‘Dead Boy Detectives’ review: Netflix’s ‘Sandman’ spinoff is fast-paced and fun

Theoretically, Netflix Dead Boy Detectives it should be a feast for the specters of misfortune, faceless creatures that feed on pain and suffering. The ghostly protagonists, Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri), are teenagers murdered at the same British boarding school, seventy years apart. They spend their time seeking closure for other lost souls, like a pair of high school students killed in their prime or a family murdered by an abusive patriarch. And they are constantly on the run from the agents of Death, who, for technical reasons, condemned Edwin to Hell.

However, the duo only encountered one such monster over the course of the first season’s eight episodes, and perhaps that’s because despite the grim premise, Dead Boy Detectives is the furthest thing from bleak. Delicate, dim; sometimes bittersweet. But it’s no less than entertaining, thanks to its attractively quirky main cast and cheeky sense of humor.

In a proven TV style Dead Boy Detectives divides each of its eight episodes into monster-of-the-week procedurals (or whatever we call them in the age of Netflix) and serialized teen dramas. The first case we follow is both: When the boys take on the task of rescuing Crystal (Kassius Nelson) from her demonic ex (David Iacono), she becomes the third member of the crime-solving team. Seemingly, her psychic abilities make her the perfect link between the boys and the living, who cannot see or hear them.

But it doesn’t hurt that Charles, the ’80s punk wizard, has the hots for her – much to the annoyance of Edwin, a World War I bookworm whose affection for his best friend has become more than cordial. And so, in a room rented from a gruff goth butcher (Jenny played by Briana Cuoco), the current trio embark on all sorts of ghastly, supernatural adventures while trying to sort out their feelings for themselves and each other.

Originally conceived as a spinoff Doom Patrolthen rearranged as a sand man spinoff when Max rejected it, Dead Boy Detectives he inherited from both of his spiritual parents a sensibility that is a little melancholic, a little scary and a little irreverent. His world seems perpetually mired in green and purple shadows, but the details are less terrifying than crazy. Creator Steve Yockey conjures up a version of small-town Washington, where the shopkeeper (Michael Beach) may secretly be a walrus and the cats may speak with a salty Jersey accent. The afterlife is governed by a strict bureaucracy, enforced by officials such as the tormented Night Nurse (Ruth Connell, in Doom Patrol cameo). The supporting cast tends to step up to great heights, and their swings pay off in the form of memorable characters like Esther (Jenn Lyons), a vengeful witch with a breathy voice, snarky jokes, and a drunken wine of reality TV villainy, and the Cat King (Lukas Gage ), a purring shapeshifter whose modern favorite toy is Edwin.

Meanwhile, the guys (and girls – Yuyu Kitamura rounds out the main clique as Niko, the lovable, goofy neighbor) grapple with more realistic journeys of self-discovery. Edwin is by far the most successful of them, as he initially opens himself up to the possibility of romance. Rexstrew’s shy curiosity reminds us that even though Edwin has been having fun for over a hundred years, in some ways he’s still just a teenager trying to find himself.

But others are more unsuccessful, struggling to maintain either momentum (the story about Charles’s anger issues fades away almost as suddenly as it emerged) or weight (Crystal’s revelations about the source of her powers come too out of left field, to land with the intended emotional impact). The motivation behind the Dead Boy Detective Agency is poignant – “Our deaths didn’t matter and no one ever solved them,” explains Edwin, and every case they handle is intended to ensure that other souls are not forgotten in this way. they were. But overall, the show seems reluctant to delve into angst for fear of dampening the mood.

Instead, it relies on crazy plots and balmy chemistry to keep the good times going. “This isn’t the Peach Pit,” Jenny growls, but a huge part of it Dead Boy DetectivesThe appeal is simply spending time with these kids. (And they’re kids: “What’s a Peach Pit?” asks Zoomerishly’s Crystal.) They may be united by the desire to do what’s right, “even if it’s scary and the risk is low and we might die in a terrible way,” like Niko he put it. But if we weren’t invested in their efforts to, say, appease the sea monster so it stops snacking on the townsfolk, it would still be worth tuning in to sigh with Crystal and Charles as they feel their mutual attraction, or giggle with Niko as he helps Jenny track down secret admirer, or play with Edwin and Niko when they finish Scooby Doo after a long, challenging day of solving paranormal problems.

The real heart of the series, however, is the bond between Charles and Edwin, which over the decades has developed into a loyalty deeper than friendship. At some point in the past, Charles made the decision to forgo a blissful afterlife in favor of eternity on Earth with Edwin; after spending some time among their true blue bond, it’s basic to see why.

When it comes to Dead Boy Detectives the series itself may not be very inspiring This level of devotion, at least in the solid but not sensational first season. But it’s the kind of entertainment that, in Charles’s heyday in the 1980s, could have become extended viewing at gatherings – and that we in the 2020s can enjoy as a quick and satisfying sip.