SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from the entire first season of “Dead Boy Detectives,” now streaming on Netflix.
A good friend answers when you call. A best friend goes to literal Hell to save you from a giant spider made of charred doll parts stalking you through the halls of an eternal nightmare. And there is no better friend in this world or the next than Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri).
The first season of Netflix’s new supernatural procedural “Dead Boy Detectives” is a wild, neon-colored Neil Gaiman adaptation that follows two dead English teenagers solving monstrous, murderous cases in a mystically restless Pacific Northwest town. But the most important case of the series is their own: In Episode 7, “The Case of the Very Long Stairway,” Charles doesn’t hesitate to go after his best mate Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) after he is dragged to the depths of Hell.
By this point in the series, audiences know just how hard the boys have fought to keep Edwin off Hell’s radar –– and Death off their backs. He already spent 70 years there, suffering arachno-centric torture after he was accidentally sacrificed to a demon by the bullies at his boarding school in 1916. Edwin escaped Hell then, just in time to meet Charles, who also died after being bullied at the same school in 1989. But when Hell locates its missing resident, Charles descends through the circles of Hell to save Edwin.
Popular on Variety
They make a run for it with the doll-spider on their heels, but before they can literally ascend the stairway out of hell and reunite with the land of the living –– even if they aren’t ––Edwin takes the inopportune opportunity to confess the secret he has kept from his best friend. Through a mixture of tears and relief, he says the words: He’s in love with Charles, who responds to his friend’s honesty by reassuring him that while he doesn’t hold romantic affection for Edwin, there is no one else he would go to Hell for.
Rexstrew and Revri didn’t have a chance to second guess how they would play this crucial moment, because they were at the end of a long shooting day and literally buckled in for safety.
“Logistically, it was quite difficult to film — because we were pressed for time, and Jayden and I were attached to harnesses and rope,” Rexstrew tells Variety. “Obviously, there were safety ramifications to consider. There were like 10 mats in case either of us fell on the steps to Hell.”
Revri adds: “Whenever there was a scene that was filled with emotion like that, and had a lot of depth to it, I always remember me and George being in his room, late hours of the night and even early hours of the morning, really prepping. We would use whatever props we could find to prepare for a scene. I can just remember me and George going through that scene over and over again before we ever stepped on set. We knew how it would go.”
The episode also features flashbacks to the first time Edwin and Charles meet: a collection of deeply personal scenes shot at breakneck speed, according to the actors. Elsewhere, their living clairvoyant friend Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson) finally exorcizes her demon ex-boyfriend from her head with the help of ancestral magic, a roller rink and a Belinda Carlisle song. It is the decisive episode of the season and, yet, it isn’t even the finale. Rather, it serves as a penultimate appetizer for a fight that determines the future of the Dead Boys Detective Agency.
Over the course of the show’s first season, the boys, Crystal and their new friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura) fend off the Cat King (Lukas Gage), the predatory overlord of stray cats who traps them in Port Townsend to get closer to Edwin; and Esther (Jenn Lyon), a centuries-old witch stealing children to feed a giant snake in her basem*nt that keeps her young and beautiful. In the finale, Esther ensnares Charles and Edwin in her trap to drain Edwin of the anguish he endured in Hell, which acts as a lifeblood co*cktail for the witch. But Charles, Crystal and Niko come to the rescue, only for the latter to be killed fighting to save her friends. Don’t cry too many tears for Niko, though — a stinger on the finale teases she mysteriously survived, and is holed up in an igloo.
Retreating to their home turf in London, the boys are allowed to continue solving cases with the help of Crystal and their new overseer, the cranky Night Nurse (Ruth Connell) from the Afterlife Lost & Found Department, who spent the season trying to force them to move on.
After you catch your breath from a nonstop season of supernatural hijinks, Rexstrew and Revri talked to Variety about building their on-and-off screen friendship, the massive undertaking of Episode 7 and what they are already itching to do in a possible Season 2.
George, this is your first major screen role. What was it like to go full supernatural detective as Edwin right out of the gate?
George Rexstrew: I have a theater background and classical theater training, so this side of the acting medium was fairly new to me. I did some modules in screen acting in drama school, but it is one of those forms where you kind of have to learn by doing, which was a really exciting process. And it felt like I was under pressure at times, because, obviously, I’m learning as the stakes are heightened. But especially in the pilot, I was anchored by Jayden and Kassius, because I was flanked by them at all times. If there was something I wasn’t aware of on the technical side of filming, I would just ask. So it was really special to experience six months of that.
Jayden Revri: He isn’t giving himself enough credit. Even though this was his first role, you would never have known the whole time. He taught me more than I probably taught him.
Rexstrew: You should also know that Jayden is a compulsive liar, and you can’t believe a word he says.
We come into Edwin and Charles’ friendship 30 years on, and see just how strong it is in that opening scene as they hide from Death, played by “The Sandman’s” Kirby. It’s not easy to represent such a deep bond right away. How did you manage that?
Revri: We were super blessed, because we started this whole process together. We literally met outside Heathrow Airport and ventured off into the terminal to Vancouver together. You know, sometimes you just meet certain people in your life, and you know that it was kind of meant to be. We just hit it off straight away, and we were so open about our processes and how we were feeling about everything from the start.
The thing with Charles and Edwin, they are just two guys who have this thing in common that not a lot of other people share, and they want the same thing out of it. That brotherhood that they have with each other, me and George found that with each other straight away. I’m not going to lie, it was the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do was act alongside him.
Rexstrew: The thing about me and Jayden, and Edwin and Charles, is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously but we take the work seriously.
Visually, these two guys have to be distinctive because they are from two different times, and they carry themselves differently. Did you work on posture and style to get them just right?
Rexstrew: Speaking for myself, I started with Edwin’s physicality. I got a sense of how he moved from reading the comics, and I used that as a starting point and built it from there. But there were times where Jayden and I would explore it together. I remember when we were filming the pilot, we would walk around Vancouver pretending to be Edwin and Charles, and it just all kind of fell into place naturally.
Revri: It really did. In terms of physicality, they are just both such polar opposites. Edwin is very upright and always presents himself to the best of his ability. Charles is very loose and is just Charles. I think the physicality aspect made the acting so much easier as well, if that makes sense.
The whole season is a ride, but Episode 7 is the real peak of action and emotion. Can you talk about filming that episode? Because it returns Edwin to Hell, but it is also Charles’ first peek into what his friend has been through.
Rexstrew: Filming that episode was a particularly intense experience, because it features the flashback to when Edwin and Charles first meet. There were seven mini scenes, I believe, and we filmed them in five or six hours.
Revri: I think it was even less than that.
Rexstrew: We loved those scenes, and the entirety of my other scenes in that episode are extremely heavy as well. So if I’m honest with you, filming that episode is a bit of a blur. We had actually just finished filming the finale, then we moved on to Episode 7 and we finished on Episode 6. We were absolutely anchored by our director Richard Speight Jr., and again, I was with Jayden for a lot of it. We were connected via telepathy at that point, and really knew what each other needed filming that episode.
Revri: I think that was the peak of both of our arcs. I mean, it is the first time the audience sees why Edwin has this facade about him and why he is the way he is, and you really feel for him. And I think that is the first time Charles really looks at him and says, “I cannot believe this is what you have been through.” And obviously everything Charles has been through as well, trying to work out if he is the good guy or the bad guy. Is he like his dad, or like Brad and Hunter [the jocks from Episode 5]?
I think this is the episode when he puts all of that aside and says, “I’m a good guy, and so is Edwin. And I’m going to go save him.” That is one of my favorite episodes, and yes, it was a blur filming it. But I know that me and George just kind of carried each other through that 10 days of filming. I am, and I think George is as well, very proud of that episode.
Rexstrew: On top of the incredible set design and visual effects in that episode, what is very special to me is the portrayal of Edwin and Charles’ relationship and the apex it does reach. I think something that is special about our show is it views the male-on-male love dynamic in a non-sexualized way, which is something we don’t see as much these days in film and television.
Revri: They say your first love is your first best friend, and I think that is true for Charles and Edwin.
Can you talk about how you both played the moment when Edwin confesses his love to Charles?
Rexstrew: Logistically, it was quite difficult to film, because we were pressed for time, and Jayden and I were attached to harnesses and rope. Obviously, there were safety ramifications to consider. There were like 10 mats in case either of us fell on those steps. I did take myself off beforehand, just for 30 seconds. Edwin is just trying to say what he means. Edwin is fundamentally and emotionally repressed. He excels in so many different areas, but emotional communication and understanding his emotions aren’t among those strengths. He muddles through it. I don’t think it required too much preparation for me, because I knew all that about him before this moment. He just has to get it out and leave it behind him in Hell.
Revri: Whenever there was a scene that was filled with emotion like that, and had a lot of depth to it, I always remember me and George being in his room, late hours of the night and even early hours of the morning, really prepping. We would use whatever props we could find to prepare for a scene. I can just remember me and George going through that scene over and over again before we ever stepped on set. We knew how it would go. On them days when you are pressed for time, you can pull the scene out just like that.
Rexstrew: This is the point of the series where Edwin is at his most vulnerable — I would say lifetime, but he’s dead! The stakes couldn’t have been higher. There is a real possibility that that giant spider is coming to take him back again. He almost doesn’t have anything to lose.
All season, we are watching two external factors breach this 30-year friendship in Crystal, who Charles has found an affection for, and Niko, who has broken down Edwin’s cagey facade. What is it about these two that crack open the detective agency?
Revri: I think for Charles, you find out in Episode 4 that he puts on this brave face, and maybe being dead isn’t his favorite thing in the world. The fact that he finds a human that can see him, it just kind of sucks him in, and he becomes completely infatuated with her very quickly. And I’m speaking for George here, but I think Crystal coming into the agency really does a lot for Edwin and Charles. She kind of brings Charles up, and even Edwin up at the same time. At the start, you can see the way they are with each other, and how they are by the end. And it was great for me being able to be Charles in those moments because I remember filming the pilot when there were so many points when George and Kassius would be going at it and I would always be in the middle.
Rexstrew: I would say initially, Edwin harbors huge resentment for Crystal, because she poses a very real threat to his relationship with Charles. Before Crystal, Edwin thinks of his existence as pretty simple. He thinks of himself as the best detective in the world and he has his best friend, Charles Rowland. Period. But I do think she ends up teaching him a lot about friendship, and she causes a softening in Edwin.
In terms of Niko, I think of her as the architect of love in the show. When I think of Edwin’s journey in the show, it is too easy to just label it as an awakening of sexuality. It is deeper than that. It is a learning of how to love and I think Niko provides a very gentle, sensitive touch and approach to allow Edwin to learn that essential thing, which is just wanting love and to be loved. That helps him with what he tells Charles in Episode 7.
What do you want to see these guys get into next if you get a second season? The agency has certainly expanded by the finale.
Revri: What about Drag Boy Detectives, George?
Rexstrew: I’m down for that! I would love to solve some cases in the U.K. as well. What is great about our show is that ghosts and supernatural crimes exist everywhere, so the possibilities are endless.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
