Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
“How ‘bout we go see the stars tonight?”
It seems a simple enough suggestion. After all, Irene—a retired schoolteacher still recovering from a year-old fall—loves to look at the stars. Given that she lives in rural Illinois, viewers could be forgiven if they thought she and her husband, Franklin, would simply go outside and look up.
But instead, Franklin sets up Irene’s wheelchair and pushes her out of the farmhouse to … a shed?
He opens a trap door. They both descend to the floor below, enter a tunnel and see a sign, written perhaps decades ago. “To the stars,” it says. Franklin closes the door behind them.
And they find themselves in another world.
This isn’t some metaphorical another world, mind you—a weird sub-basement covered in Christmas lights or a tunnel to a telescope. For years, Irene and Franklin have traveled to a tidy little living room on an entirely different, deserted planet. There, Irene stares through a picture window at the barren, beautiful landscape beyond, and a sky filled with unfamiliar stars.
Franklin comes along, too. But over the decades, the place has lost its charm.
“Aren’t you getting a little bit tired of this?” he asks. “’Cause I am. … Eight-hundred fifty-six times we’ve made this trip now, and nothing’s happened. That’s all there is,” he adds, gesturing to the view through their interplanetary window. “Pretty sure that’s all there ever will be.”
But Franklin would be wrong.
When Irene later finds a stranger in that extraterrestrial living room—covered in someone else’s blood and with no memory (so he says) of how he got there—her quiet life with Franklin is upended. That’s not the only wrinkle they’re finding in their relational sheets: Nosy neighbors, big secrets and unknown dangers threaten them both. And, as it turns out, they’re not the only ones guarding a portal to another world.
Yep, it’s all a puzzler—one that Irene is determined to solve.
But Franklin just wants to keep his beloved bride safe. They’re both getting up in years, after all. She’s dealing with some health issues, and his memory’s not so good anymore. The only world he cares about is the one he’s built with Irene.
Prime Video’s Night Sky feels, at times, like two separate dramas: One is a gentle, poignant story about an aging, loving couple. The other is a sci-fi puzzle box predicated on secret societies and mysterious men and alien worlds. It’s a little like X-Files meets On Golden Pond.
But that descriptor both sells the show short and gives it too much credit.
The decades-long romance between Irene and Franklin (respectively played by Oscar-winners Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons) is, in some ways, the more compelling of the two stories. Their relationship feels real and grounded and deeply caring. They’re like two halves of a pair of scissors, cutting the cloth of their days. Franklin cares for Irene as best he can. Irene balances Franklin’s gruffness when she should. Neither can operate like they used to, but together they seem to do just fine.
And their relationship feels charmingly old-fashioned. Through flashbacks we see that in his younger days, Franklin would swear up a storm. It bothered Irene, though, so he stopped: The worst we hear from him these is “son of a swineherd” or “sheepdip.”
The story’s sci-fi elements sometimes feel almost an intrusion on such a well-acted drama. But, alas, those elements also coarsen the narrative landscape considerably.
Characters—mostly other characters—do swear, using f- and s-words if the urge strikes. They bleed, too, sometimes profusely. And while Night Sky is less problematic than probably the majority of high-gloss streaming dramas, it still would land in R-rated territory if it was a movie. Given how clean and gently gripping part of the story is, that’s a real shame.
That strange visitor who comes a-calling seems a fitting metaphor for the show itself. Just as Franklin and Irene’s life looks bittersweetly idyllic if you squint, so Night Sky itself can sometimes feel like a gentle, sweet and riveting show. But then these unwelcome content strangers barge into the mix, and they’ve come to stay. And we, as prospective viewers, must figure out what we’re gonna do with them.
Irene and Franklin introduce viewers to their extraterrestrial living room. And while Irene could stare at the alien landscape for hours, the place has lost its charm for Franklin. “You ready to go back soon?” he asks as they sit. “The game’s on.”
Their shared secret isn’t the only thing the long-married pair is dealing with. Irene’s visit to the doctor reveals some bad news. And when Franklin forgets to pick her up—another sign of his declining memory—she begins to worry about their shared future. Part of her longs to open up that strange door in their interplanetary viewing chamber and walk outside … leaving behind the world she knows forever.
In a flashback, we see a much-younger Franklin and Irene meet at a bar. Both drink there. We learn that Franklin’s headed to Vietnam.
In the present, Franklin and Irene still drink a bit, though Franklin reminds Irene that he falls asleep “after one beer.” Franklin’s horrified that his neighbor, Byron, lets the family dog sleep with him and his wife. “It’s his marriage bed!” he says. Characters say “b–ch,” “d–n” and misuse both God’s and Jesus’ name. Franklin gets sick on the trip to the interplanetary sitting room.
[Spoiler Warning] Irene lies to Franklin, telling him that she promises not to consider dying until she’s at least 100. She knows, from her doctor, however, that such longevity is unlikely, and she decides to walk through that space portal door—knowing she’ll most probably die. She leaves a note for Franklin, expressing a hope and belief in an afterlife where she believes they’ll be reunited. Before she steps through the door, though, she discovers an unconscious man lying on the floor, his clothes spattered in blood.
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.
