Parents' Guide to

Deadly Class

By Joyce Slaton, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Young-psychos-in-training series has violence, language.

TV Syfy Drama 2019
Deadly Class Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

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age 15+

Based on 5 parent reviews

cts.7991
cts.7991 Adult
January 28, 2022
age 18+

Not a kids show, BARELY a teens show

Yes, the plot is fantastic. Yes, the characters are interesting. Yes it's exciting and well made. None of the other reviews are wrong about that. But you didn't come to this site to read about that. Let's be real here. This is a very gritty, dark, and violent show about kids learning to kill the bad people in the world in hopes to make it a better place. It reaaaaaally plays with morality with many of the messages and themes being that killing CAN be justified if you kill people that deserve it. Even as an adult, that's a tough theme to wrestle with. Role models? None. Yes, there are pretty bad*** women. But they kill people too, manipulate people, and use their sex appeal to do their assignments. Just because a woman can kick butt, doesn't mean she's a good role model. Beyond the obvious killing and very brutal scenes, there's plenty of alcohol, drugs, and sex to go around. Characters swing dildos around while drunk, condoms float in fish tanks, and there is even a scene were a cop walks in on the villain um....well....it was at a farm. I dunno where these other reviewers are getting that there was no sex. There was plenty, even if the camera never caught them in the act. Watch with extreme caution. It's a great show but know what you're getting into. I won't say I didn't warn you.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
1 person found this helpful.
Kalei
Kalei Parent of 13, 14 and 18+-year-old
June 3, 2022
age 13+

I would recommend

This title has:

Great messages
Too much violence
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
See all 5 parent reviews

What's the Story?

At the mysterious Kings Dominion school for teens, murder and mayhem are the only syllabus for each DEADLY CLASS. Marcus (Benjamin Wadsworth) is your typical average just-set-fire-to-an-orphanage-and-killed-12-people teen living on the streets in 1987 San Francisco when he gets a strange visitor: "You don't have to be alone," says Saya (Lana Condor), as she takes him to his new school/home/family, under the direction of brutal Master Lin (Benedict Wong). The kids there study dark arts, hand-to-hand combat, and poison, not English and physics. And with life's deck stacked against him, Marcus feels like this is where he belongs, this is where he can make his greatest dream come true: to assassinate Ronald Reagan.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5 ):
Kids say (19 ):

Violent and visually beautiful, this melding of Harry Potter, Suicide Squad, and X-Men comes off as less than a sum of its parts because its dramatic beats are too familiar, its point of view too basic. At this point, the idea of a school for super-powered misfits, even violent killers from criminal families, is a narrative cliché; only truly creative writing could lift it out of its been-there-done-that status. But unfortunately, that's not on offer here. The problems are crystallized in the first episode of Deadly Class, with Marcus landing himself in hot water with one of the school's violent gangs when he tries to protect a female classmate he believes to be abused by her violent boyfriend.

There's a concept in comic book fandom known as "fridging," in which female characters are abused, raped, and/or killed merely as a convenient reason for their male love interests to fight villains. Fridging turns female characters into objects, and male ones into verbs; neither are given humanity. So why start what's advertised as something cool and new with something old and tired? Surely in a school for murderers, a deadly female character could protect herself. And male characters shouldn't need a trumped-up reason to look or act heroic. With these kinds of tiresome and regressive ideas anchoring the action, no amount of thick black eyeliner, teens ultra-violencing each other, or alterna-'80s songs on the soundtrack can make this show look fresh and cool. Instead it mainly feels like a waste of good actors and art direction. P.S.: You really had to call one class the "Dark Arts"? Really? You didn't think about maybe picking another name? No one in the writers' room said, "Hey, wasn't that what Snape wanted to teach?" Shrug. Well, OK.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the violence in Deadly Class. How does the violence compare to that of other superhero movies or shows? What impact does media violence have on kids?

  • What does the word "antihero" mean? Why are antiheroes appealing? What sets them apart from "regular" heroes?

  • Are any of the Deadly Class students role models? Why or why not?

TV Details

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Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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