Charles Rowland is a character in the Netflix fantasy-horror teen detective series Dead Boy Detectives, based on the characters originally created by Neil Gaiman for DC Comics. He is played by Jayden Revri.
Charles is many things. He’s a British teenager with a kind of free-spirited, punk-rock vibe. He’s a skilled detective with a strong desire to help people. He’s bisexual. And he’s also a ghost who’s been dead for more than 35 years, though he’s frozen in time at the age he was when he died: 16. Together with his best friend Edwin Payne (played by George Rextrew), he runs the Dead Boy Detective Agency, investigating supernatural mysteries while evading Death and her underlings. Since he and Edwin both died as the result of bullying (though many decades apart), and their murders went unsolved and uninvestigated, they’ve refused the pass on to the afterlife, and have instead dedicated themselves to helping those who have been forgotten.
Charles is the perfect complement to Edwin as a character, friend, and partner. Where Edwin is somber, serious, methodical, and prim, Charles is easy-going, quick with a laugh and a smile, and prone to (sometimes reckless) improvisation. As it turns out, both boys are carrying serious trauma with them — from their lives, deaths, and, in some cases, literally Hellish experiences after death. Edwin copes by turning in on himself. Charles puts on a mask of gregarious amusement. But inside, the circumstances of his death and the memories of his life being beaten by a cruel father still haunt him. Over the course of the show’s first (and only) season, both boys find a way to exorcise some of their demons, including, for Edwin, his repressed sexuality.
Stepping into his own as a gay man, Edwin comes out by telling Charles he’s in love with him. Charles greets the confession with pure acceptance, though he says he doesn’t feel the same way, and their friendship only grows stronger as a result. Charles, for his part, has a romance arc with the show’s third co-star, a young woman with psychic powers named Crystal Palace, but it ends with them just being friends. At the same time, Charles has a queer-coded way of dressing, carrying himself, and speaking, and shares moments of closeness with Edwin throughout the story that suggest a spark of something more than just friendship waiting to be kindled. More than that, Charles is canonically bisexual in the comics.
Dead Boy Detectives was clearly building toward a romance between the two male leads, however before it could be fully developed, the show was canceled after a single eight-episode season. There has been a tremendous outcry from the show’s loyal fans, but it remains to be seen whether the show — and its burgeoning bi love plot — will be brought back to life.