Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Davey and Jonesie hate high school. I mean, if they’d known it was going to be so boring, they would’ve joined a tasteful cult instead.
So instead of following the rules and mindlessly going with the flow—as the rest of their classmates do—the girls challenge the status quo. They stage protests, ditch classes, get detentions. As long as they’re together, they figure, high school might not be so bad.
Unfortunately, Principal Neighbors (along with the rest of the Schrödinger High faculty) doesn’t quite see it that way. To her, the girls have formed a bit of an unhealthy codependence that alienates them from the rest of their peers.
She’s not exactly wrong. Davey and Jonesie have the same class schedule, get the same detentions. They even share the same locker after selling off Davey’s to one of their classmates.
Neighbors has threatened to separate the girls if they don’t branch out a bit. And not just with separate lockers and classes: She’ll recommend to their parents that one of them should transfer to another school.
Well, the girls can’t have that. But they also can’t help themselves, staging a protest after Neighbors forces them to join the decoration committee for the school dance.
During the shenanigans—in which the gals don some mascot heads and dance to what they think is the perfect song to convey how their classmates are all “sheep”—Davey and Jonesie accidentally set a banner on fire, triggering the school’s sprinkler system and effectively ruining the dance.
Rather than get caught, which undoubtedly would result in Neighbors following through on her threat to have them permanently separated, Davey and Jonesie run.
They try to stash the mascot heads (the only evidence of their delinquency) in their locker. But when they open the door, Davey and Jonesie are sucked through a multiversal portal to another world.
Maybe high school isn’t so bad after all …
The portal, the girls learn, was created by their teacher, Mr. Schneider. He’s a multiversal being serving out his own punishment for challenging the status quo by being forced to exist as a 10th grade teacher in this universe and every other.
Schneider planned to use the portal to resync all the different versions of himself so he could revolt against M.O.M. (Management Organization of the Multiverse), who put him there to begin with.
Unfortunately, since the portal was configured to Schneider’s DNA, it broke after Davey and Jonesie went through. Now, the girls are stuck hopping from one universe to another. Meanwhile, the different versions of Schneider attempt to fix the portal and send them home.
Even more unfortunately, Schneider is running out of time. Although everything froze back in Davey and Jonesie’s world until they return, the girls are causing anomalies: They continue to challenge the status quo, break the rules and inform their classmates that they’re sheep in every universe.
So M.O.M. has dispatched a D.A.D. (Delinquent Acquisition Deputy) to capture the girls and send them to detention, which, as it turns out, could equate to about 10,000 years stuck in the 10th grade.
Schneider doesn’t want that. Mostly because he needs to return the girls to their own universe before he can use the portal to resync his different selves. And it gets still worse for him: If M.O.M. finds out he was involved, he’ll be sent to G.R.A.N.D.M.A.’s, aka Genetically Restructured As a Nautically Diminished Molecular Abnormal. In other words, he’ll be transformed into a brainless sea cucumber.
The girls don’t want that either—I mean, who would want to spend 10,000 years in the 10th grade?—but they also don’t necessarily want to go home. Because that’ll mean getting caught by Neighbors and being permanently separated from each other.
Man, if only they hadn’t decided to share a locker.
This latest original series from Hulu is silly and quirky in a lot of ways. The story is entertaining, the messaging about staying true to yourself couldn’t be more clear, and the friendship between Davey and Jonesie is giving all the good vibes.
Unfortunately, parents should exercise some caution before letting tweens or teens turn it on. Here’s why:
There are multiple LGBT characters. The camera slows whenever Davey’s crush (a teen boy named Abbott) comes onscreen. God’s name is misused regularly. And there’s some violence as well: In one universe, adults turn into werewolves and attack the entire Schrödinger High student body.
But the main theme of the show is problematic, too. Being true to yourself is a nice message, but Davey and Jonesie only accomplish that goal by breaking the rules and causing chaos. They have no respect for anyone else’s desire to “stay true,” because they think everyone else is a mindless sheep just going along with what the world tells them.
And while it’s not necessarily bad to challenge a status quo that is limiting and discriminatory, protesting every little thing you hate about high school because it doesn’t suit your particular way of thinking just ruins it for everyone else.
And maybe for them, too.
After Davey and Jonesie’s school dance protest causes the whole thing to go up in flames (quite literally), they escape their enraged classmates and school principal through a multiversal portal.
Mr. Schneider uses science to create a multiversal portal in the hope of syncing together all the different versions of himself across all the different universes. Unfortunately, a car battery and powerful magnet in Davey and Jonesie’s locker causes the portal to open there instead of in Schneider’s classroom. And the girls wind up using it instead of Schneider.
A woman tells students to embrace whatever the “universe” throws at them. She also chants some mantras to herself.
Several students are members of the LGBT community. One boy noticeably wears makeup at school, and at least one other student uses the pronoun “they.” The camera lingers when Davey’s crush comes onscreen, and Davey herself becomes speechless, later criticizing her hormones for making her act so silly. A girl’s midriff is briefly exposed. Someone calls the school dance a “mating ritual.” Jonesie says that her parents think Davey is a bad influence because Davey made a “lightly erotic” film using Jonesie’s sister’s dolls.
The girls also accidentally set a banner on fire at the school dance while staging a protest. The sprinkler system puts the flames out, but Principal Neighbors and several enraged students chase Davey and Jonesie down the halls. One of the alternate-universe Schneiders gets sawed in half during a magician’s trick gone wrong, and we see blood spurt onto a horrified Davey and darkly entertained Jonesie.
Davey and Jonesie break several school rules. They’re rude to teachers and classmates, and they’re disruptive in class. Principal Neighbors threatens to have the girls separated if they don’t get their act together. One teacher neglects to learn any students’ names. Neighbors inappropriately mentions the details of her divorce to students. The girl in charge of the decorating committee is rude to her classmates, screeching orders at them about where she wants things to go.
A boy nearly vomits after drinking a soda too quickly. A girl licks glitter off a poster. After going through the portal, Davey and Jonesie see some creepy versions of Schneider in alternate universes. There’s a joke about joining a cult.
God’s name is misused about 10 times. There’s a single use of “h—.”
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.
