Dead Boy Detectives – Episode 2 Recap & Review

The Case of the Dandelion Shrine

Episode 2 of Dead Boy Detectives takes over from where we left off. The three – Edwin, Charles and Crystal – are returning from their encounter with Esther, the witch, when they are taken to the cat king as a punishment for using magic on a cat. The cat king takes a liking to Edwin while also putting a bracelet onto his wrist that prevents him from leaving town until he can count all the cats there are.

The three come back to Crystal’s room and Crystal formally meets Niko, who continuously faint with visible explosion of pink lights. In the meantime, Edwin and Charles gets the bracelet looked over by a magic shop owner, who is originally supposed to be a walrus. He isn’t able to help them however, since only the cat king can remove the bracelet. Edwin’s officially stuck with it. The owner does give them an enchanted jar which can make ocean sounds.

Niko is inspected by a doctor who cannot find anything wrong with her. Since, Niko’s case is a supernatural mystery, Edwin agrees to help. After much searching, they find that Niko has paranormal parasites called, Dandelion Sprites, living in her brain, who feed off of attention and adoration that manifests itself in a fuzzy pink light that Crystal has been witnessing.

After a point, though, Niko would burst like a balloon as the Sprites would exit the body when they’ve had their fill. At the same time, Niko shares how badly she dealt with her father’s death and Crystal shares with her how she doesn’t remember anything about herself. Niko also discloses that she dropped out of school because she felt like an outsider and it was difficult for her to adjust with “everybody staring” since she came to the US from Japan.

Edwin, through Crystal (since Niko cannot see the boys), begin his questioning. They find that Niko started fainting after she visited nearby woods with a mysterious shrine. Edwin and Charles begin their investigation in the said location where they discover that the Dandelion Sprites are “small gods who require constant sacrifices” and can only be contained through the shrine’s enchanted vessel. However, Charles ends up dropping the vessel and taking what was kept inside it.

Meanwhile, in the Department of Afterlife’s Lost and Found Department, the Night Nurse, who heads the department for handling misplaced dead children, is preparing her case for retrieving the souls of Edwin and Charles.

Meanwhile, Edwin and Charles return from the woods and Crystal explains to Niko about how ghosts are real. Niko’s eccentric enough to believe her amidst Edwin’s constant objections about Crystal revealing too much. Charles suggest that they use the enchanted jar that makes ocean sounds as an alternative to the enchanted vessel. They place the contents from the original in it.

At this time, Niko begins to have a fit where the sprites threaten to kill her if they cannot receive what they want and Crystal suggest that they take over her body because she can see the living and the dead. This way, the sprites could have the best of both worlds and never go hungry. Two little beings with big dandelion caps casually come out of Niko’s mouth and start in Crystal’s direction but Charles trap them inside the jar, leading to the sprites blathering profanities at them. Case Closed.

Later, Niko’s hair changes colour to white and her near-death experience leads her to be able to see ghosts. Niko also decides to keep the dangerous sprites as…pets. They receive some more angry sprite profanities before Crystal covers the jar with an old sweater. With this case, the Dead Boy Detectives and their new medium, Crystal, become popular for solving cases, leading to a long line of ghosts waiting to consult them. In the meantime, Esther transforms her crow familiar, Monty, into a handsome teenaged boy in order to prepare for revenge.

The Episode Review

The show is extremely entertaining and marvellously enmeshes real world problems with fantasy and magic. In this episode, through Niko, we come across themes of grief, alienation and difficulties of adjustment. While through Crystal, the show brings themes of toxic relationships, existential and identity crisis. From this episode, we also receive a hint that our two detectives might be carrying a baggage of their own.

The encounter with the sprites was the highlight of the show where you cannot help but chuckle at the incongruity between the dangerous sprites that they seemed and two little “cute” creatures prone to showing you the finger makes the entire scene amusing and hilarious. Similarly, the cat kind with his sexual tension that often makes our uptight Edwin uncomfortable is a cherry on the top.  Edwin and Charles’ curious detective cases involving odd supernatural beings is a refreshing welcome on Netflix!