Netflixs Bodies Explained: Syed Tahir's Story Is a Sci-Fi Take on a Familiar Tale
The question is: why? Other than it providing a dramatic and grisly twist in the show’s opening episode (surely the scene’s main purpose), what made Syed shoot himself in the world of the story?
Why Did Syed Shoot?
One word: radicalisation. Or perhaps a few more words: radicalisation by a messianic cult in a world where time travel exists, and who are willing to sacrifice anybody and anything to achieve their goal.
Syed, like police officer Rick in the exploding caravan, was a deliberate sacrifice by the Know You Are Loved Cult in order to bring about their goal of creating Elias Mannix’s dubious utopia.
The cult (including Hasan’s boss Daniel Barber and Mannix’s adopted parents the Morleys) knew that DS Hasan had to find the body in Longharvest Lane. Messages recorded for them by Elias in the past told them that Hasan would be a vital link in the chain of events that would lead to Elias detonating the bomb and thereby kick-starting the future they were working towards. So, they pulled the strings they needed to get Hasan in the right place at the right time.
“Everything they said was going to happen has. So is what’s going to happen next.”
Syed Tahir was one of those strings. A childhood friend of Elias Mannix who’d grown up with him in the same care home, Syed was parentless, vulnerable and – very likely also traumatised by his childhood – a prime target for manipulation (“Care home owners say wherever Mannix went, Syed followed”). His trusted friend Elias, fed by the cult, told him that the future was predestined – presumably giving him details like the exploding streetlights and the discovery of the naked body in Longharvest Lane to help ‘sell’ their story.
Elias gave Syed his adoptive father’s former service weapon and told him to lead Hasan to the corpse’s location on the day of the Far Right rally. The next part is unclear: either Elias told Syed that he was predestined to shoot himself (which would tidy up a loose end and cover the cult’s tracks), or he told him to shoot somebody at the Far Right rally (“I shouldn’t have brought you here. I was supposed to shoot…” he starts to tell Hasan at the shopping centre), which would of course either lead to him being shot by police or being arrested.
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue8yoraKdXa%2B8r7GOp5ytnpyexbR5waibop2jYrK5vMuaoKedlGLAurHDZquaoJmnwG6%2F06ipsmWZqHqiedKcoGaemWLBorfEZqanZZFis6K5yKWgmqpdqa6tsY4%3D