliberately. Dove goes back to the convent before the credits roll on the first season of Bodkin.
Embittered & disparaging
Dove has been left embittered by her mother who was never present for her and when she was, she was drowned in heroin.
The journalist fights tooth and nail and doesn’t spare much heed to ethics if getting to the truth entails violating them.
In her pursuit of truth, she has become an incredibly rude person. Her friendships, flings, and other such relationships don’t last long for this very reason.
She carries great pain and regret for what happened to her and what her mother did to her. She hates her new friends Gilbert and Emmy, but by the end, she cares for them deeply.
A different story to tell
As for her career, she is not jailed so the charges against her are likely dropped. She says she had to make a deal, which entailed leaving her job.
She arrives at the convent in Dublin and begins afresh, ready to work on a story about the nuns there, about the convent itself. She has all the time she needs for it.
She has a recorder with herself, which she pulls out to begin her work, marking her foray into the world of podcasting.