Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
We’re all part of God’s plan, right? We’re supposed to be about His business here on earth, serving as His stickie notes on the refrigerator of the universe.
But if we all have our own special callings, some are apparently called with more vehemence than others.
Kevin Finn seems like an unlikely sort to receive that kind of direct telegram from heaven. In fact, it seems like Kevin’s not up for any memoranda from much of anyone. He’s a down-on-his-luck loser who, after a suicide attempt, crawls back home to Texas in an effort to rebuild his life. He now shares a roof with his twin sister, Amy, and her surly teen daughter, Reese, and he has no immediate plans of leaving. A calling? Forget it: Kevin’s all dial tone.
But the universe has plans for Kevin. Big plans. Either that, or someone seriously messed up in the calling department.
ABC’s Kevin (Probably) Saves the World is true to its title. This broken bit of man has been tasked by some divine, vaguely Judeo-Christian force to get over himself and fix the planet. How does he know? Why, an angel (or, rather, “celestial being”) told him so. She gave up her spot in heaven to help Kevin accept and embrace his destiny as one of humanity’s “36 Righteous Souls”— of which 35 have mysteriously gone missing.
Kevin can’t quite believe he’s one of these elect: He’s not righteous, he insists. He’s not even particularly good. And frankly, he’s got a point. The guy is messed up something serious—and given the fact that Yvette’s invisible to all but him, it doesn’t help that he often seems to be engaged in animated conversations with himself.
But hey, we’re all pretty messed up, too, and God still manages to make some use of us on occasion. Soon—often with a little celestial push—Kevin’s engaging with his family, his friends and even total strangers, working to make their lives a wee bit better. He’s on a mission with some disturbingly enigmatic goals, but Kevin says, “I think I can figure it out. Probably.”
Kevin (Probably) Saves the World isn’t what you would call, um, theologically accurate. Though the idea of 36 Righteous Souls comes from the Jewish Talmud, don’t expect any deep theological treatise from this (or any) network sitcom. We hear talk about God and understand that Yvette’s an angelic being, but the theology here is about as deep as a spiritually themed Looney Tunes short.
But while this ABC comedy may not be exactly biblical, it still has some very nice—and in their own bent way, very true—things to tell us.
When Kevin balks at helping Lucile, the grouchy matron of a local diner, Yvette reminds him of his own checkered past. “The worst people sometimes are the ones who need the most kindness,” Yvette tells him. “Everyone deserves a chance to be better, Kevin. You got one!”
We all got one, we’re taught. Several, in fact. We’ve all failed, just like Kevin. Just like Kevin, we’ve been saved from the scrap heap. And I believe we’re all being asked to do some good in the world.
That’s a pretty great message to glean from a pretty silly comedy. And make no mistake, Kevin (Probably) Saves the World is exceptionally silly. It can also be saddled at times with coarse language, some sexual references and rare allusions to drug use. And while characters’ difficult life experiences are dealt with lightly—Kevin’s attempted suicide, for instance—doesn’t mitigate the underlying seriousness of those issues.
All that said, I like this show. It’s good, as in a quality, well-made and really funny good. But it’s also good as in a well-meaning, sweet-and-salient, it-might-encourage-you-to-treat-your-fellow-man-and-woman-a-little-better sort of good. How often can you say that about a television comedy?
Kevin is tasked with helping Lucile, the cantankerous owner of Kevin’s favorite diner. She tells him that she really wants him to retrieve an old, valuable clock of her late father’s from a storage unit and bring it back to the house. Alas, Kevin learns—after the fact—that the storage unit actually belonged to Lucile’s estranged sister.
Kevin tries to re-steal (recover?) the clock from Lucile’s house, but in the process falls down, breaks the clock (and a coffee table) and tries to run from the police before he’s painfully Tasered and arrested.
He talks with Yvette frequently, who’s homesick for heaven. Kevin tries to cheer her up with both food and suggestions, but also muses that the two of them should talk about matters of greater consequence: “What does God look like?” He asks. “What happens when we die? Aliens?” He also tries to talk with her about an adolescent sexual experience he had at a nearby lake.
Lucile and her sister hurl a bevy of insults at basically everyone they cross paths with. Lucile calls a police officer a “turd,” while her sister calls Kevin a “low-rent gigolo” and Lucile a “twisted goblin whore.” In flashback, we see Kevin engaged in various sundry misdeeds: As an 8-year-old, he scrawls an apparent swear word on a wall (the word is blurred out) and blames his sister for it. As a broker, he brags about swindling “$50,000 out of a 76-year-old grandmother.” Even that very morning, we see that he ate his niece’s sandwich she was supposed to take to school.
Kevin is involved in a car crash, but he’s divinely rescued. There’s a reference to “online predators” and an allusion to incest. Reese lies about her whereabouts. Characters say “a–” and “h—,” God’s name is misused three times, and Kevin calls Lucile and her sister “spawn of Satan.”
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.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
