Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Maria was terrified, but also brave.
After her boyfriend had threatened to kill her with a knife, she left their apartment and walked to a payphone to call for help. She wouldn’t give the dispatcher, Jasmine, her or her boyfriend’s name, but she insisted she wanted to talk to police.
A unit was sent to Maria’s location, but while she waited for officers to arrive, she whispered a secret to Jasmine.
She isn’t the first woman her boyfriend has threatened with that knife. A little over 10 years ago, he attacked another woman and killed her with it, stabbing her multiple times. But another man took the blame and is now serving 24 years.
Before Jasmine can get any more information, Maria decides she’s done waiting for police and leaves the phone booth. But her story has caught Jasmine’s interest, and Jasmine decides to escalate the case.
When DS June Lenker arrives at work the following morning, Maria’s case is plopped on her desk. “Domestic abuse,” she’s told. “Needs a woman’s touch.”
Lenker calls up Jasmine to verify the story. But unfortunately, all they can tell is that Maria might be Portuguese or Brazilian (based on her use of a Portuguese word during the conversation), she appears to be Hispanic (based on blurry video footage of the phone booth), and she possibly lives in the area she called from.
It’s not a lot to go on, but they issue a search for her nevertheless. In the meantime, Lenker looks into Maria’s story about the wrongful conviction.
Errol Mathis was arrested in 2012 for allegedly murdering his girlfriend, Adelaide, and then attempting to kidnap her son, Patrick. Authorities at the time thought it was a cut-and-dry case. Errol confessed. He’d been caught with her blood on his hands. Patrick had heard the altercation through his bedroom door. And bite marks on the victim’s body matched Errol’s dental print.
Errol later retracted his statement, and it turned out the dental imprints weren’t conclusive. Not to mention that Patrick was just 6 years old at the time and didn’t actually see anything.
Unfortunately, none of that matters since DCI Daniel Hegarty—the officer who originally worked the case and carries a lot of pull in the police department—refuses to reopen the case.
But despite Hegarty’s obstinance, it’s clear something about the case is bugging him. He calls up his old partners, Kim Cardwell and Tony Gilfoyle, warning them to cover their backs if Lenker comes calling. After all, it wouldn’t look good to have a conviction overturned more than a decade after the fact. Not when citizens are voicing their displeasure with the conduct of the entire police system.
Lenker won’t give up, though. She isn’t sure what Hegarty might be hiding, but she is sure that Maria was telling the truth. And for her, that’s enough.
Criminal Record is a heavy show. It centers around domestic abuse that ends in the deaths of at least two women, one of them the mother of a 6-year-old boy who hears everything.
That in and of itself will probably deter some more sensitive viewers. (If you want more information about domestic abuse, visit www.focusonthefamily.com/help-for-abusive-relationships/.) But families should also note that at least one of those deaths—the woman is thrown from the ninth floor of building—is depicted onscreen following a harrowing phone call with emergency services (who arrive too late to help). And we see the gory aftermath of the other death (a stabbing), though that doesn’t mean it won’t be depicted in later episodes.
Language is another problem with uses of the f-word and abuses of Christ’s name. And though sexual content is practically non-existent in the episode we covered for this review, it could creep up in later episodes of this TV-MA rated show.
Jan. 10, 2024 – S1, E1: “Emergency Caller”
EPISODE REVIEW
June Lenker tries to locate a domestic abuse victim in order to question her about an alleged murder.
A woman calls police, noticeably scared (we only hear her voice). She says her boyfriend hurt her and threatened to kill her with a knife—the same knife he allegedly used to kill a previous girlfriend. But before officers can arrive, she’s spooked and runs off.
In another emergency call (again, we only hear the caller’s voice), the victim is communicating by tapping her phone since her abuser is in the apartment with her. We hear she’s locked herself in the bathroom but can’t escape since they live on the ninth floor. We hear the boyfriend trying to break down the door and screaming at her. Lenker tells the woman to arm herself with her keys and shove them into the man’s face when he gets through, then run. Unfortunately, the woman hangs up the phone. And Lenker arrives on the scene just in time to see the woman’s body drop to the ground, blood pooling around her body after impact.
Flashbacks show us a stabbing victim, blood covering her corpse, the floor and the walls of her home. A man, covered in her blood, breaks down the door of her son’s bedroom. He carries the child to his car, but not before the boy sees his mother’s body. And the pair are T-boned as they drive off.
We hear that thieves tied up a man in his home so they could rob the place. Unfortunately, the man didn’t have any family and wasn’t discovered until his dead body began to smell. We see a woman shove her boyfriend during an argument. A teenager cuts his hand while chopping onions but doesn’t notice because he’s grieving.
A couple smooches. Another couple makes out on a bed (fully clothed). A man and woman joke that a waitress was checking out the woman. We hear that several people made offers of marriage, sex and money to a man after he was convicted of murder because he was good-looking.
We learn a 12-year-old was arrested for dealing drugs but that the charges were dropped. Some people drink wine.
A woman vomits. A man makes a morbid joke. Two people beg a police officer to recount stories where he found dead bodies. Lenker runs the plates of a vehicle parked outside her mom’s house even though it could get her into trouble at work. There are several hints of corruption in the police force. (One officer tells his former partners to cover their backs if Lenker questions them.) People lie. Lenker suspects that Hegarty is racist after he makes a rude reference to O.J. Simpson.
There are seven uses of the f-word and three of the s-word. We also hear uses of “b–tard,” “b–ch” and “h—,” as well as the British expletive “bloody.” God’s name is abused a few times, and Christ’s name is abused twice.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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.
