Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
They’re creepy and they’re kooky…
The Addams Family isn’t what you would call “normal.” Since the 1960s, they’ve been gracing our screens with their “mysterious and spooky” presence.
They keep scorpions for pets, participate in séances, use crystal balls instead of phones for communication and prefer to wear black—lots of black.
Unfortunately for Wednesday Addams, the eldest child of the brood, her particular brand of weird has gone one stroke too far.
Wednesday Addams opens her locker one day to discover her brother Pugsley tied up and gagged inside. A vision shows her who the culprits were.
But rather than report the boys, Wednesday decides to get revenge. She releases a swarm of piranhas in the school swimming pool during the boys’ water polo practice.
“The only one who gets to torture my brother is me,” she states nonchalantly.
The incident gets Wednesday expelled. And fearing that attempted murder charges might be brought against their daughter, Morticia and Gomez Addams decide to enroll her at their alma mater: Nevermore Academy.
Nevermore is known by “normies” as a school for “outcasts.” And the locals of the town of Jericho (just a brisk 25-minute walk away from Nevermore) still have their reservations about the pupils who attend.
Werewolves, vampires, sirens, gorgons and humans with supernatural abilities (such as Wednesday’s aforementioned clairvoyance) have been roaming the halls since 1791. It’s a safe haven for those society has labeled “freaks.”
Wednesday is convinced she’ll hate it anyway. After all, it’s where her parents attended school. And she’s determined not to become another version of them.
But within her first week, she narrowly escapes death twice, discovers her father is a suspected murderer, learns she might be the object of a prophecy foretelling the school’s doom, and is mysteriously saved by homicidal monster.
It pains her to admit it, but Wednesday just might like Nevermore after all.
Wednesday is significantly darker than any of the previous iterations of The Addams Family.
For starters, Wednesday isn’t just “kooky,” she’s downright homicidal. She takes delight in causing others misery and pain. And her macabre attitude, while certainly a product of her odd upbringing, seems to be more a form of teenage rebellion.
And while that isn’t entirely off the mark for Wednesday Addams, the show’s depiction of hers and others’ lethal actions is. We see characters torn apart by a goblin-like creature. A boy attempts to murder Wednesday with his telekinetic powers. And we see a piranha-filled pool fill with blood after the carnivorous fish catch up to an unlucky swimmer (and we later hear he lost a testicle).
This TV-14 show also pushes the boundaries with language with several uses of the s-word and “g-dd–n” throughout.
Then there’s the show’s supernatural ties. Again, this is nothing new to the Addams’ legacy. They’ve participated in many a séance. And one of the main characters is a disembodied hand called Thing. However, when Wednesday receives a vision of a man’s accidental death, she does nothing to warn him. (The man had called her a rude name, but that seems a poor excuse for letting him die.)
So while the show seems to teach the message that being weird is a good thing, it’s also subliminally telling us that weird or not, do what’s best for you and yours. No matter the consequences.
After nearly killing several of her classmates, Wednesday is transferred to her parents’ alma mater: Nevermore Academy.
Several people are torn to bits by a goblin-like monster. A boy tries to murder a girl using supernatural powers. A girl releases several piranhas into a swimming pool. The water fills with blood as they catch up to one unlucky swimmer (and we later hear he lost a testicle). A girl is tackled out of the way of a falling gargoyle (and we learn the statue was purposely pushed). However, she is knocked out in the process. Many birds dive at a moving car and die after they hit it. A 6-year-old Wednesday is held down by two boys while their friends purposely run over her pet scorpion with their bikes. Wednesday references Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, stating that the woman took her own life after her family drove her mad. A man dies of a broken neck in a car accident. Wednesday says Pilgrims were religious zealots who committed mass genocide.
Three boys attack Wednesday in a café, but she beats them up. Later, they chase her with baseball bats but are unable to catch her. Several students fence, and one girl is cut above her eye after fighting without protective gear. A boy is tied up, gagged with an apple and shoved into a locker. Someone says werewolves tear people’s throats out. A woman is hurt when someone sends her mouse traps in the mail. Some people threaten each other. Wednesday says she built a steam-powered guillotine because she wanted a “more efficient way” to decapitate her dolls. A guy uses a bat to attack what he thinks is a monster.
Wednesday enjoys inflicting and receiving pain. She laments that if her piranha attack goes on her permanent record, everyone would know she “failed to get the job done.” And when she learns a victim lost part of his reproductive organs, she justifies that people like him shouldn’t be allowed to procreate anyway. She also says that getting her psychic visions is “like electroshock therapy without the satisfying afterburn.” Wednesday also likes to describe macabre and sadistic things to disturb those around her.
Vampires, werewolves, sirens and gorgons all attend Nevermore. There are also some humans with supernatural abilities (such as clairvoyance and telekinesis) in attendance. We hear Morticia was president of the “Séance Society.” Thing, a disembodied hand, helps Wednesday escape Nevermore. We hear a man spent five years in a Tibetan monastery. A man is suspected of murder.
Two girls hold hands at a festival. Someone asks Wednesday if she has a boyfriend or girlfriend (she doesn’t). Morticia and Gomez make out in front of their children, grossing them out. Wednesday is mean to her brother, but it seems that’s how they show each other love. It’s noted that one clique at Nevermore likes to get “stoned.”
God’s name is abused twice, both times paired with “d–n.” We also hear several uses of the s-word and “h—.” Kids call each other cruel names and are mean to each other.
We hear Wednesday saved a boy from nearly being cremated alive with his deceased godmother. Wednesday attempts to help a boy after seeing a vision of him getting killed by a monster.
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.
