Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
The Yellowjackets were once a talented team of soccer players and good friends. Then, they were in a plane crash on the way to nationals that landed them in the Canadian woods for a year and a half. Somehow, they eventually descended into murderous cannibalistic pagan clans before their rescue and rehabilitation.
Something terrible clearly happened on the island, but the public can’t know the truth. So the girls all decided to keep quiet about it. But 25 years later, the women’s façade of normalcy is slipping. They try to suppress the darkness that eats at them while coming together to address the attempts of a reporter to find out the truth.
The premise of the narrative is an exploration of if the Lord of the Flies story was adjusted for older, female participants. The title indicates that women are not more civilized than men: Rather, they have a sting to them that men don’t.
The show is a shocking horror/slasher/psychological drama. The narrative introduces the girls as normal teenagers, then shows them as bloodthirsty warriors clad in animal fur and finally as deeply disturbed adults, leaving the audience to try and fill in the gaps. The tone of the show is mysterious and dark, with plenty of sex and gore. Audiences are gripped by the enormity of unanswered questions and a completely unpredictable plot. and while the show boasts superb acting and an engrossing story—quallities that earned it an Emmy nomination for Best Drama Series in 2022—those positives make Yellowjackets only slightly less revolting.
The show’s allure is tied to its constant suspense. It pulls no punches in showing the fragility of the social bonds that keep people stable. People and animals are brutally killed, dismembered, and eaten on full display for the camera. The girls in the wilderness drift into practicing occultist rituals. Unplanned pregnancy and abortion are topics that are dealt with. Characters in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships sleep together. The language is rough, and the people are deeply warped by their fight for survival.
Painting a disturbing portrait of humanity’s true nature, Yellowjackets is a thrill ride that goes completely off the rails.
The show opens with figures wearing antlers and animal fur masks chasing a girl into a pit to impale and eat her. It’s horrific—and it sets the tone for the rest of the series. certainly sets the tone for the series.
The show takes place on, generally, three separate timelines in two different years: Back in 1996, the Yellowjackets are ecstatic to win their state championship game in soccer. The team dynamic starts to fall apart before nationals, though, and the audience gets a glimpse of the divisions that will cause issues later.
In the present day, surviving adults try to appear well-adjusted. Shauna, one of those survivors, becomes unnerved by the efforts of a reporter to find out what happened in the woods. She contacts her former teammate Taissa, who is running for state senate. The also discuss Natalie, who is wrapping up her time at rehab (and who ominously retrieves a large hunting rifle upon leaving). Misty is working as a nurse in an elderly care facility, and it is evident that she is sociopathic almost immediately.
Back in the past, the team sets out on a private plane to Nationals, but the plane crashes.
The strange animalistic clan we see at the beginning has marked some cultish symbols on the trees. The girl who is killed brutally falls on spikes and is later dragged bleeding, hung upside down from a tree and cut open. Later, parts of her are roasted over a fire and eaten by the clans-people, who are clearly her former teammates.
Natalie practices meditation on a mat, and her younger self drinks and does several forms of drugs. A soccer team member prays before the scrimmage and quotes the Bible several times. Adult Taissa’s wife asks her if she wants a shot of tequila or to have sex in the bathroom to help her relax. The teens go to a party filled with lots of beer and drugs, and characters discuss hooking up. Teen Jackie gives Shauna some Valium she stole from her mom to help her go to sleep on the plane.
Adult Shauna masturbates to a picture of her daughter’s boyfriend. Teenage soccer player Jackie is shown for an uncomfortably long time in a sexual encounter with her boyfriend.
The f-word is used over 10 times, b–ch, and the s-word are also said repeatedly alongside crass words for the male and female anatomy. Jesus’s name is misused once. A–hole is said once.
Taissa slides into a teammate in the scrimmage and accidentally breaks her leg so badly that it is seen through the skin. Taissa and Shauna get into a fight, but Jackie breaks it up. Shauna sleeps with Jackie’s boyfriend (and has clearly done it before). Adult Shauna stabs a bunny in her yard. Adult Misty takes away an elderly patient’s morphine because she threw her tray.
In 1996, before the plane crash, the teen girls are dealing with the aftermath of the chaotic party they threw the night before, which developed into something much more sinister. It becomes clear the Misty drugged them with hallucinogenic mushrooms, which leads the girls to act violently. Shauna and Jackie are fighting viciously over distant and recent events.
In the present, the former teammates dismember a body and clean up the crime scene to cover up a murder Shauna committed. They agree to go to a class reunion with Misty in exchange for her help in dealing with the murderous mess. Taissa is wrapping up her run for state senate. Shocking discoveries are made, and Natalie is taken by a group of mysterious members of what seems to be a cult.
Back in the past, teen Natalie tries to help Travis, the head coach’s son who was in the crash with them, and was threatened with a knife the night before, because they have a romantic connection. They discuss the fact that he slept with Jackie but that he didn’t want to.
Someone holds a knife to another character’s neck and nearly kills him. Another character stabs a bear in the neck, and she and others cook and eat it. The girls pray for the gift they have been given by the bear’s soul and the spirits in the woods. Teen Misty admits that she tried to drug just the soccer coach because he was leading her on despite being gay and ended up drugging them all.
Characters talk about a supernatural presence in the woods and out-of-body experiences. Several relationships, including same-sex ones, are referenced. Someone freezes to death. A character gets unexpectedly pregnant. We hear about orgies, wolf attacks and attempted murder.
In the present, two characters discuss dismembering a body. Parts of that body are placed into someone else’s coffin and burned.. There is a discussion that adult Travis may have killed himself or been killed. Someone contemplates suicide, but she is abducted before she has the chance to carry it out.
We learn that an adult character was cheating on her husband. Someone is chained to a bed and is later poisoned with a cigarette. A character finds a creepy hidden shrine with a doll, a human heart and a dog’s head sitting on a table.
Shauna gets drinks for women at a bar. The f-word is said over 10 times and b–ch is used several times.
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.
