Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
“Summer in Portland. Everybody’s got their person, and I’m still trying to get ahold of mine,” Kitty laments.
Of course, that’s partially her own fault. After all, she decided to start dating Dae despite the fact that she lives in the U.S. and he lives in South Korea (see To All the Boys: Always and Forever for details). And that’s why she’s taken it into her own hands to fix that problem.
Kitty recently was accepted into the Korean Independent School of Seoul, the very same school that hermom attended—and the same one that Dae goes to. Now, Kitty will be able to discover more about her mom when she was her age, and she’ll be able to work on her destiny—that is, being with Dae.
“I know when two people are meant for each other,” Kitty says. “I felt it for Lara Jean and Peter (see To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before for details), and I feel it for me and Dae.”
Kitty can’t wait to go and see Dae. Her plan? Show up at the school welcome dance, surprise him with her presence and share a kiss with him for the first time. It’ll be perfect.
What can go wrong?
Well, because this is a 10-episode series, things do go wrong. Kitty arrives at the dance to find that Dae has another girlfriend: Yuri, the very same girl who gave Kitty a ride to school that day. And before Dae can explain, Kitty storms off.
But as it turns out, Dae does have an explanation. His family cannot afford the school’s tuition, and he’s being threatened with expulsion because of it. Yuri’s willing to use her family’s fortune to cover it, provided that he pretends to be her boyfriend—kissing not needed. Yuri would reject it anyway, since she only needs him in order to fool her parents into believing that she’s not a lesbian.
It’s not exactly the most romantic tale to tell the kids.
Previous installments within the To All the Boys cinematic universe had their problems, but they also contained quite a few positive messages that we could appreciate. But while XO, Kitty continues the trend of problematic content, its positive messages are lacking compared to previous installments.
The plot revolves around Dae’s fake relationship with Yuri, which the two engage in to hide the fact that Yuri is a lesbian. Indeed, many of our central characters are LGBT: two prominent male characters form a relationship with each other, and Kitty begins to ponder her own sexuality, too. We’ll see a lot of passionate kissing—hetero and same-sex—up to seeing girls jumping up and wrapping their legs around their partner. A couple episodes further bring up the topic of sex dreams and whether they reveal anything about us. We’ll also deal with some other issues, too, including underaged drinking, the use of tarot cards and some swearing up to the use of the s-word.
As for the positive side of things, we’ll watch as Kitty, true to her character, helps to bring a broken family back together. She’ll garner a greater understanding of who her mother was. We’ll also hear many characters express their disdain for people who cheat on others.
But we’re not sure those positives outweigh the problematic content that’s so often integral to the plot.
When Kitty flies to Seoul to enroll at the Korean Independent School of Seoul (or K.I.S.S.), she discovers that her boyfriend, Dae, is dating someone else.
We see a bunch of teenagers at a pool party in swimwear. A girl at the party straddles a boy in the hot tub while they passionately kiss. We also see two gay couples: with the first couple, a boy kisses another boy on his shoulder. With the second, a boy kisses another boy on his knuckles. We see a photo of Dae kissing Kitty on the cheek. We hear a reference to a girl being caught in an intimate moment with another girl.
When Kitty’s father agrees to send Kitty to South Korea, he questions himself about his decision. “Did I just let my youngest daughter go to Korea to have sex with her boyfriend?” He asks himself. His concerns cause Kitty to make a reference to contraceptives. And Kitty looks forward to the trip, hoping to kiss for the first time. Kitty wears a very short dress, and another girl wears a very short skirt. Many of Kitty’s shirts display her midriff. We discover that Dae is “cheating” on Kitty in order to have his tuition paid for.
Kitty is hit by a car, though she is uninjured. A song references becoming intoxicated. Kitty calls her going to Seoul an act of fate.
We hear one use of “d–n.” God’s name is used in vain five times, including once in the form of “g-dd–n.”
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.
