Case Closed: Dead Boy Detectives is a great time

The Dead Boy Detectives are a cult favorite that never quite found a cult. Introduced from the pages of Neil Gaiman The sandman, the undeniable strength of its premise: a ghost boy from the 1910s is best friends with a ghost boy from the 1990s; they solve ghost mysteries! – regularly attracts comics creators, but rarely for longer than a single storyline every five to ten years.

But in Netflix’s new Dead boy detectives TV series, the strange world of Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland bursts with surreal creativity, keeps itself squarely on the rails of the supernatural detective genre and wraps the tension between those two poles around a tough coming-of-age core.

Even this old fashioned one D.B.D fan has to admit: Netflix’s version of the Dead Boy Detectives might be the best they’ve ever been.

Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives are the late Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri), who run a supernatural detective agency where they solve the mysteries of ghosts, demons, and anything else that comes across the night. The boys team up with the enigmatic and amnesiac Crystal (Kassius Nelson) after exorcizing a demon from her, and, while following the trail of a missing child, the trio becomes trapped in a small Pacific town Northwest full of supernatural riddles. From there, they cross paths with a whole host of strange creatures, including (but not limited to) a Cat King, an immortal witch, and a bored goth lady who runs a butcher shop. Meanwhile, Edwin and Charles must avoid the Night Nurse (Ruth Connell), the immortal being tasked with collecting the lost souls of dead children and ensuring they are all in their designated afterlife.

Subject to some adjustments to match the show’s original pitch Doom Patrol spin-off, fans of the Dead boy detectives Comics will be happy to note that this is all very familiar (not that there is exactly an overabundance of it). Dead boy detectives comic book enthusiasts). But showrunners Steve Yockey (Supernatural, Doom Patrol) and Beth Schwartz (Legends of tomorrow, Sweet tooth) cleverly adds two big changes to Charles and Edwin that make a world of difference to the show.

First of all, the dead guys are dead now teenagers, firmly in the 16 to 18 age bracket, rather than the precocious teenagers pretending to have the adult responsibilities they’ve had thus far. This opens up the show’s tonal possibilities much wider than in the comics, to staples of the supernatural mystery genre that 12-year-olds simply can’t handle, like ax murderers. And now that the Dead Boy Detectives have hit puberty, Yockey and Schwartz also lead them into the wide, sweeping world of teen melodrama, which brings us to their next clever change: queer yearning, baby!

Photo: Ed Araquel/Netflix

Weird reads about Edwin Paine, the buttoned-down boy who was so isolated that no one noticed his bullies had killed him, have never been a stretch. The most recent Dead boy detectives The comic, written by Pornsak Pichetshote and drawn by Jeff Stokely, even took overt steps in that direction, albeit in a low-key and label-free manner befitting the teenage age of their protagonists. But Yockey and Schwartz have a teenage Edwin, and they practically bombard him with cute boys — a gleefully silly, rivetingly dramatic, genuinely heartfelt, and completely weird coming-out story.

Silly, dramatic, heartfelt and weird are good descriptions of the show’s greatest strengths. The first episodes of the season can feel a bit overloaded with two expository lines (ghosts can travel through mirrors and cat scratches hurt; there’s a real magic shop in this otherwise normal town, and the owner is a walrus cursed to become a magician). to have human form), but the show makes up for this in refreshing internal consistency. The rules of the setting are never introduced without a later scene using them to twist the plot or raise the stakes.

The stakes are high, and there are some dark and terrifying moments that are treated with due seriousness. But at the same time, Dead boy detectives finds all the fun the concept deserves – because the concept of a couple of teenage ghost besties solving ghost crimes with a couple of teenage psychics is just good timing.

For example, the reason Edwin in particular is stuck in Port Townsend is because he pissed off the Cat King, a cute boy who sentences him to count every cat in town because neither of them can be normal about a possible attraction between them. (What a catty way to fall in love and determine the way to express affection is to be innocently evil.) The actors are all 100% committed to their characters. The setting is creative and well staged. The costumes make no sense (seriously, how do two runaway teenage girls have such perfectly designed wardrobes?), but they Doing looking awesome. It’s first a fun coming-of-age romp, and second, a serious supernatural mystery.

Image: Netflix

Yockey and Schwartz deftly balance these notes. There may be some ridiculous moments, like a pair of foul-mouthed dandelion ghosts living in a jar and only silenced by a sweater being thrown over them, but it’s never an in-universe joke. There is no wry, cynically genre-conscious comment on the more exaggerated elements. Instead, they’re embraced, even by the characters who are newer to the whole supernatural scheme than others. But they are not taken So seriously to undermine the sheer joy of fantasy that an entire paranormal world of ghosts, demons, witches and Cat Kings has to offer.

Each case is isolated to a specific paranormal mystery, solved within the episode’s running time, but there are lingering mysteries that gradually build in the background. This is a fundamental building block of episodic television, but Netflix productions too often overload TV shows with drawn-out serialized plots that ultimately sap all interest. D.B.DThe procedural structure keeps the world-building funky and fresh. We constantly see new, strange events and discover a new exciting mystery together with the boys. But at the same time, the gradual escalation of the background plots (the boys avoiding forces that would force them to move on to their afterlife, Crystal’s entire story, a wonderfully melodramatic witch who steals children) is beautifully woven together, complemented by all the other thing we do. learn about the world.

Dead boy detectives isn’t just a big surprise for fans of the original comics; it should be a pleasant surprise for anyone looking for a great paranormal YA TV series. In a genre full of contenders: Netflix Chilling adventures of Sabrina And Destiny: The Winx Saga among them – the new series stands out as a shining gem.

Dead boy detectives is now streaming on Netflix.