While it’s case closed for the Dead Boy Detectives’ supernatural adventures in Season 1, there’s still plenty of mysteries to unravel — and we have some questions. 

Over the course of eight episodes, the ghost teens behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency — early 1900s young gentleman Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and 1980s “rude boy” Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) — have assisted spirits stuck in the living world with their biggest challenges. They’ve seen it all: paranormal parasites, déjà vu in a haunted house, and even a butcher shop date gone awry. 

With the help of their totally alive friend, the clairvoyant Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson), and her bubbly bud Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), the boys also faced down evil witch Esther Finch (Jenn Lyon). But she’s not the only evil out there. 

Based on the comics from Neil Gaiman, Dead Boy Detectives plugs into Netflix’s Sandman Universe, as the boys evade Death (Kirby) and encounter Morpheus’ morose sister Despair (Donna Preston) in the depths of hell. But it’s their epic, beyond-the-grave friendship that will stay with you — like a lingering ghost — long after the final scene of the show’s first season. 

“The friendship is the thing: that’s the reason to do the show,” co-showrunner Steve Yockey tells Tudum. “I think we’ve done it in a sort of Hardy Boys-on-acid kind of way. And so it maintains the anything-can-happen, odd construction of the comic book, but does it in a more TV-friendly way.”

Season 1 wraps with new additions to the agency, the death of a friend, and big revelations between the Dead Boys –– so where on the astral plane do they go from here? Co-showrunners Yockey and Beth Schwartz, costume designer Kelli Dunsmore, and the cast break down the finale. 

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Who is Crystal Palace, really?

After using the power of her ancestors to defeat her oppressive ex David the Demon (David Iacono) in Episode 7, Crystal regains her memories, which are contained in edible spheres. She ingests one and it completely rocks her world. Turns out her name is Crystal Palace Surname-Von Hoverkraft (yes, really!) and she’s actually a cruel kleptomaniac who uses her powers for her own gain.

“[Crystal] can see ghosts and spirits and communicate with them,” Nelson tells Tudum. “She can erase people’s memory, she can make them do things against their will. There’s more powers that she hasn’t uncovered yet as she sort of learns more about herself and who she is.”

Costume designer Dunsmore used Crystal’s style in the flashback scenes as a contrast with how she dresses in the present. “The flashbacks were so fun because she comes from money, and so we got to do all these great looks on her,” she says. “What I really wanted to show with her now is that she didn’t really know who she was. So I didn’t want her to have anything that was like, everything fits perfect, everything is pristine.”

Crystal then remembers her parents’ phone number, but when she calls them, they haven’t even noticed she’s gone. 

“She’s quite blunt and sarcastic,” says Nelson. “I think she also is quite vulnerable and sensitive, but kind of covers it with a harder exterior, which I think a lot of people probably do.”

How’s Jenny the butcher handling all this ghosty weirdness? 

After witnessing a litany of supernatural experiences, including being possessed by David the Demon, Jenny the butcher (Briana Cuoco) says she’s “reacting pretty well for someone who just found out that ghosts and goblins are real.” She’s now able to see Charles and Edwin, and she meets those snarky little Sprites (Max Jenkins and Caitlin Reilly). Jenny, alongside Niko, Crystal, and the Dead Boys are now something of a chosen family in Port Townsend, the Washington State town that’s the setting for Season 1. Rexstrew says Edwin’s character was shaped by his lack of parental figures. “I was surprised to learn from the comic books … how little inclusion there is of Edwin’s parents,” he says. “And that absence is something I took and ran with when it came to figuring out my own backstory.”

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Wait, didn’t Esther Finch die? 

Remember that giant mushroom that dragged Esther underground? Well, she survives and sheeeee’s baaaaack. Esther emerges from the ground, muddier and angrier than ever. She designs a machine that extracts suffering to increase her power and plans to capture and torture poor Edwin to take his energy. So she tracks down Charles and Edwin and the gang at Jenny’s butcher shop, blows up the meat market, and captures the boys in a magic glass box.

“They said that with the explosion scene, we had one go at it,” says Nelson. “Everyone had earplugs in and everything — they cleared the street as well. It was a real explosion... a safe explosion.”

“From the beginning we wanted to structure the ending so it had kind of two endings,” says Schwartz. “So you think that it’s over where they say their goodbyes, and then there is an entire second ending where they have to rescue Edwin and stop Esther.” 

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What’s Esther Finch’s backstory?

Niko and Crystal visit Cat King (Lukas Gage) with their cleavers drawn. Instead of battling, he gives them the lowdown on Esther’s origin story. Centuries ago, Esther and other so-called pioneers came to Port Townsend where they cut down forests and built the town. But when Esther caught her husband cheating, she became so enraged that she turned to her mother’s “books of blasphemous magic.” Esther killed her husband and his “little tart,” as Cat King calls her, using dark magic. She then sought immortality and summoned an ancient goddess named Lilith from the ocean. 

What’s the deal with Lilith?

According to Cat King, Lilith was humanity’s first woman and Adam’s wife before he hooked up with Eve. She was “tossed out of Eden for wanting equal rights” and is an avid supporter of scorned women. Lilith gave Esther eternal life, but not eternal youth; she ages but will never die. Unless Esther gains youth by feeding little girls to a big hungry snake, Cat King says she will end up “a living skeleton.” When the villagers discovered Esther’s witchiness, they ostracized her and burned down her house. But she soon learned how to blend in better, allowing her to survive (and terrorize) until present-day Port Townsend. 

What does Tragic Mick give Niko?

Cat King tells Crystal and Niko that Esther is vulnerable to enchanted black salt (volcanic ash mixed with dead sea salt) so they head to exiled walrus Tragic Mick’s (Michael Beach) cluttered shop. But he has something else for them. “Because Niko was the only person that would listen to [Tragic Mick’s] tragic backstory that he’s trying to tell for the whole season, he develops a fondness for Niko,” says Yockey. “And so when she and Crystal are headed off to face Esther, he gives her the soapstone polar bear.” 

Niko’s sensitivity is her real superpower, says Kitamura. “She loves love and she’s always so aware of what people are feeling and I think her empathy and her kindness are what make her so special.”

Tragic Mick sends them off with a “You never know when the good you do may come back around.”

Niko’s clothing reflected her journey through the series too, says Dunsmore. “If you go back and rewatch and notice whatever color she’s wearing, it fits what’s happening in that episode,” she says. “The first time we see her, she’s in the green because it’s the Sprites’ influence on her. She’s wearing blue in an episode when Jenny is mad at her, so she’s feeling blue. She’s got the orange that represents her whole moment with the Night Nurse/the Night Nurse’s red hair.” 

In the final episode, Niko wears all white because Dunsmore ran out of colors for her –– but also to reset her and further explore her connection to Japan. “We put kimono sleeves on the back of her jacket … and her obi [kimono] belt has all the charms of all the colors that she wore throughout the season.”

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Oh no! Is Niko dead?

After leaving Tragic Mick’s, Niko and Crystal sneak into Esther’s house and find Charles chained up with an iron collar. Crystal attacks Esther with the enchanted black salt, but it does nothing. Instead, an epic magic battle ensues. Meanwhile, after Monty the crow (Joshua Colley) helps free him, Charles descends into the snake’s lair to do battle with a cricket bat and a sword. 

While fighting Crystal, Esther throws a dagger in her direction, but Niko jumps in front of her. Niko falls to the ground and dies with the soapstone bear Tragic Mick gave her in her hand. “If you look on the bright side, now you have another little ghost friend,” snarks Esther. 

Off-camera, Kitamura was emotional during the scene. “I’m watching all of my friends literally cry over me,” she says. “It was an out-of-body experience where I was like, ‘Is this what it’s like to die?’ ”

But Schwartz thinks there’s something uplifting in that scene too. “We had always constructed the ending where everyone comes together to stop Esther,” she says. “Even though obviously Niko’s [death] is very sad, it’s a heroic death.” 

Adds Rexstrew, “Edwin has a real nonchalance around death. It is just a common thing for him. He’s dead. [But] what was really interesting is he’s so fond of Niko, [so her] death really affects him in the way that death affects us in real life. The season starts with two unfair deaths and it ends [with] another one.”

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Does Esther die?

Crystal uses her powers to dive into Esther’s memory, and they appear back in time where a blood-covered Esther was being tortured at the stake. Crystal knows she can pray to Lilith using any image of the goddess, so uses one in Esther’s memory to communicate. “Esther very confidently is like: ‘It’s just a memory. You can’t do anything. You’re not going to surprise me this time.’ And [Crystal’s] like, ‘I’m not here to talk to you,’ ” says Yockey. In the memory, Crystal turns around and addresses Lilith who has emerged from the water, telling her that Esther has killed many young girls. Where’s their justice? 

In the snake’s den, Charles uses some high-flying sword skills to slash the beast. “As soon as [Charles] slays the snake, it makes [Esther] turn into what she really looks like,” explains Schwartz. “So she shrivels up into sort of a skeletal old lady.”

Having heard Crystal’s plea for justice, Lilith walks through the front door and drags Esther away. 

“[Jen] is so good to be in a scene with, the way she has created all of Esther’s movements, the way she carries herself,” says Nelson. 

Rexstrew continues: “She’s meant to be the villain of this show, but [Jen] is like the biggest icon to ever walk this earth.”

Ed Araquel/Netflix

Phew, OK, so what happens to the Port Townsend friends?

The group mourns Niko at her manga and kawaii-decorated apartment and notice the Sprites are gone too, which means they’ve moved on to the afterlife with her. 

Crystal says she’s returning to London, where she will need to address her chaotic life. But she’s confident about whatever lies ahead. “I like who I am now and that’s thanks to you two,” she says. Charles and Edwin invite her to join the Dead Boy Detective agency, and she accepts. 

Crystal and Edwin butt heads in most episodes, but in the finale they become close. Dunsmore thought it was really touching that they finally connect. To showcase their friendship, she and Nelson wanted Crystal to wear a suit like Edwin’s, but it didn’t quite make sense. “Then it just came to me one day and I was like, ‘oh my God, let’s cut off her pants,’ ” she says. “Her hero iconic pants that she’s worn for the whole series, we cut a pair and made them into the same pants as Edwin’s.”

Later, Edwin visits Cat King one last time, who’s actually really nice about Niko’s death. Edwin gives him a goodbye peck on the cheek.  

As for Jenny? For now, she turns down an invitation to join the gang in London, but Charles and Crystal choose to interpret her rejection of the offer as a “hard maybe.”

Ed Araquel/Netflix

What’s next for the Dead Boy Detective agency?

Now that the amulet Cat King affixed to Edwin has been released, he can finally leave Port Townsend and return to London. “I think that’s where the Dead Boy Detectives belong,” Revi says. Rexstrew has bigger plans for the Dead Boys: “What's great is that because we’re ghosts and I can now travel through a mirror again, we can go anywhere,” he says. Kitamura agrees: “The sky’s the limit… the afterlife is the limit.”

But things have changed for the guys. 

“In Episode 7, Edwin comes out to Charles and admits that he’s in love with him,” says Schwartz. “Once we’re in the finale, there’s obviously a little hint that things will take a second to be exactly where they were, but they’re definitely on their way back to how their relationship was before. But even better –– because now Edwin can be who he really is, and has admitted something that he had been holding onto.”

Nelson agrees. “[The scene where] Charles and Edwin are on the staircase escaping hell … there’s the moment of rawness and vulnerability, which was beautifully acted and felt really true. I think it was a beautiful message on friendship and acceptance and honesty, which I love.”

While Charles seldom shows any raw emotion, his clothes reveal what he’s feeling, says Dunsmore. Throughout the series, “his polo started to get darker and then went to black and then started getting lighter again,” she says. In Episode 3, when Charles gets stuck in a time loop in a murderer’s house, he’s triggered by what’s happening and his shirt goes from red to burgundy. “And then we find out that beautiful whole story of Charles’ past, and it goes black. In the middle [of the season], he goes all black — his Harrington jacket is black, his polo is black. And then slowly he goes back to burgundy. By the end of the series, he’s back in his red again, so he goes full circle.”

Do the Dead Boys live ghostily ever after?

Nope! Night Nurse (Ruth Connell) and her supervisor (Tamlyn Tomita) appear and discover their case files. Edwin and Charles explain that they help ghosts move on to the afterlife, and the supervisor sees an opportunity. She appoints Night Nurse the Dead Boys’ chaperone in the land of the living. “You never know when the good you do may come back around,” says the supervisor. 

“[When] we started off, the stakes were very high,” says Revi about the scene written by Neil Gaiman. “We had Death in our office coming for us… and now we’re basically being let off the hook.” 

Adds Rexstrew, “We’ve obviously been on the run from Death for the whole season and this isn’t death, it’s her second-in-command, but it’s a nice moment of closure for us, isn’t it, to wrap up the season?”

Edwin and Charles welcome Night Nurse to the Dead Boy Detectives agency. “Now they have this extended family of people, which they didn’t have before; they were isolated for so long,” says Yockey. 

Schwartz agrees after everything they’ve gone through this season, there’s comfort in the ending. “It should leave you with hope and wanting more, wanting to see this new team.”

Wait, is that Niko in the igloo?!

Just when you think it’s over, there’s more! In the FINAL, final scene, we are transported to a lonely igloo, where Niko sits by the fire with the two Sprites. “It was really tight and snug in there,” Kitamura says.  In her hand, she’s grasping the soapstone figurine. “She has it when she’s killed by Esther,” Yockey explains. “The soapstone polar bear pulls her soul out of her body and sends it to the astral plane. And the astral plane is where we find her and the Dandelion Sprites in the igloo at the very end.”

Dunsmore says Niko’s outfit included an adorable detail. “The little parka has a walrus inlaid on it,” she says. “She always had that connection with Tragic Mick when he gave her the little soapstone. When I saw that little ’70s parka and it had a walrus on it, I was like, ‘she has to wear this!’ ”

Yockey called Kitamura at the beginning of production and shared the bad — and good — news: “He told me, ‘Niko’s going to die, but not die, die,’ ” says Kitamura. “He was like, ‘It’s not a death, because if it was a real death, I would have to give you a different kind of phone call.’ So I was like, ‘OK, she’s safe.’ ” 

Adds Rexstrew, “You can’t kill characters often on our show.” It’s just like Edwin tells Niko at the beginning of the final episode: “Take it from a ghost: No one is ever gone.”

Why are the Sprites in the igloo with Niko?

“The Sprites are connected to Niko,” Schwartz says. “We see how they are part of her from Episode 2. And so when Niko takes the dagger to the chest and she’s holding the polar bear, they just follow wherever she goes. They’re pulled with her.”

So, what’s next for the Sprites?

Why don’t we turn it over to them to tell you in their own words?

Caitlin Reilly: I really just want to know their backstory. I really just want to know where they came from.

Max Jenkins: What made them this way? Who hurt them?

Reilly: Yeah, I think, like, a stand-alone miniseries would make sense.

Jenkins: Or just long series, just plain-old series.

Reilly: I’d love for the second season to revolve around us. I’m not opposed to Parker Posey being in Season 2 of Dead Boys.

Jenkins: I want her to go to London and Japan with us.

Reilly: Be like our mother. Rupert Everett’s daddy.

Jenkins: Luggage! We could also have a luggage [line] —Rimowa x Sprites. And we would love to continue to astral-project through the greater United States and maybe all of Europe as well. Maybe Asia.

Reilly: Because the time difference would be really easy coming west.

Jenkins: But the shopping would be meaningful for the Sprites in Japan.

Reilly: Do a shopping montage in Japan? Stop. Stop it right now. I think the Sprites would really love Japan.

Jenkins: Sprites lend themselves to makeover. We have a very strong look now, but wait until you see look No. 2.

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