By Joan Amenn

**Spoiler Alert: Please proceed with caution if you have not caught up with the whole series yet. **

Yes, I know. It is called, “Dead Boy Detectives,” but the women characters are absolutely worth taking a closer look so join me as we discuss the series versus the books, where most of these women do not appear. Kudos to the showrunners of “Dead Boy Detectives for creating compelling women roles that if anything, raises the story arc of the comic series to a new level.

Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson): By revising the characters of the book to be older in the series, creator Steve Yockey was brilliant in recognizing the opportunities that would present to show them bonding over their mutual past traumas. In Crystal, we see a tormented amnesiac who discovers her ex is a demon. No, literally-he’s a demon and he has possessed her to be cruel and selfish in the past as she realizes in sporadic flashbacks. This would be pretty grim as a character arc, but Yockey and his team find a great balance with comedic bits leavening the PTSD. Nelson is utterly charming as not quite fitting the trope of the woman in distress since her formidable psychic powers help out our boy detectives considerably. Also, she has great chemistry with Charles (Jayden Revri) but one of the biggest strengths of the series is the amazing empathy the whole cast has with each other.

Niko Kitamura (Yuyu Kitamura): Would it be terrible to admit my favorite character in the series never appeared in the books at all? Well, I’m saying it; apologies to longtime fans of the books in advance of the incoming comments to this article. Niko is such a perfectly pitched character to add levity to the plot but never going too far into the cloyingly whimsical. She’s supportive of her new friends but also has her own troubled past to cope with. Oh, and she has a small (actually, make that two) problem with fungal parasites (yeah, it’s complicated.) Kitamura has incredible comedic timing and lit up the screen with each scene she was in.

Jenny Green (Brianna Cuoco): You know how it is. One day you’re chopping away at raw meat in your butcher shop, minding your own business, and bam! The supernatural shows up. Poor Jenny definitely gets tested emotionally, physically and any other way possible once Crystal enters her little shop and rents the rooms above. Cuoco probably shows more patience and endurance than I would have in the situation she finds herself in, but she does so with a delightfully glum attitude and snarling repartee. Cuoco is anything but motherly, but she does show concern for her younger upstairs neighbors when she isn’t utterly beside herself by the strange goings on that start happening. Also, the scenes showing her vulnerability and loneliness which Niko tries to help her with are beautifully played out with sincerity and a little snark. Perfection.

Night Nurse (Ruth Connell): It must be exhausting dealing with an endless stream of the dead waiting to be processed so they can proceed to their appropriate places in the afterlife. No one would know this better than the Night Nurse, but of course there are also those pesky little snags in the system that can really snarl up the paperwork. Connell is a real comedic pro in playing a bureaucratic nightmare whose fixation with her own importance as a cog in the cosmic machinery makes her the nemesis of our deceased detective duo. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her next season (because there WILL be a Season 2, right Netflix?)

Esther Finch (Jenn Lyon): Is she a good witch or a bad witch? Most certainly the latter, but in the best possible way (and no, she did not appear in the books. More’s the pity.)  There is a tradition of witches not having a healthy influence on children (looking at you, Hansel and Gretel) and Lyon plays Esther as reaching her full evil potential in her pursuit of young lives to ensnare for her purposes. She’s bad, she’s beautiful and she knows it. With sass and style to burn, Esther struts through Port Townsend, WA brandishing her cane and looking for trouble. But trouble finds her in the arrival of the Dead Boys and their face off leads to some nail-biting scenes for our duo. As scheming Esther, Lyon is delicious as a woman who knows exactly what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. More witchy goodness, please!

If you would like more awesome “Dead Boy Detectives” content, check out this Q&A with the two leads, George Rexstrew , Jayden Revri and show creator Steve Yockey courtesy of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcnmnvhH10I&t=2119s