Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
“If you want to solve a crime—any crime,” Rufus Cotesworth tells us, “you must first learn to see through the illusion.”
Once recognized as the world’s greatest detective, Cotesworth believes that everyone puts up an illusion of sorts because everyone is hiding something. Now, that something may not be crucial to the investigation, he states, but as one truth comes out, others tend to follow.
That’s certainly true aboard the SS Varuna, a Mediterranean ocean liner he’s cruising on. Here, people are hiding extramarital affairs, drug addictions, bankruptcy, corporate schemes, identities and murder.
Keith Trubitsky’s death didn’t exactly surprise the passengers on board the Varuna. After all, the man was tasteless, obnoxious, condescending and abusive to staff. Someone easily could have killed him in a fit of passion.
But it was all a lie.
Trubitsky was just an alias for Danny Turner, a private investigator secretly working to solve an 18-year-old cold case—the only murder Cotesworth ever failed to solve. Coincidentally, also on board is the illustrious Collier family, who were tangled in that unsolved murder and believe Cotesworth is a hack because of this failure. And traveling with them is Imogene Scott, the daughter of that first victim.
Luckily, Cotesworth doesn’t believe in coincidences. So if he can figure out who killed Danny, then he might be able to finally provide some answers to Imogene as well.
Cotesworth quickly dubs Imogene his assistant and urges his protégé to pay attention, and I’d advise readers to do the same here.
I’ve already mentioned extramarital affairs, drug addictions, murder and other crimes. And any viewers will see all of these things take place on screen. Couples (including same-sex couples) remove their clothes and have sex. Characters imbibe and abuse drugs. Though there are technically no sailors onboard the Varuna, folks certainly swear like them. A priest has an affair with a married woman. And then of course, there are the grisly crime scenes that give this show its plot.
So while details may be crucial to a murder investigation, many of these details—particularly the foul language and graphic sex scenes—do nothing to further the plot of this story and should perhaps be avoided altogether.
A married lesbian couple has sex, and an unmarried straight couple has sex. In both instances, we see exposed breasts and rear ends as well as movements. In other scenes, characters wear revealing outfits.
A car bomb explodes, killing the driver. (Her daughter witnesses the event and tries to recount details later on.) A man is found dead in his room, pinned to the wall by a harpoon gun. Imogene throws a glass at Cotesworth, cutting his face. A woman smashes a man’s watch. A man uses a harpoon gun to fish (though he’s unsuccessful at spearing any animals).
People drink heavily. A man smokes a cigar. We hear that someone has a cocaine addiction. A woman rinses her mouth out with vodka after vomiting. Someone talks about needing to be woken from a “week-long drunk.”
Imogene is a thief, stealing cash from a man’s wallet and removing the security tag from a purse. Rufus uncovers that she’s stealing money from the Colliers. (We also hear she was suspended as a child for stealing a rare book from her school’s library.)
A man warns others not to attempt bribery. Imogene is mocked for her low income. A man screams at a waitress for spilling a drink on him (and he’s rude and condescending to other passengers as well). Someone wipes security footage to protect a suspect. Someone vomits.
We hear 18 uses of the f-word and a couple uses each of “a–hole,” “b–ch,” “d–k” and the s-word. God’s name is also abused three times, twice paired with “d–mit,” and Christ’s name is abused once.
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.
