Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Maya Lopez has learned to be wary of family.
Sure, maybe family’s great for some people. But for her? It’s brought nothing but pain.
Her mom died when Maya was a little girl, and she felt like it was all her fault. Her father was killed by an assassin years later, and Maya couldn’t do a thing about it. And when she found out that Wilson Fisk, her might-as-well-be-adoptive-father, actually was behind her dad’s murder? Well, that didn’t go so well for either of them, did it?
Nope, family is more trouble than it’s worth, as far as Maya’s concerned. And she’d like nothing more than to give her remaining family members a wide berth.
Which makes it a little weird that Maya’s back in her hometown in Oklahoma.
We’ve reached the point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where you kinda need a flowchart to keep up if you’re not up to speed on the franchise’s characters. So, with that in mind …
Echo—a somewhat ironic name, given that Maya’s deaf—was introduced to the MCU in 2021’s show Hawkeye, beginning her narrative as a fearsome henchperson/adoptive daughter of the Marvel villain Wilson Fisk (alias Kingpin). In the show, Maya believed that Hawkeye (specifically, Clint Barton as his “Blip”-triggered antihero persona, Ronin) killed her father, and she aims to get a dose of lethal revenge. But then Maya/Echo discovers that Kingpin—her guardian for so many years—was actually behind her father’s death. So, naturally, she finds Fisk and shoots him in the face.
But as her story continues here, Maya’s not ready to slap on a white hat and call herself a good guy just yet. Nope, with Fisk seemingly out of the way, Maya means to destroy his empire and become a crime boss in her own right. (A Queenpin, if you will.) But obviously, knocking off New York’s most feared villain brings with it some heat (and a nasty injury), so she decides to relocate her one-woman enterprise and to begin her crusade elsewhere. Specifically, Oklahoma.
Maya doesn’t plan on announcing her arrival: Her grandmother, Chula, never liked her pops much; and Chula cut off all contact with both of them when Maya’s mother died. And if Maya touched based with Bonnie, her childhood best friend, it’d just lead to more questions than it’s worth. Better to keep the past in the past.
Her uncle Henry? That’s a different matter. He’s involved in Fisk’s underworld dealings. If she could talk him into helping her take the crime conglomeration down, well, it could be a win-win for the both of them.
Alas, it’s not easy to destroy an organization like Fisk’s—especially if the big guy isn’t actually dead. Marvel supervillains are a resilient lot.
And what if Maya changes her mind about being a crime lord? After all, the longer that Maya spends at home, the more she remembers her old life and all of its what could’ve beens. What if she could reconnect with her family? What if she become the person that her parents had always wanted her to be?
Plus, there’s something else, too. Something the deaf woman is a bit leery of signing about: Sometimes, her hands kinda … glow. Even though she has formidable skills as it is, Maya feels as though she’s getting a little helping hand from her ancestors—a lineage, it is said, that stretches back into ancient myth—a time when Maya’s Choctaw people emerged from a cave and became human.
Maya may not care for family. But her ancestral family seems to care for her.
Speaking of ancient myth, think back to the distant, misty days of 2015. On the big screen, the MCU ruled with its relatively light, colorful, PG-13 adventures: Ant-Man made his diminutive, comical debut. The Avengers assembled to battle Ultron.
But on Netflix, a very different, darker Marvel superhero arrived.
Daredevil represented a grounded, grittier sort of hero: no jet packs on his feet, no homebase in Asgard. The blind superhero could fight, though, and fight he did—shedding copious amounts of blood and spitting plenty of choice words along the way. And for a few years, Netflix became home to TV-MA Marvel superhero stories—stories that just didn’t fit with Disney’s reasonably family-oriented MCU.
That was then. Eight years later, Disney+ and Hulu, not Netflix, is now home to Daredevil and Netflix’s other problematic superhero shows. And Echo’s arrival trumpets a return to Marvel’s TV-MA content. And Disney’s marketing actually pushes Echo’s issues-laden bona fides, the first such edgy show in the new Marvel Spotlight sub-brand. Each episode wears a “viewer discretion is advised” label—not so much a warning as, Disney suggests, a badge of honor.
For all of Disney’s efforts to say, “Look how violent this show is!” Echo isn’t quite as bloody as Daredevil was. But it still comes with a grimier feel and a grimmer outlook. When people die, we see splashes of blood and hear the cracks of bone. Maya does her share of killing—enough to really warrant several lifetimes in the clink. And Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin is back—perhaps Marvel’s most terrifying, disturbing villain.
But while Daredevil was a pretty good show in spite of its problems (and, because of the hero’s Catholic faith, perhaps the most explicitly Christian of the lot), Echo feels a bit more middling. The show’s nod to Native American spirituality not only creates another worldview issue to deal with, but also feels out of kilter with Echo’s desire to be rooted in reality and add little to Maya’s character.
It’s early yet. But for now, the name of this new Disney+/Hulu series is ironically appropriate for more than just its lead character. The show seems to be merely an echo of better MCU stories—faint and muddled despite all the blood.
Most of the first episode is told as an extended flashback to some critical moments in Maya’s life: We see the car crash that claimed her mother (and one of Maya’s feet), the murder of her father, her confrontation with Kingpin when she shot him in the face. In the present, she returns to her Oklahoma hometown and tries to keep a low profile. But she soon runs into her cousin, Biscuits, and she tries to encourage her uncle Henry to help her create a criminal empire.
“Kingpin had his run,” the deaf Maya signs. “It’s time for a queen.”
The show actually opens with a very early flashback—one to the beginning of Maya’s Choctaw people. We see them as not-fully-human, rising naked from pods underground. (Their humanoid bodies look almost like they’re covered in a thin sheen of mud, but each curve and undulation are visible.) They eventually emerge after some sort of dimly seen cataclysm, and their mud-like skin flakes off, revealing their human forms. (All are magically clothed at that point.)
In flashback, we see the car crash that killed Maya’s mother—and see the woman’s bloodied body. (Maya is also bloodied in the accident, especially her leg.) We learn the crash was no accident. Maya’s father, part of a criminal gang, tells her grandparents that the rival criminals who cut the brakes have been “taken care of.” Later, Maya takes part of a huge melee involving plenty of deaths (complete with the sounds of breaking bones). Still later, she suffers a grievous injury to her abdomen. We see the gaping wound and her efforts to stitch it up with dental floss. Someone’s throat is cut. People use guns, knives and swords in fatal melee clashes.
In flashback, Maya’s grandmother, Chula, flirts with her age-appropriate beau, using some double entendres. People drink beer. Characters say “a–,” “crap,” “d–n” and “h—,” and we hear one abuse of Jesus’ name.
Not realizing that Wilson Fisk is still alive, Maya takes the first step in taking down his criminal empire—sabotaging a train shipment meant for the organization.
Another flashback takes us back to pre-Columbus America, where one of Maya’s apparent ancestors participates in a very competitive form of lacrosse (featuring a number of men wearing just loincloths and women in more modest apparel). People are knocked down and jostled. In a critical moment, Maya’s ancestor notices that her hands are glowing, and she suddenly becomes by far the best player on the court. (Maya’s hands also glow during a critical moment.)
Maya conducts a sabotage operation with the help of her cousin, Biscuits, who “borrows” a truck from Chula, Maya’s grandmother. She hands him a roll of bills to buy some equipment for her; when Biscuits asks if it’s legal, Maya doesn’t answer. Most of the physical risks are taken by Maya herself, and we see her nearly fall off the speeding train and get her false foot crushed between two cars. She asks Skully—a grandfather-type figure who owns a local gift store and pawn shop—to build her a new artificial leg.
An explosion rips through a warehouse, presumably killing several people inside. Skully tries to convince a pair of tourists to buy something, leaning hard into Native American mysticism to do so. More sincerely, he shows Maya a statue of her mythical ancestor (whom we saw in the extensive, emerging-from-the-earth flashback the previous episode) and tells her that she can trace her history all the way back to that woman. They “watch out for family in times of need,” Skully tells her. Characters use the s-word twice, along with the word “h—.”
Be careful what you wish for. Maya wanted to take on Fisk’s organization, and she made an impression last episode. But now, Fisk’s men have come to town—and they mean to destroy Maya before they leave it.
In the obligatory distant-past flashback, we meet Tuklo, a woman who wanted to join her father as a member of the “Lighthorsemen,” a group of vigilantes that protects the Choctaw reservation from evildoers (since the U.S. government shows a distinct lack of initiative in doing so). She is told no at first: “Women are life-givers,” her father tells her. “Men are life-takers.” But when the Lighthorsemen are ambushed by bad guys, Tuklo shows up—hands-a-glowing—and guns down several villains.
Maya and her uncle Henry are betrayed by one of Henry’s skating rink employees (their motto: “Make America Skate Again”) and captured. This ultimately leads to a frenetic fight in the skating rink involving seemingly dozens of thugs, several of whom likely don’t survive to the credits. The action is intense and, at times, bloody. A man is shot in the back, and he coughs up blood all over his face. Other fired projectiles subdue an assailant. People punch, kick, headbutt and throw Skee-Balls. A makeshift whip is used in a melee.
Skully tries to flirt with Chula (Maya’s grandmother), but his overtures are unsuccessful. Chula attends what appears to be a Christian church with several other people who sing hymns in Choktaw. Maya’s artificial foot becomes a weapon. Characters use the s-word three times. “B–tard,” “crap” and “h— are also uttered.
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.
