Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
[Editor’s note: This Netflix show is predicated on sexual assault. The show, and the contents of the review, may be disturbing to some.]
The rape that Alba endures does not just change her night. It changes her life. And the lives of everyone she loves.
This young woman was partying with a friend when four men drugged, brutally assaulted her and left her on a beach. That tragic encounter was horrible enough. But her attackers are among Madrid’s rich and powerful. And as Alba tries to find justice and hold these men accountable, the assault takes on even more tragic, and complicated, dimensions.
Alba’s journey reveals the corruption in the social circles she encounters in Madrid, and the city’s wealthiest citizens seem almost untouchable. And even those who love Alba contribute to the pain she experiences, and no one is safe from the reach of the tragedy, or the corruption of riches. Exploring the nature of guilt and the consequences of a reckless lifestyle, Netflix’s foreign-language Alba takes its time to explore the psychology of characters good and bad, revealing some dark and misogynistic mindsets.
Alba’s story is heartbreaking, devastating and important. This deep character portrayal is emotionally intense and depicts the realities that many women have endured. The narrative reveals the lasting trauma that follows victims of sexual assault and the severe difficulties they face when they demand justice. Some characters who support Alba do so at great cost to themselves.
The show deals with extremely difficult subject matter. Watching the events is a challenge, and exponentially harder when considering real-life victims with stories similar to Alba’s. It is impossible to watch without feeling some sense of conviction to stand against the social ills that are shown in the narrative.
But that doesn’t mitigate the show’s problematic elements. Alba includes harsh language, nudity, sexual content, a homosexual character, suicide and nearly relentless substance abuse.
In Madrid, Alba, a young woman spending some time in the city, tells her family and friends about her relationship with Bruno, a man from her hometown who loves to party with his well-off friends. She goes out with a friend and plans to meet Bruno, but she ends up getting picked up by his rich friends and is raped by each of them. At the hospital, she reports the rape and starts the process of recovery and attempting to hold her powerful attackers accountable.
Alba and Bruno live together and are shown kissing intensely. Another character smokes and says that cigars are keeping him alive. (He is in bad health.) A man gets angry and throws his motorcycle helmet on the ground. The antagonists buy drugs from of a dealer—both date-rape drugs and recreational substances. Other characters drink heavily and combine this with recreational drug use, leading to intoxication. Some men at the bar harass Alba and are thrown out.
Under the influence of a drug, Alba begins to pass out as the men circle her. She wakes up on the beach in pain, and one of her breasts and her backside are shown. The details of the rape kit and the possibilities of what happened to her are discussed as she is interrogated repeatedly. Clips that show more and more of the rape are interspersed throughout the episode as she starts to regain memories, which show blurry images of shirtless men assaulting her while the others goad them on. A doctor suggests that she should take a birth control pill.
Other characters are shown dealing with intense hangovers and memory loss from the night before. The men who participated in the rape only show fear and regret after learning that Alba was Bruno’s girlfriend—blaming everyone but themselves and saying it was enjoyable. A character chooses to blackmail a wealthy character with evidence that should have gone to the authorities. Alba begins to experience anxiety attacks and have flashbacks.
A man punches one of Alba’s attackers after the assault and is blackmailed to stay silent about his knowledge of what happened. One attacker’s family stoops to bribery and threats to suppress the truth. Several characters fall apart emotionally. , and the antagonists insist that that what they did was not rape. We see a graffitied.
Alba has to be convinced that her experience is not her fault. Various characters lie to protect themselves. A man in black attacks a main character.
The f-word is said over 20 times, the God’s name is taken in vain several times. Other profanities include reptations and variations of a–, d–n, the s-word, and b–ch.
Alba is on a mission to put her attackers behind bars, and Bruno is helping her trap them. Alba’s brother discovers that his wife has been lying to him, which causes Alba to take radical action. Meanwhile, one of Alba’s attackers is increasingly obsessed with her and enacts a plan of his own. Some of the couples have hopeful endings despite the lasting trauma.
Alba pretends to be a predatory male on a perverted chat website to get information from her rapist, who has harmed women before and plans to do it again. Someone discovers that a woman lied about her kid’s parentage and has taken a bribe. Another character says that money can get someone out of any bad situation.
A man starts stalking Alba. Alba tricks one of the rapists into send her a picture of his souvenirs from his victims, which includes evidence that he raped her. A female relative of the man stalking Alba signs over her power because of a blackmail video showing her killing her father-in-law. She later releases information about her family’s misdeeds in revenge.
Bruno talks badly of Alba to gain the trust of his old friends to trap them. The characters discuss the suicide of one of the men who raped Alba. More is revealed about the coercive and sexually abusive tendencies of Alba’s attackers. A drug dealer provides these men with more recreational drugs, and they take them. People call Alba all sorts of horrible things and claim that she is lying.
[Spoiler Warning] Alba is drugged with chloroform, taken against her will, chained up and gagged. A man tells her that she should be proud of being “the one” for him and touches her breast under her shirt while she is trapped. Two men attempt to shoot her. One rapist is in a debilitating car crash, and the other is arrested after being almost choked to death.
People involved in loving, semi-healthy relationships kiss and discuss their future.
The f-word is said a ridiculous number of times, and intensely derogatory words for women are used.
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
