Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
It’s not just a game.
Oh, for the people paying Burton Fisher to get past a certain level, circa 2032, it is. They’ve got the money. They want to go further in a virtual reality game than their own gaming talent can take them. So they plunk down the cash, bring Burton in, and, together, they all move on. Virtually speaking, that is.
But for Burton, it’s a living. The ex-Marine needs the cash to help pay the bills, buy the beer and get his sick mom a few under-the-table meds.
Nope, playing games is serious business for Burton. And sometimes, it’s serious enough that he needs to bring in a ringer: His little sister, Flynne.
Flynne’s better than Burton, and both of them know it. Why, she’s the reason that someone sent Burton that strange VR headset. Cutting edge tech, they said. Just needed someone good to play it a bit. Offer feedback.
“They pay by the level?” Flynne asks.
Nope, Burton says. It’s based on time played. “The more you’re in, the more you earn,” he tells her. And if it’s time they want, Flynne’s the one who can give it to them.
She enjoys her first time playing the apparent game immensely: She kidnaps a woman, debilitates her robotic guard and is back in no time with a big smile on her face. It felt so real, she says. Felt just like she was there.
But the next session? It’s sadistic. She loses an eye. She fights and loses and—as is the way of games—dies. And you know what? She felt the pain, too. Every bit of it.
Never again, she tells her brother. She’ll never play that “game” again, no matter how much they pay.
But it is no game. It felt real because it was.
And now, something she did while wearing that headset has attracted the wrong sort of attention. People are out to kill her and everyone she knows. And nothing will stop them.
Not even the fact that her would-be killers have, in Flynne’s timeline at least, yet to be born.
Based on a 2014 book by William Gibson, The Peripheral is the latest reality-bending adventure from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. No surprise that The Peripheral shares Westworld’s intrigue … and its issues.
The story takes place in two separate times, both of which are ahead of our own. Flynne’s own 2032 reality (set in the Blue Ridge Mountains) looks much like our contemporary world, albeit with some substantially improved tech. But the timeline she visits—70 years in her future—takes place in an incredibly-advanced, mostly-empty London.
But while that future world carries on with near clinical reserve, the blood in both timelines flows unchecked. People die in the most painful of ways. Wince-worthy damage is exacted on both real people and synthetic beings alike. Even as the story pulls you in, the grotesque carnage pushes you away.
But even if viewers could dodge all the splashes of blood, they’d still even have to drown out all the language. The f-word is used quite frequently, the s-word only slightly less; one episode title even features both profanities. We hear plenty of other curse words as well.
For a time-travel crime drama, The Peripheral hangs together better than some. It even suggests that humanity might do a lot better if, y’know, we were a little more thoughtful to one another.
But The Peripheral’s problems are anything but on the periphery. And that, of course, might cut this show out of a lot of people’s futures.
Burton receives a high-tech VR headset and convinces Flynne to take it for a spin. But while Flynne believes everything she does with the headset is a game, her actions feel so real—and, as it turns out, have some real-world consequences.
During her first engagement with the headset, Flynne plays as her brother, and her avatar looks just like him. In this guise, Flynne is asked to, essentially, seduce a woman. We see the woman and “Burton” kiss passionately. We also see that back in the real world, Flynne seems to be enjoying the sensation.
Flynne, again as Burton, is subjected to an operation to remove and replace an eye without the benefit of anesthesia. (The procedure is quite graphic.) The skin of someone’s hand is torn away, revealing a mesh of synthetic material. A man has his head slammed into a whiskey glass sitting on a table: The glass shards obviously puncture the guy’s face something awful and leave it a bloody mess.
A man is hit by a car and left for dead. Two people are attacked with a sonic gun that, we’re told, can rupture organs. (One is shot underneath the chin with the gun, which terminates him. The gun also deals out nonlethal but apparently quite painful blows.) A realistic videogame depicts both people and sheep being shot. (A player slings a knife into an NPC’s head, killing that character.)
Flynne and Burton struggle to get medicine for their very sick mother in 2032. One pill costs $1,000, which Flynne earns during her first session in the “game.” But when she tries to buy the pill from a set of shady dealers, one suggests that he’ll need a “barter” from Flynne, as well—saying the pill is Flynne’s if she renders both him and his partner a “service.”
Flynne suspects that Burton is stealing her mother’s drugs (which turns out to not be the case). Connor, a triple amputee, gets very drunk at a bar. (It’s insinuated it’s not a rare occurrence for him.) Several others drink. Flynne delivers a beer to Burton’s door. Then she thinks better of it and leaves two, instead. Flynne vomits after wearing the headset.
Characters say the f-word 22 times and the s-word 10. We also hear “a–,” “d–n,” “g-dd–n,” “h—” and the British profanity “bloody.” Jesus’ name is abused three times.
In 2099, we learn that a huge conglomerate wants Flynne and Burton dead, and it has contracted killers to do the work in 2032. But by happenstance, Burton had some of his old military buddies over, and they quickly turn the tables on the would-be assassins.
Flynne, despite swearing she’d never use the headset again, goes does so to find out what she, Burton and others are up against. There she meets Wilf Netherton, who tells her that the “game” Flynne thought she was playing is very much real. He says that when she puts the headset on, her brain beams into a robotic body 70 years into the future, a state that Wilf calls a “peripheral.” Wilf tells Flynne that they need her help to track down Aelita—a woman whom Flynne met in both of her two earlier adventures. But Flynne won’t help without proof and without help for her mother.
Several people get gunned down: One is shot in the head with a spray of blood on the wall behind him. We see the bodies lying on the ground; from Flynne’s reaction to the sight, they’re already beginning to smell. We meet Wilf’s associates in the future and learn that most are killers in their own right. Another group from 2099 hires a 2032 kingpin to kill both Flynne and Burton. We learn that Flynne’s and Burton’s mother has just weeks to live.
A man takes a virtual-reality trip to Havana, where he seeks a female “companion.” When she sits down at the virtual table, the real man asks her if she has any special “skills.” In the real world, we see the man with an open shirt talking with his scantily-clad (and much younger) partner about his latest trip to Havana. Virtual women wear revealing outfits. A woman from the future wears a dress that shows off a moving tattoo on her back.
Flynne injects her mother with an experimental drug. Burton visits Connor—a triple amputee—and watches as he swallows a few pills and drinks down a bottle of beer. It’s suggested it’ll be the first of many that Connor will drink. Burton offers him a mission, but he adds that Connor needs to be sober. (Other characters drink as well.) A man smokes a cigar, and a virtual woman smokes a cigarette.
The f-word is used nearly 30 times. The s-word is uttered three times. We also hear “a–,” “d–n” (twice with God’s name) and two misuses of Jesus’ name.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
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