Hughie Campbell knows this better than most. One afternoon, he and his girlfriend were talking about moving in together and the next—well, his girlfriend had become a pair of disembodied hands and a bunch of blood spattered on the street. That’s what happens, apparently, when a super-fast hero like A-Train plows into a flesh-and-blood person. And while A-Train said he was sorry and all, he was also high on drugs, and Hughie understandably still harbors some ill will … and a well-founded suspicion or two about just how super these superheroes really are.

He’s not alone. Hughie spent some time with The Boys, a rough-hewn squad of vigilantes dedicated to exposing society’s most hypocritical heroes: Do-gooders fighting other do-gooders, if you will. Only the latter are do-badders and the former do bad things to make good on their …

Never mind. Let’s just get on with the review.

FAR FROM HOMELANDER

Hughie and The Boys don’t have a lot of advantages in this fight. Led by the mysterious Billy Butcher, The Boys (at least one of whom is female and sometimes called, appropriately enough, “The Female”) don’t have superpowers at their disposal. But that’s all slowly changing.

Thanks to the newly founded FBSA (Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs), The Boys are backed by the government with everything they need to put the corrupt “good guys” behind bars. And this includes a new drug called V24, a variant of the Compound V formula that created many superheroes to begin with. Of course, V24 wears off after 24 hours, so they’ll need to work fast if they want to take on a Supe.

In contrast, their adversaries are seriously supercharged (and permanently so)—particularly the members of the so-called Seven—an Avengers- or Justice League-like supergroup led by Homelander, the group’s exclamation point. He’s a Superman-esque hero in a star-spangled cape who can fly, knock down buildings without getting short of breath and zap anyone he’d like with his heat-ray vision. And while everyone thought he was the cleanest, most idealistic of the bunch, his All-American persona was wrecked in Season Two when it came out that his now-deceased superpowered girlfriend, Stormfront, was a former Nazi.

But it takes more than that to take down a Supe, as the Seven’s former member Starlight (who is also in a romantic relationship with Hughie) is figuring out. Even after catching Homelander on camera threatening her and others, most just brush the interaction off as fake news. Still, it’s caused the two Supes to gain respective followings of angry supporters, both of which seem more and more likely to violently lash out at each other day-by-day.

Your Angry Neighborhood Fighter-Man

Homelander, as you might expect, has only succeeded at fanning the flames of that violent tension. He’s on trial for murder after he publicly lasered a Starlight supporter to death when the man threw a water bottle at Homelander’s son.

Oh, yes, Homelander’s been raising a naturally superpowered boy named Ryan, who came to be after Homelander raped Billy Butcher’s wife.

And, truth be told, Ryan’s changed Homelander’s perspective on things. He’s been busy plucking gray hairs from his body, each of which reminds him that, when it comes to the inevitability of aging, he’s just as human as everyone else. He wants to leave Ryan a world worth living in—but there will need to be some violent changes for that to happen.

And Billy’s having his own dark night of the soul after discovering that his overuse of V24 has shortened his remaining lifespan to a mere 12 months. With little time remaining, Billy just hopes to rescue Ryan from Homelander’s clutches and reunite him with his mother.

Of course, none of this will matter if Victoria Neuman becomes Vice President of the United States. She was once the director of the aforementioned Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs, before Hughie discovered that she’s a Supe herself—one with the ability to pop her adversaries’ heads by manipulating their blood. Hughie is sitting on a mound of evidence against her, but he’s unable to do anything under her threat of mutually assured destruction: she’ll kill “everyone he ever loved” if he outs her.

Her running partner just had the election called for him, making him president-elect. And, if the Boys don’t find a way to stop her, Neuman will be just one head pop away from becoming president herself.

MEN OF HEELS

Based on a 2006-08 comic series of the same name, Amazon’s The Boys is all about deconstructing the American superhero myth and, by extension, satirizing America itself. Or, at least, the America its creators see.

It’s a natural impulse to flip superheroes upside-down—and, perhaps, a necessary reminder of the corrupting nature of power. Not every cat with superpowers, after all, necessarily has super-great character to go along with them. As The Boys imagines it, depressed superheroes aren’t that different from nihilistic dictators—always just one Nietzsche quote away from pressing the “end world” button. And as for the good heroes? Well, even if a hero starts out with the best of intentions, how can we be sure that he or she will follow through on them?

This is not exactly unexplored territory.

DC’s Watchmen is perhaps the most famous example, but there have been others. Even legitimate superhero narratives in Marvel and DC have poked around the dangers of unchecked superhuman beings. Captain America: Civil War explored the theme of how a world would deal with, essentially, god-like vigilantes (well-meaning tho’ they might be).

But The Boys feels bleeding-edge relevant, too—an exploration of hypocrisy and dubious authority that contains everything from police brutality to the #MeToo movement to corporate oligarchy. And in more recent seasons, The Boys’ political commentary comes with about as much subtlety as a rocket launch being broadcast through the world’s loudest amplifier. Power corrupts people, The Boys will tell you, be they superheroes or business syndicates. And it’s an uphill battle to bring the corrupt to justice.

But The Boys itself may corrupt in a different sort of way.

The Amazon show is billed as a dark comedy. And it is indeed as bleak, cynical and brutal as they come. The superheroes here engage in the worst acts you can imagine, from sexual assault to murder, and we see most of those crimes. Bodies explode before our eyes. Sex, nudity, LGBT content and even bestiality oozes across the screen. Even many of the less-heinous heroes come across as rather vile human beings. And the language—well, let’s just say we’re a long way from Robin shouting, “Holy hand grenades, Batman!”

And if these so-called superheroes don’t deserve the title, the show’s actual heroes aren’t always a lot better. In the very first episode, they kill a supe and then spend much of the next two episodes trying to dispose of the body. When your protagonists are led by a guy called The Butcher, you know you’re in some pretty murky territory.

The show’s more serious social commentary comes with plenty of issues, too. The Boys critiques everything quintessentially American, if you will—or, at least, the idyllic vision of America pushed in the 1950s. As such, religion becomes a critical focus of this deeply cynical show. Perhaps the best illustration comes from Starlight, whose real name is Annie: She starts Season 1 as an innocent Christian—a one-time member of the so-called Capes for Christ movement—who has some legitimate questions about the faith she was raised with. By later seasons, she sees her former faith as bankrupt as the rest of America’s institutions.

“I should’ve done a lot more stuff [when I was younger],” Annie confesses to a fellow supe, “because there is nothing up there. There’s nobody in the sky watching over us. Not God, not Homelander, not anybody. It’s all just … lies.”

The Boys offers a lively, grotesque, culture-current take on the misuse of power. But ultimately, the power is yours. And perhaps the best use of that power would be to avoid this streaming show like kryptonite.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

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The McLusky family runs and protects the Michigan city. But it’s no easy job.

Kingstown isn’t known for its restaurants, coffee shops or tourism. No, this depressed, bleak city is in the business of incarceration. Seven prisons are located within a ten-mile radius, and within those walls 20,000 lost souls exist without much hope.But that’s where the McLusky family comes in. Their job is to act as a link between the people on the outside and those behind bars, keeping the peace by bending the law.

The matriarch, Miriam, is a keen, profane professor at one of the women’s prisons while her sons run the day-to-day operations in the town—or at least was before her gruesome passing in Season Two. Her eldest, Mitch, is the current mayor, having learned all his slick, people-pleasing ways from his now deceased father. Mike is his political, hard-around-the-edges sidekick and former inmate who helps to enforce whatever law makes the most sense that day and to his personal sense of morality. And Kyle, the youngest brother, is a cop who is a more than familiar participant in corruption.

Together, the McLuskys have a smooth, flawed system that keeps both the skilled and budding criminals in check: establish and maintain a criminal hierarchy in and around the prison Their goal is to make sure the crime in Kingstown doesn’t put the ruling family in harm’s way.

And it doesn’t. Until Mitch is violently killed.

Now, Mike and his family are forced to figure out how they’re going to keep things afloat. Mike wants nothing to do with Kingstown, but whether he likes it or not, he’s about to become the keeper of the rats, both outside and inside the cage. One of the biggest outside? The Russian mobster, Milo, who will do anything to take down the mayor.

In just two seasons, Mike has been witness and accomplice to mass murder, extreme violence, betrayal and sexual exploitation and abuse. The show would like us to consider him a vigilante hero, but he is far from it morally. And as the third season opens, it doesn’t look as though Kingstown’s getting any gentler, or Mike’s getting any more heroic.

A CITY AKIN TO HELL

Mayor of Kingstown, on Paramount+, is rated TV-MA and boasts an incredible cast. And although the acting may be compelling, the character’s actions are disturbingly wicked. The morals of this storyline are as twisted and hopeless as you might imagine.

Each member of the McLusky family justifies his or her violence, corruption and law-bending by assuring themselves that this is the only way to keep the peace in a town that is slowly disintegrating into utter chaos. The family subsidizes drugs and murder, utilizing the help of police officers, prison guards, family members and even inmates. And with this comes a ton of issues that you’ll want to know before you stream this for yourself, much less for your family.   

Strip clubs are featured throughout the show, including women who walk around completely topless. Full nudity is present in multiple episodes (though the most private of body parts are typically obscured). Sexual activity is present at least once explicitly. And the serial sexual abuse of a character—and her later descent into sex work, drug use, murder, and fear is a main storyline throughout the first two seasons. The selling and consumption of drugs are discussed at length, alcohol is consumed, profanity is heavy, the death count is high and violence is crafted to shock.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

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As Chicago’s deputy district attorney, Rusty pitted his legal acumen against people accused of crimes most heinous. He and his team would settle behind the prosecutor’s table, call forth witnesses and, step by step, build a road that pointed directly to jail.

But now, he’s sitting behind the other table—the one for those accused crimes most heinous.

I didn’t kill her! He says. But the prosecutors don’t believe him. Perhaps they don’t even care. And if Rusty and his lawyers aren’t careful, the former deputy district attorney may find himself with a new home: The penitentiary.

Habeas Corpses

Let’s be transparent: Even if Rusty didn’t kill Carolyn Polhemus, he’s not exactly innocent. Carolyn was Rusty’s trusted co-worker, friend and, ultimately, lover. The torrid affair went on for, well, far too long.

Rusty’s wife learned about the affair and their marriage survived, just barely. But Rusty’s boss, District Attorney Raymond Horgan, knew nothing about it. So when Carolyn was murdered–and with Raymond locked in a bitter election battle–the D.A. assigned Rusty, his best attorney, to the case. Rusty, despite the obvious conflict of interest, accepted—and then tried to hide any evidence that might link him to the crime.

Well, Raymond lost re-election, and now the case is in the hands of the new D.A.—Rusty’s longtime rival, Nico Della Guardia. All that evidence is trickling into view, and Della Guardia’s own lieutenant, Tommy Molto, would love nothing more than to send Rusty to prison.

And Rusty gets it. The one-time deputy district attorney knows just how vulnerable Rusty, the alleged murder, would be in court. He knows how all those texts look—texts sent the day of the murder. He knows how incriminating the physical evidence is. He knows how he’d work the jury if he was working the case.

But now, sitting at that other table, he knows something else: He knows whether he killed Carolyn. And no one else—not Tommy, not Barbara, not even the Apple TV+ audience—does. Now it’s up to the legal system to ferret out the truth, too.

Miranda Wrongs

Presumed Innocent, based on the bestselling 1987 book by Scott Turow, is a compelling crime and legal whodunit—this time featuring the always-interesting Jake Gyllenhaal in its pivotal role. (It was also the subject of a 1990 movie starring Harrison Ford.)

But while this Apple TV+ limited series features strong performances and an engrossing plot, it’s just plain gross in other ways.

Remember, this story is predicated on acts of lurid sex and horrific violence, and Presumed Innocent is guilty of showing us plenty of both.

We don’t just hear about Rusty’s affair with Carolyn; we see it—frequently. The show stresses how passionate and aggressive the couple’s physical interactions were. And while Presumed Innocent avoids showing the most critical of body parts, it has no such qualms about wholesale skin exposure, including naked rear ends.

The aftermath is just as discomforting. Carolyn was killed by a blow to the head. And even before that killing stroke, her last moments seem to have been pretty appalling. When Rusty first arrives on the crime scene, a co-worker tells him, “You don’t want to go in there. It’s bad.” But no one makes any attempt to stop the Apple TV+ cameras from entering and scanning the corpse with close, clinical glee. While we don’t see the murder itself at this early juncture—obviously, the show aims to make us wonder if Rusty is guilty or not—its aftermath is seen repeatedly and, if you ask this reviewer, gratuitously.

And the language? Well, it fits right in with the rest of it.

Presumed Innocent takes us into a tawdry and terrible story and plays it out on screen. And while the show seeks to keep us guessing over Rusty’s guilt or innocence, we can pass verdict on the show itself. And the evidence is right in front of our faces.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

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Evidently, a lot more than they’d think.

The seven of them may come from different walks of life, but they’re all equals in Bristol, England’s, community payback program. They’re all working off their community-service sentences for the various crimes they committed—from shoplifting to forging checks. Under the strict supervision of Community Payback Officer Diane, they’re to spend the time cleaning up a dilapidated building so that Bristol can turn it into a community center.

One of the seven—the bad boy named Christian—is in a particularly deep tub of hot water. For fear that some criminals would harm his sister, Christian robbed a drug dealer’s stash at gunpoint, stealing away the dealer’s phone containing his contacts and a bag stuffed to the brim with cash. What’s more, the studious Asian good girl named Rani helped him during his getaway.

Christian stashes the money away in the soon-to-be community center. But he doesn’t account for the right-wing blowhard, left-wing militant and shifty old-timer (John, Myrna and Frank, respectively), who find the bag and consider using the cash for their own financial woes.

Things quickly spiral out of control. Pretty soon, celebutant Lady Gabby and dopey struggling lawyer Gregory are involved, too—all trying to keep things quiet from Diane.

But their troubles are only just beginning. Because the cash they stole belonged to a drug lord known only as The Dean—and he’s not one to let a few petty criminals get away with slighting him.

More Money, More Problems

By the third season, this unmerry band of misfits have a rather impressive resume for amateur criminals. By this point, not only have a couple of them finally worked off their community service hours, but they’ve sold cocaine and successfully got The Dean locked away.

But tensions are rising once more. Men like The Dean aren’t just locked away, and the growing threat that he might be released soon is starting to destroy any feelings of safety they might’ve finally obtained.

What’s more, Rani—who stole a car and went rogue at the end of Season Two—returns. She’s got the body of a man in her back seat, whom she claims knew how they managed to incriminate The Dean. He’s conveniently dead, but Rami insists that she didn’t kill him. And she needs their help hiding his body.

But, as these outlaws are beginning to realize, cleaning up one mess often leads to creating another, even bigger one.

You’ll Pay For It

The Outlaws is a British dark comedy which heavily centers around a group of people who unwittingly get caught up in the criminal drug trade—and all the crime that comes with it.

That’s not to say that where they came from was often much better. For the most part, the outlaws come from broken families. And amidst the grime and gunk of their new lives, they’ve made something of a family with one another—one that, for all its cracks and tension, feels at least marginally better than where they were at previously.

But peer into those cracks, and you’ll find the crudities that stitch them all together.

Obviously, the show heavily features the criminal underbelly of the drug trade. And while no nudity is seen, sex and sexual references are frequent on the show—as is LGBT content (primarily in the form of Lady Gabby’s character). Those content issues are topped off with frequent crude language and a few character deaths, too.

The Outlaws deals in broken characters—ones who we can relate to and cheer on as they work through their issues. Indeed, redemptive and even noble moments can be found throughout these three seasons. But broken characters also come with plenty of on-screen problems for families, and The Outlaws is no exception.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

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Or someone always did.

But one morning, bleary after too much wine and worn from too much fighting, Edgar’s father, Vincent, begged off. “He’s in fifth grade,” he told his wife, Cassandra. “It’s only a couple of blocks.” Vincent barely gave his little boy a glance as Edgar walked out the door, the sound of Mom and Dad fighting still reverberating in the hall.

Edgar never made it to school. Only a bloodstained shirt was found a day later. And Vincent believes—Vincent knows—it’s his fault.

But he has a plan to bring Edgar back—and he has help, too. A giant, horned, hairy monster named Eric.

If Eric can’t help Edgar, no one can.

Big Puppet, Big Problems

Vincent Anderson knows something about monsters. His wife, his coworkers, perhaps even his own son would say he can be one.

But he’s also the visionary artist who created Good Day Sunshine!, an early 1980s Sesame Street-like puppet show filmed and broadcast in New York City. He’s created his share of wacky characters for the show.

But Eric? That was Edgar’s idea, actually. When the studio’s suits suggested that a new puppet might boost Good Day Sunshine’s flagging ratings, Edgar got to work. He designed Eric to be a “walk-around” puppet, covered in blue-and-orange fur and topped with pointy ears and a set of horns.

Vincent didn’t much care at the time. When he was sober, the guy barely glanced at Edgar’s drawings. After a few drinks, he demanded his 9-year-old boy pitch the idea to him like he was one of his employees, then shut the kid down when the “presentation” got too boring.

But now that Edgar’s gone, Vincent believes that the puppet might be the key to bringing his son back. Get that furry monster on TV, and Edgar just might find his way home.

Cassie believes that Vincent might be losing it—again. And the police, led by Det. Ledroit, plan on taking a different, more sensible tack. The superintendent for the Andersons’ building seems nice enough—perhaps too nice. Edgar’s path to school took him right past a shady nightclub, too, and Ledroit suspects its owner is engaged in human trafficking. Why, this New York neighborhood is teeming with suspects.

And regardless their airtight alibis, even Vincent and Cassie feel a little suspicious, too. They might not be guilty of kidnapping Edgar. But are they guilty of something? Oh, you bet they are.

Blech-amie Street

Eric, a six-part limited series on Netflix, is as dark and unsettling as any show featuring a large puppet monster has a right to be.

While we don’t know who took Edgar, the implications of why—at least at the outset—seem more straightforward and deeply disturbing. He might be dead or, more likely, it would seem, the victim of human trafficking. We hear allegations of other boys being trafficked and references to pedophilia.

But consensual relationships between adults come with their own share of problems. Ledroit is in a same-sex relationship with a sick, older man (perhaps dying of AIDs, given the early 1980s timeline), hiding his sexual predilections from his police associates as best he can. Cassie is having an affair with another guy—and perhaps another suspect in Edgar’s disappearance. While we’ve not seen any explicit nudity at this early juncture, people are depicted in the throes of intimacy—their encounters as shadowy as the corners in which they embrace.

Vincent also has plenty of problems, including his own somewhat shaky grasp on reality. That issue is exacerbated by his alcohol abuse—which encourages his own emotional abuse of the people around him. If Vincent is intended to be the show’s “hero,” he’s as unsympathetic of one as I’ve seen this year.

It’s ironic that such a flawed, mean man would helm such a seemingly innocent kids’ show. If Good Day Sunshine! taught its young listeners how to spell based on Vincent’s own vocabulary, the lesson would begin and end with the f-word. He and others fling the profanity around like blue confetti. And when he and Cassie are together, they fire off obscenities like rifle rounds. No wonder that Edgar, alone in his room before his abduction, has his drawing of Eric lob the f-bomb so frequently.

The show is smartly written, to be sure. And its mystery pulls you in. But boy, the problems go deep here. Vincent might have called his own TV show Good Day Sunshine!. But the Netflix show in which he appears feels more like a black, bleak night.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

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Seven years ago, he was forced to go into hiding after he murdered the man who raped his master’s daughter. And for seven years, he’s been hiding in a small cabin in Hokkaido, Japan, to avoid the pursuing detective.

But those seven years of hiding are up. Because when the martial artist stepped in to protect a pair of hikers being attacked by a bear nearby, his heroic act only drew the attention of investigating police.

So Juzo’s on the run again, and as news of his fight with a bear spreads, others start to hunt for him, too—including the mythical “Sergeant,” who thinks the man would be a perfect candidate for an illicit (and deadly) martial arts tournament.

If there’s any hunter who has his claws around Juzo, however, it’s himself. Because ever since Juzo slaughtered that rapist, he’s vowed never to fight another human.

But even still…when Juzo sees injustice, he can’t deny the “wolf” inside him, begging to overwhelm him into beating thugs into the ground. And it won’t be long before the beast forces him to break his vow.

Bears, Beatings and Blood

For martial arts anime fans, Netflix just may be their favorite streaming service.

Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf joins the ranks of other martial arts anime like Baki Hanma and Kengen Ashura on the platform. And like those other two anime, Garouden packs plenty of punches.

As you might expect, violence is Garouden’s biggest content concern, and viewers can predict at least one character will be bloodied and on the ground by each episode’s end. As for the aforementioned rape, while we don’t see the act itself, we do see the woman before and after the incident, bruised and on the ground.

Swearing, including the f- and s-word, is likewise an issue prospective viewers will need to consider.

What’s more, Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf suffers from a convoluted plot that doesn’t really pick up much steam at all until halfway through the first season—making those content issues all the more difficult to justify.

All of those reasons and more are evidence that perhaps viewers of this lone wolf should just pack it up and leave.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

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What, another X-Files reboot?

Not exactly. Aliens aren’t in the offing in CBS’ Evil. And our main characters work for the Catholic Church.

IN FULL POSSESSION

David Acosta is a priest in training, hired by the Vatican to cull its backlog of potentially supernatural cases. Does John Doe really need an exorcist, or just a good psychotherapist? Is this startling event really a miracle, or just a clever fraud? The Catholic Church gets, well, legions of requests for investigation and intervention, but it can’t send out fully trained exorcists to check out all of them. So David goes out in their stead to discern which cases really deserve the Church’s attention—and which should be turned over to, say, the local police.

Dr. Kristen Bouchard doesn’t buy into miracles or demonic possession. She’s a psychologist, you see, and a lapsed Catholic to boot. The only demons she’s sure about are those we manufacture ourselves. And while Kristen might seem like an odd choice to work for the Catholic Church, David relies on her expertise. “The problem with my job is that possession looks a lot like insanity,” he tells her. “And insanity looks a lot like possession.”

Kristen may not believe, in the strictest sense, but she finds the work interesting. Plus, it pays the bills. She’s got four little girls to take care of and a mountain of student loans to repay—not to mention a husband who is frequently away. She’ll take on the occasional possession case if it means she can also keep possession of her house.

The team is rounded out by an uber-scientific investigator named Ben. While David and Kristen explore a subject’s mind, Ben taps around the environment. Are those weird, whispering noises a sign of a haunting—or just faulty pipes? Ben’s the guy to ask (though, admittedly, he always thinks the answer is “the pipes”).

But while the trio may not agree on the source of these strange manifestations they investigate, they do agree what they’re fighting: evil. Pure evil, embodied (at least at first) by the oily Leland Townsend. He, along with dozens of horrible helpmates, stirs up trouble on social media and plays into the worst instincts of the society’s most vulnerable and estranged. Is he merely psychotic? Or does he answer to a more infernal boss?

By Season Four, Leland’s still hanging around and causing trouble (as any character played by Michael Emerson is wont to do). And this time, he’s picked up some predatory tendencies. He’s managed to steal and fertilize one of Kristen’s own eggs in hopes that he’ll be the one to bring about the antichrist. According to Leland in Season Four’s premiere episode, the baby’s due in 38 days—a number which coincides both with a prophecy David received from an angel regarding the end of the world and the opening of a nearby particle accelerator…

TOUCHED BY … A DEVIL?

While most networks run screaming from the subject of religion as if it was that little girl from The Exorcist, CBS—the same network that hit paydirt with Touched by an Angel—has shown a willingness to grapple with faith in recent years. And though it was once in a thoughtful way, later seasons (now streaming exclusively on the CBS-related Paramount+) suggests that the directors have traded its respectful roots for absurd and irreverent sensationalism.

Evil, created by The Good Wife’s brain trust of Robert and Michelle King and starring Westworld’s Katja Herbers and Luke Cage’s Mike Colter, may have been its most ambitious foray into faith yet. But with its move to Paramount+ in Season Two, the show has since pushed not only pushed the envelope, but it has burned it to a crisp.

Robert King is Catholic. Wife Michelle describes herself as a secular Jew. “Our intent has always been to have religion front and center in the show. That’s the appeal of it,” Michelle told The Federalist. “The other thing that’s important to me is that we show characters with very different points of view who are willing to discuss these things and listen to each other in a respectful way. Right now, there is a lot of violent disagreement in the world and not a lot of listening with respect.”

Though the characters are indeed respectful of one another, by Season Three, the show lacks that respect for faith—particularly the Catholic Church. Even the show’s priests themselves often show a disdain or disbelief for Catholic orthodoxy. Naturally, the show has questionable bits of content as a result.

Whenever you’re dealing with demonic possession and exorcisms, things can take a turn to the scary … and sometimes the bloody. While not every episode features red stuff dripping and spurting about, it’s completely dependent on what supernatural mystery the team’s exploring in each given week. Sex, too, can be an uncomfortable plot point—in fact, it’s the central focus for the first episode of Season 3, where we uncomfortably watch David have sex with a demonic entity (one who continues to make appearances in Season Four, too). That’s not to mention that David, in order to foster a connection with God, has been known to take psychotropic substances to, ahem, encourage visions—a practice rather outside Catholic orthodoxy. We should note, too, that Kristen flat-out murdered a guy in the first season (the work of her own demonic possession). Sure, the victim was a serial killer who promised to slay Kristen’s daughters, but the act still remains.

And while the first season stayed well within the limits of network broadcast standards, later seasons show no such constraints. Like a possessed girl who breaks her bonds, Evil is pretty unfettered these days. Violence and gore isn’t unusual. Sexual allusions are more crass and more graphic. And as if to make sure everyone knows that Evil’s not on CBS anymore, harsher profanities—including the f-word—pop up much more frequently, sounding wholly inappropriate and vaguely ludicrous in the show’s procedural context.

Generally, evil is something you’d try to stay away from. And many folks will likely want to give Paramount+’s Evil a wide berth, too.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

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But ask them what they know about the three people who disappeared from the Samhain festival 25 years ago, and they’ll quickly grow hostile.

So Gilbert and his research assistant, Emmy, have learned about the Emerald Isle. They’re podcasters hoping to use the festival as the basis for a sensational true-crime story. It’s a story made even more timely given that Bodkin, the little coastal town in which the disappearances occurred, is restarting its Samhain festivities for the first time since the incident. But to their frustration, they find the townsfolk seem to care far more about one question.

“People will listen to the podcast?” They ask.

“Yes. Why does everybody ask that?” Emmy responds.

And they’re not the only ones looking into the story. Because when Dove, a reporter for The Guardian, finds the whistleblower from her last piece hanging by a noose in his bedroom, her boss convinces her to flee London and join Gilbert and Emmy—just until the storm of those events pass over.

Dove’s…not exactly excited about the job. To her, true-crime podcasts are just nothingburgers that solve little and sensationalize lots for clicks.

But soon Dove, like Gilbert, recognizes that a deeper story does rest in Bodkin. Because as they speak with the people there, they only find locals who sidestep or ignore their questions—unless the locals flat-out lie.

Because if they did uncover the truth, well, people would listen to the podcast.

And they certainly can’t have that.

Uncorked and Unfiltered

The title Bodkin, like the residents of this quiet Irish hamlet, doesn’t give much away. It’s hard to tell what kind of show something called Bodkin might be. Turns out, the answer is an Irish dark comedy thriller.

The “thrill” comes from the subject matter. Three people mysteriously disappeared over two decades ago, and there are plenty more who’d rather the podcasters not dredge up the matter once more.

That means that violence—and corpses—occasionally pop up. Some clues require entering a room full of onscreen naked bathing women. Onscreen sex and LGBT content is dug up, too. And as matters get murkier, so too does the language, with heavy reliance on the f-word and the occasional c-word.

Ireland is frequently listed as one of the safest countries in the world. But the same cannot be said for the Irish Bodkin.

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You wouldn’t think there’d be a lot of need for a detective agency for dead people. It’s not like someone would come in and say, “I think someone’s trying to kill me—help me find him!” That ship has sailed already. Also, payment: As they say, you can’t take it with you. Nor, really, can you spend it there, either.

But Edwin and Charles have done a lively business, if you will, detecting for the dead—rounding up wayward souls, chucking out demons and solving an array of postmortem crimes.

And lately, they’ve gotten a bit of help from the other side of that mortal divide. A psychic with the unlikely name of Crystal Palace has been ever so helpful in talking with living witnesses and reading living minds.

But all three have their own issues to navigate. And if they don’t navigate them successfully, there could be you-know-what to pay.

The Hardly Boys

Crystal didn’t start out as the only live girl in the Dead Boys Detectives agency. She began her relationship with Edwin and Charles as a case. Her one-time boyfriend, awkwardly, was a demon named David, who was interested in a very intimate relationship with her. David possessed poor Crystal for weeks before Edwin and Charles managed to kick him out. But some exes don’t take rejection well. And David would like nothing better than to become Crystal’s literally possessive beau again.

Meanwhile, Charles and Edwin are trying to evade Death itself—or, more fairly, the bureaucracy that revolves around her. Death herself seems nice enough. But the Night Nurse, Death’s bureaucratic boss, doesn’t like souls gallivanting outside their proper destinations. Ghosts such as Edwin and Charles aren’t just supernatural abominations: They’re loose ends that the Night Nurse definitely would love to tie up—or snip off.

But the teens have no desire to follow the light to where they’re fated to spend all eternity. Edwin has had a taste of that already: He spent seven decades in hell due to (he says) a “clerical error.” And even though the demon who yanked him to Hades promised it wouldn’t be “all that bad,” Edwin definitely does not want to go back.

So the three of them take on difficult detective cases—doing their best to help both the living and the dead. They might help the living stay alive a little longer. They might help the dead find a little more peace. And the witches and demons and monsters they encounter? Well, the three of them try to exact a little justice when they can—or at least show each of them that following their life of crime and/or evil is a grave mistake.

Nancy Ewww

The Dead Boy Detectives started their, um, lives in the comics. Created by legendary writer Neil Gaiman (the guy behind Good Omens, American Gods and Netflix’s own The Sandman) and artist Matt Wagner, Edwin and Charles got their start in a 1991 Sandman comic, and they’ve been solving creepy cases ever since.

But in Gaiman’s original work, these Dead Boy Detectives are (or were) actually boys—about 12 years old. In the Netflix series, these “kids” would appear to be in their late teens (and played by two actors, George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri, in their mid-to-late 20s).

That’s not the only difference. While both of the boys are “curious about girls” in the originating comics (according to distributor DC), Edwin’s inclinations on television seem to point in a different direction. In the show’s trailer, he seems about to kiss another male character. And early indications suggest the show won’t stop there.

“I’m excited that we could have that much queerness in a show that still feels incredibly accessible to a mainstream audience,” show co-runner Steve Yockey told RadioTimes.com. “That’s something I’m particularly proud of.”

What hasn’t changed? The franchise’s spiritual and supernatural content. Witches, demons and monsters share the screen with ghosts and psychics. And while it’s less sacrilegious than many of Gaiman’s other works—and even more respectful than, say, CW’s long-running Supernatural—there’s still plenty of occult stuff to wade through.

Add to that language, violence and sometimes grotesque imagery, and you’ve got a frightening show indeed.

Dead Boy Detectives does offer some (perhaps unintentionally) strong warnings about how to navigate our own frightening worlds. Think that stranger is kinda cute? Beware, he could lure you into doing some pretty terrible things. Want to pretend to call a demon for a thrill? Yeah, one might just show up.

But the series is also one of many that targets teens in style and story, and yet includes so much problematic content as to warrant an adult, TV-MA rating.

When Charles pushes Edwin to let Crystal to join their little team, Edwin balks. “The living are messy,” he says.

And so, it seems, are their TV shows.

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And Light is the one who will bring it about.

To Light, this world is rotten. It’s filled with people who do wicked deeds and deserve to be punished. And up until recently, Light could only watch as it descended into moral darkness.

That was, of course, until he found the Death Note.

A shinigami—a god of death—dropped the deceptively innocent-looking notebook in the human realm, and Light got to it before anyone else did. And with it, Light holds, literally, the power of death in his hand.

All he needs to do is to write down a person’s name in the notebook while picturing their face in his mind. And lo and behold, within 40 seconds of writing, that person will die of a heart attack. Light realizes that he can finally bring justice to the world by killing criminals. He figures that people will eventually begin to catch on that there’s someone out there responsible for the sudden uptick in heart attacks—and they’ll fall, morally, in line, so as to not be slain as well.

“It’s only a matter of time before people figure out that these criminals are being eliminated by someone,” Light says. “I want the world to know of my existence—that there’s someone out there passing righteous judgment on the wicked!”

Well, he’s right on that end. Following the deaths of hundreds of the world’s more infamous criminals in a five-day span, people do begin to notice the trend, including the United Nations, who have unilaterally decided to request the help of the elusive “L.” L is a world-renown detective and genius who has never failed to get to the bottom of a case, and something like this is right up his alley.

Unfortunately for Light, L has never revealed himself—even his real name—to the public, so it’s impossible for Light to kill him using the Death Note. But unfortunately for L, Light is, like him, a genius. In fact, he’s the top student in all of Japan—so catching him won’t be as easy as L hopes.

And let the game begin.

Light and Darkness

The Bible says that vengeance is the Lord’s to repay.

But with his hands on the Death Note, Light considers himself to be on par with God.

Death Note, originally released in 2007, consistently ranks as one of the top anime TV series of all time—and it’s not hard to see why. Its compelling plot, gripping cliffhangers and conversations on morality and justice can easily hook a viewer.

And as Light attempts to become “the god of a new world,” we see scenes where that idea is explored. In the title sequence alone, Light is depicted as taking a bite of an apple, which is clearly meant to represent the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil from Genesis 3. And in taking that bite, Light attempts to become like God, executing his own skewed form of justice upon the world. (It’s not the only time Death Note references biblical themes and imagery. We even see a scene where one character washes another character’s feet.)

And even though other characters admit in early episodes that Light’s rampage has caused crime rates to plummet as people fear that they’ll be judged next, most other characters rally against the protagonist, arguing that no human should have the power of a god to decide such things.

But make no mistake: Death Note has its issues. It might be obvious, but we have to point out that many people die onscreen and off. And while most on-screen victims collapse from heart attacks, others are shot, burned or stabbed to death. A couple people are even compelled by the Death Note to commit suicide.

What’s more, a couple characters, particularly Light’s girlfriend, Misa, can wear revealing clothes. And swear words like “h—,” “d–n,” “b–tard” and “a–” are occasionally thrown around. A couple other scenes can be quite intense.

Death Note provides an engaging and thought-provoking plot over the course of its 37 episodes. But make sure you aren’t caught off-guard by the issues that come along with it.

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