NOTE: Spoilers ahead for the finale of Netflix’s “Dead Boy Detectives”
Well, it turns out that if a supernatural Magic 8 Ball that tells you when you’re going to die says “Outlook not so good,” death is indeed coming fairly soon. And so, the season finale of “Dead Boy Detectives” brought the death of its purest character, Niko (Yuyu Kitamura) — but did it really?
At the start of Episode 8, we see that Jenny’s (Briana Cuoco) butcher shop has been rocked by an explosion, caused by Esther (Jenn Lyon). The witch very theatrically captured Charles (Jayden Revri) and Edwin (George Rexstrew) as part of a plan to siphon Edwin’s pain — the irony of his name literally being Edwin Payne is not lost — for more power.
In the aftermath, it briefly looks like Niko was killed in the blast, but she does manage to survive. What actually kills her is the moment when she saves Crystal (Kassius Nelson), stepping in front of a magical dagger that Esther hurls at her while the duo are attempting to save Charles and Edwin.
It’s a heartbreaking moment but, according to “Dead Boy Detectives” showrunners Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz, Niko had to be the one the group lost.
“I mean, her entire journey — we saw her in Episode 2 where she was basically a shut-in because of the sprites, and all that tension, and she was pretty much scared of the world because she didn’t really deal with her father’s death and the grief of that,” Schwartz told TheWrap. “And it wasn’t until she became part of this friendship group, and the agency, that she’s really started to become her own.”
She continued, “And so it only made sense that, to finish her journey, that she would be the one to be brave and sacrifice herself for her friends, because she had been learning from them all season long. So it was tragic. Like we said, bittersweet is where the show lives. And it was, you know, obviously maybe more bitter, but it was also sweet that she cared so much about this group of her found family that she was willing to literally jump in and take a dagger to save them.”
Yockey added that the loss should hurt, especially given what her character represents throughout the show, and what she stands for. For him, the kicker was that she was the purest of them all.
“Sometimes when you’re brave, things don’t go your way. And she has that thing that she says like, ‘Even if it’s horrible, and we may risk our lives and we don’t survive, we have to try,’” he said. “I think I just butchered my own line. But I do think that like, it’s inherent in her character. And the reason that it affected you so much is because she is the person who deserved it the least.”
“And the sad part is, if she never met this group, or she wasn’t so influenced, she would never have been able to do that,” Schwartz added.
That said, it’s unclear what exactly happened to Niko after her death. The episode makes a point of showing that, when she died, she was clutching the good luck charm that Tragic Mick had gifted her. In the final moments of the episode, viewers are shown that Niko appears to be in an igloo somewhere, still holding that totem, along with Litty and Kingham, her sprites.
Yockey and Schwartz were tight-lipped on where exactly Niko is and what it means, but Schwartz conceded that “yes, she is somewhere,” and Yockey joked that it’s “very healthy” to believe Niko is OK.
At this point, a second season of “Dead Boy Detectives” hasn’t officially been announced, so it’s unclear if we’ll get any hard answers about where Niko is. And of course, there’s also the lingering question of if Jenny is joining the detective agency in London, as she was offered to do at the end of the finale.
When we leave her, she’s at a “hard maybe.” But, the showrunners are certainly hoping to bring back whoever they can, should the show get renewed.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations about Season 2, and we’re open to bringing back any character that we can,” Yockey said. “So I would say, I think Beth agrees with me, Bri did just a glorious job of making Jenny specific, bringing her just the perfect amount of like, don’t-give-a-f—, and the perfect amount of ‘I’ve cared in the past it burned me so now I hate everything.’”
“She just seems to really understand the character and the portrayal of the character in such a beautiful way. I mean, I think that character is my personal spirit animal. So, I’m attached to that character if that helps you believe that she will come back in the future.”
As far as the long-term future of “Dead Boy Detectives,” Yockey and Schwartz don’t have a goal for the number of seasons the series should run. What they do know is how the series will end, whenever it does.
“I don’t think we have a season number in mind because it isn’t that kind of show, because it is very case of the week and we can always find season arcs,” Yockey explained. “Both of us come off of 23-episodes-a-season shows, so we’re used to breaking longer things. But I will say, I’ve known since we wrote the pilot what the last scene is. So I feel like we have a — we’re pointed in the direction.”
“Dead Boy Detectives” is now streaming on Netflix.
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