Review: The Boroughs is a smart, pitch-perfect creature feature - Ars Technica

Overview

Review: The Boroughs is a smart, pitch-perfect creature feature

Top-notch ensemble cast, smart writing, and an engrossing supernatural mystery make for a winning combo.

Details

The Duffer brothers wrapped up their blockbuster series Stranger Things earlier this year and also departed Netflix for a lucrative new production deal with Paramount. But a couple of their production projects remain with Netflix: the animated series Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, which dropped in April to mixed reviews; and the newly released The Boroughs, a supernatural thriller set in a retirement community in the New Mexico desert. I’m happy to report that The Boroughs is a creative home run, with a smart, witty script, terrific ensemble cast, and engrossing central mystery.

Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina) is a recently widowed, retired aeronautical engineer who (very) reluctantly moves into The Boroughs retirement community. It was his late wife’s choice to move there, and the company refuses to let him out of the contract he co-signed when Lilly (Jane Kaczmarek) was still alive. So he’s grumpy about the whole arrangement, snapping at his long-suffering daughter, Claire (Jena Malone) and pretty much anyone else who crosses his path.

Sam’s attitude softens when he meets his neighbor Jack (Bill Pullman), whose relentless good humor and generosity has made him a favorite in the community (especially with the ladies). Jack introduces Sam to his inner circle: Art and Judy (Clarke Peters and Alfre Woodard); retired doctor Wally (Denis O’Hare), who has terminal prostate cancer; and retired music manager Renee (Geena Davis). Sam decides to stay, despite the fact that he was attacked by one of the former occupants of his house, Edward (Ed Begley, Jr.), who suffers from advanced dementia and keeps insisting there is an “owl in the walls,” accusing Sam of being “one of them.”

Edward’s mind might be crumbling, but he’s not wrong about something sinister lurking beneath the idyllic facade of The Boroughs. The pilot episode’s cold open showed Edward’s (now deceased) wife, Grace (Dee Wallace) being attacked by a mysterious spindly creature in the middle of the night. Someone (or something) has been stealing all things quartz in the community. Art witnesses a flock of crows suddenly dash themselves into the ground in the surrounding desert for no apparent reason.

And then the creature comes for Jack. Sam discovers the thing crouched over his new friend’s lifeless body, seemingly feeding off him. It’s a bold move to kill off a major star’s character at the end of the first episode, but it certainly establishes the stakes. Because Jack was so beloved, his loss becomes the linchpin for the surviving neighbors to work together to solve the mystery of how and why he died.

It’s nice to see Netflix embracing senior-themed series of late, starting with the two seasons (thus far) of A Man on the Inside, an excellent comedy drama that also features a grieving widower (Ted Danson) figuring out how to rebuild his post-retirement life. There’s a vast amount of world-class 60+ acting talent out there, and The Boroughs’ stellar cast proves it.

These are meaty roles with broad emotional ranges. Sam breaking down to Jack is a highlight of episode 1. He rants about how his wife is dead and yet somehow everyone just goes right on living their lives, oblivious to her loss, while he bottles up his overwhelming grief. Jack responds with gentle hard-won wisdom that earns a tearful smile from Sam. It’s an entirely believable exchange played to perfection by Molina and Pullman.

The retirement community setting lends itself naturally to delving into themes of grief, aging, and fear of death, with the monster serving as a central metaphor—although the characters do find themselves grappling with who the real monsters might be. The series also holds a mirror up to how our society undervalues seniors. When Sam et al. uncover the truth about The Boroughs, they can’t just broadcast it to the authorities or the media, because nobody would believe them. People would just assume they were going senile or suffering from dementia, and they’d find themselves prisoners in The Manor—the community’s pastel-hued memory ward—courtesy of the machinations of CEO Blaine Shaw (Seth Numrich) and his wife Anneliese (Alice Kremelberg).

Speaking of The Manor, viewers of a certain age might find it jarring to see the elderly residents of the memory ward enthusiastically belting out Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” on karaoke night. But it tracks: Born to Run was released in 1975, i.e, 51 years ago, and Springsteen himself turns 77 this year. The song is threaded throughout the season: Sam and his late wife were dancing to it when she collapsed from a sudden stroke, so it holds special emotional significance.

The Boroughs works perfectly as a standalone one-off, but the finale does leave several nagging questions unanswered and hints at a possible second chapter for our plucky protagonists. The supernatural ongoings could be much bigger than this season’s classic creature feature. The Duffer brothers served solely as executive producers for the series, and it’s not clear if they would still be involved. But if co-creators/showrunners Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews can successfully flesh out the broader mythology and embed it in another compelling mystery, I’m definitely down for more.

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Key Takeaways

• Review: The Boroughs is a smart, pitch-perfect creature feature

• Top-notch ensemble cast, smart writing, and an engrossing supernatural mystery make for a winning combo

• The Duffer brothers wrapped up their blockbuster series Stranger Things earlier this year and also departed Netflix for a lucrative new production deal with Paramount

• Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina) is a recently widowed, retired aeronautical engineer who (very) reluctantly moves into The Boroughs retirement community

• Sam’s attitude softens when he meets his neighbor Jack (Bill Pullman), whose relentless good humor and generosity has made him a favorite in the community (especially with the ladies)