“Welcome to the Boroughs, where you’ll have the time of your life.”
That’s the tagline for the titular retirement community in Netflix‘s new series The Boroughs, but it’s also how I’ve been recommending this sci-fi treat to anyone who will listen.
The series draws heavily from Ron Howard’s 1985 film Cocoon, as well as Steven Spielberg’s Amblin films. That emphasis on ’80s nostalgia shouldn’t come as a shock, given that The Boroughs is produced by Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers. Still, The Boroughs creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews manage to shake things up from the Stranger Things and Amblin formulas. With the help of a modern setting and a cast of formidable legends, The Boroughs tells a meaningful tale about aging and grieving, all wrapped up in an irresistible adventure.
What is The Boroughs about?
Denis O’Hare, Alfred Molina, and Alfre Woodard in “The Boroughs.”
Credit: Netflix
The Boroughs doesn’t hesitate to pay tribute to its inspirations. Its very first scene introduces Grace, a Boroughs resident played by E.T. star Dee Wallace. Unfortunately for E.T. fans, Wallace’s character is not long for this world. As night falls over the seemingly idyllic New Mexico retirement community, a spindly legged creature sneaks into her house. Part spider, part human, all terrifying, it spirits Grace away, never to be seen again.
It’s a suitably spooky opening sequence, albeit one that may give away too much of The Boroughs‘ monsters, too fast. (Of all the Spielberg movies for The Boroughs to draw from, Jaws and its monster-hiding tactics don’t appear to be at the top of the list.) However, Grace’s death also frees up a new house in the Boroughs, making way for grieving widower Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina) to move in.
Sam was originally meant to move to the Boroughs with his late wife, Lilly (Jane Kaczmarek). Now, just months after her death, there’s nothing he wants less than to live alone in the house they were going to spend the rest of their lives in. Despite what his uber-friendly neighbor Jack (Bill Pullman) might tell him, he doesn’t view the Boroughs as a new beginning, only a dead end.
However, a shocking encounter with the creature that offed Grace might just be the new beginning Sam was so resistant to. He launches an investigation into what’s truly lurking in the Boroughs, and manages to find an unlikely community along the way.
The Boroughs introduces an instantly lovable adventuring crew.
Clarke Peters, Alfre Woodard, Alfred Molina, Denis O’Hare, and Geena Davis in “The Boroughs.”
Credit: Netflix
Played to curmudgeonly perfection by Molina, Sam is one of several irresistible retirees you’ll meet in The Boroughs. As a former engineer, he bonds with former doctor Wally (Denis O’Hare) over the science of identifying and perhaps even capturing the creature.
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Married couple Judy (Alfre Woodard) and Art (Clarke Peters) have different ways into the case. Once a journalist, Judy is ready to snoop on the suspicious scientific activity coming from Sam’s end of their cul-de-sac. Meanwhile, yoga and weed lover Art spends his time on a spiritual quest for life’s great meaning, potentially finding it in an unexplained phenomenon in the desert beyond the Boroughs’ walls. Rounding out the crew is the Boroughs’ community center art teacher Renee (Geena Davis), who’s confused as to why her bags of quartz keeps going missing.
In Stranger Things fashion, each party assembles different pieces of a vast and supernatural puzzle. It’s incredibly satisfying to finally watch them come together, but even apart, these amateur sleuths shine. Each performer in this cast of legends is clearly having a blast, whether they’re jerry-rigging a weapon out of vintage TVs or getting a chance to do their best Spielberg face of shock and awe. (The latter is accentuated by John Paesano’s John Williams inspired-score, which evokes whimsy and adventure in spades.)
The show has that same fun right beside its cast. Even in some of its scariest moments, there’s a playfulness, like in a suspenseful shadow play sequence involving a lurking monster. Elsewhere, The Boroughs delights in referencing its cast’s prior work. At one point, a car drives off a cliff, Thelma and Louise-style, and yes, Davis is present at the scene.
It’s also a joy to watch older characters take on adventures usually reserved for younger characters. The Boroughs’ residents are certainly in conversation with groups like the Stranger Things party, Elliott and his friends in E.T., and IT‘s Losers Club. Yet there’s a deeper pathos to their storyline, as Sam and his friends reckon with their nearing mortality, their waning health, and the losses of their friends and family becoming common occurrences.
The Boroughs‘ frankness about aging will leave you weepy.
Alfred Molina and Denis O’Hare in “The Boroughs.”
Credit: Netflix
Rarely an episode of The Boroughs passed without me getting teary-eyed, especially because of its focus on Sam’s grief.
Lilly may already be dead by the time The Boroughs begins, but she’s a steady presence in the show. Sam is consistently haunted by memories of their last day together, and what I initially assumed to be clichéd dead wife flashbacks soon morph into something so much more, at once plot-relevant and devastating.
The evolution of Sam’s painful memories is one of the many ways in which The Boroughs takes aging and loss seriously. It weaves these elements into its central mystery, right down to its sinister antagonists’ anti-aging agenda (and how the monsters play into it).
One of The Boroughs‘ particularly affecting threads concerns the Manor, a long-term care facility for residents who need more attention. This includes dementia patients, whom the show treats with respect and empathy, even if their cruel caretakers don’t. Though The Boroughs teems with spooky creatures and the occasional jump scare, its most unsettling moments are those in which older characters experience the loss of their faculties, or when their caretakers or family members dismiss them.
Between its examination of dementia and its tale of a reclusive retiree finding community, The Boroughs feels like a sci-fi version of another stellar Netflix offering: A Man on the Inside. The Boroughs may have 100 percent more monster attacks, but it also has A Man on the Inside‘s same compassion when it comes to telling stories of retirees living fulfilling, adventurous lives.
Yes, in terms of pure adventure, The Boroughs establishes itself as the spiritual successor to the best parts of Stranger Things. But it’s the show’s embrace of its older ensemble, in all their joy and grief, that sets it apart and makes it truly worthy of that Spielberg-style awe its characters experience so often.
The Boroughs is now streaming on Netflix.
