Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Friends come and go, and life goes on. Take Sylvia and Will, for instance. At one point, they were the best of friends—until Will wanted to marry Audrey, who Sylvia repeatedly told Will wouldn’t be good for him. And because it’s not easy to stay friends with someone who hates your wife, the two went their separate ways.
Now, Sylvia’s married as well, to Charlie, and she’s got three wonderful children. And all of those crazy antics that she and Will got into have faded away into her crazier, youth-filled days.
That was, of course, until Audrey posted an Instagram post explaining that she and Will were getting a divorce. And Charlie tells Sylvia that she should reach out to comfort her old friend.
Sylvia, reluctantly, agrees.
That reluctancy comes from what everyone else—including herself—is telling her: that men and women don’t hang out together at her age anymore. And when they do, it quickly turns romantic.
The two of them, however, hope to prove everyone else wrong. Sure, they might get into some crazy antics once again, but they won’t cross any sexual boundaries.
But even if they never do, they’re still spending a lot of time together … and that might be an emotional boundary that’ll leave their other commitments feeling burnt.
Seth Rogen’s humor tends to be pretty basic. His most notable roles include lots of swearing and many references to sex and drug use. Platonic is yet another addition to that status quo.
The show’s initial three-episode release hasn’t had Rose Byrne and Rogen’s characters falling for each other yet, but it has introduced us to the many other things they’ll do platonically together, including getting intoxicated and high and having many discussions about sex. (And as a side note, we do see a bit of onscreen covered sex between Sylvia and her husband.) We also see a gay couple. And yes, swearing is a given.
And those issues will make it hard for many Christian viewers to be friends with this show.
After finding out that Will is getting divorced, Sylvia decides to reach out in an attempt to reconnect with him.
Sylvia and Will discuss their respective sex lives. Sylvia tells Will that she dislikes how long sex with her husband lasts, and Will tells her a story of a woman who punched him in the kidney to cause him to orgasm. Later, Charlie and Sylvia begin to have sex under the covers, and we hear noises. Sylvia punches Charlie in the kidney in an attempt to finish having sex quicker.
Sylvia’s daughter asks if Will was Sylvia’s friend “with benefits.” (He wasn’t.) We hear many other references to sex. A man wears a long t-shirt with no pants. Will’s ex-wife, Audrey, wears an outfit that displays her cleavage. Will admits that he had an affair while he was married to Audrey. Sylvia tells Will that he should be with someone else “just for fun” in order to get over his divorce. We hear a reference to a “tramp stamp.” We hear references to semen. Will jokes that Sylvia’s mother is a “working dominatrix.”
Will is a brewmaster at a bar. To that end, we see people drinking beer and wine. Sylvia is intoxicated through a portion of the episode. Sylvia and Will eat marijuana-infused gummies and get high.
Will shows an old photo of him wearing a Chai necklace, the Hebrew word for life.
Angry that Audrey brought her Norwegian boyfriend to his bar, Will baselessly accuses the man of being a Nazi and hating Jewish people. A woman explains how her tattoo is a memorial for her boyfriend who had been murdered.
The f-word is used nearly 30 times, and the s-word is used nine times. We also hear the p-word used three times. Characters use “a–” and “b–ch,” too. God’s name is used in vain 11 times, including once in the form of “g-dd–n.” Jesus’ name is used in vain three times. Someone displays her middle finger.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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.
