‘Dead Boy Detectives’ review: A worthy side adventure in ‘The Sandman’ universe

A show like 2022’s The Sandman with its vast world-building of dreams, gods, and mightier begs to be explored. Enter: Dead Boy Detectives, created by Steve Yockey. The starring two ghost detectives first appeared in the Sandman comics and eventually went on to get their own series. Their connection to The Sandman allows for easy access into the story, but the show’s whimsical darkness and queer found family dynamics are enough reason to stay.

Setting the scene

Ghosts Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) are on the run from Death (The Sandman’s Kirby). Deceased in 1916 and 1989 respectively, these two phantom best friends spend their afterlife together solving supernatural-related crimes. Mostly this means they help other ghosts finish their unfinished business and move on. It also means Death is always close; when a case brings Death to their doorstep, they lay low.

Luckily a new case arrives in Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson), a psychic medium possessed by a demon named David. Edwin and Charles dispatch David quickly but during his departure, David takes Crystal’s memories, solidifying Crystal as an ongoing case. Additionally, Crystal’s psychic abilities and near-death experience means she can see Edwin and Charles. Thus, she becomes a new member of the Dead Boy Detective Agency. Crystal talks the two into taking a case about a missing girl in America, which avoids Death for now. 

The friends we made along the way

The friendships at the heart of this story makes Dead Boy Detectives work so well. Despite being ghosts, Edwin and Charles’ friendship has so much humanity in it. That comes in part because the chemistry between Rexstrew and Revri brings Charles and Edwin to life. When Crystal joins their crew, Edwin’s jealousy of her closeness with Charles introduces a too real tension to the office. Tension born from Edwin’s unrequited love and internalized homophobia and Charles’ newfound crush on a living person.

Rounding out the found family dynamic are Niko (Yuyu Kitamura) and Jenny (Briana Cuoco), who get pulled into the shenanigans of the Dead Boy Detective Agency when Crystal moves into Jenny’s apartment complex above her butcher shop. Niko provides an endearing comedic relief to the proceedings. Her cheery yet grounding persona makes a great foil to Jenny’s nihilism when paired off for a subplot. 

While the cast works great together, the show’s insistence that these characters are teenagers rings hollow every time. The cast are all clearly in their mid-twenties. While that’s common enough, the fact is that the show isn’t about ghosts or humans attending school. There’s no reason to think upon first glance that these characters are teenagers. In an already fantastical world, this one bit of suspension of disbelief doesn’t quite work. 

Headings and framings

While The Sandman consisted of short anthologies, crafting arcs across two or three episodes, Dead Boy Detectives takes a more streamlined approach with its monster-of-the-week framing. Cases range from dead high school jocks, mysterious lighthouse suicides, sprite possession, and haunted houses. Each episode comes equipped with a series of chapter titles, feeding into the show’s whimsical nature. The show’s best episode, Episode 3, “The Case of the Delvin House,” puts a nice twist on the haunted house and ghost loop story while also providing important insight into Charles. 

Even with the monster-of-the-week element, multiple over-arching plots throughout the season keep the tension always high. There’s David, who can still access Crystal’s mind; a local witch named Esther Finch (Jenn Lyon) hellbent on punishing Edwin and Charles; the flirtatious Cat King (Lukas Gage), who’s infatuation with Edwin turns him into a dangerous frenemy; and Night Nurse (Ruth Connell), an interdimensional being in charge of the Lost and Found, which searches for lost dead children who have not yet gone off to the proper afterlife. These season-long additions turn Dead Boy Detectives into a fully-realized world of its own in Port Townsend, despite the multiple trips to other worlds and realms. 

The Sandman tie-ins

Ironically, The Sandman helps ground some aspects of the show. Talking cats that report to a Cat King hardly needs any explanation because of Episode 11 of The Sandman, which covers the short story “Dream of a Thousand Cats.” Only two Endless appear in Dead Boy Detectives. When they do, they appear even more mystifying and dangerous than they do The Sandman. This time, we meet them from an outsider’s perspective.

Kirby still imbues Death with a sense of love and care. However, Charles and Edwin’s desire to stay together make her a threat. Despair (Donna Preston) appears for a brief moment when Edwin comes across her in Episode 7, “The Case of the Very Long Stairway.” Her haunting monologue about trauma in the depths of hell only works because the Endless were explained in The Sandman. While Dead Boy Detectives certainly stands on its own as a show, many of these universe details work better for having seen The Sandman. However, Despair and Death still work beautifully as the mysterious higher beings that exist outside of much of the other supernatural elements of the show.

Dead Boy Detectives lives up to the success of The Sandman, able to stand on its own as a fun, ghostly romp, with Halloween-type elements that make it a great addition for October viewing.

Dead Boy Detectives is available to stream on Netflix

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Images courtesy of Netflix