The Boroughs Review: I Binge-Watched Netflix's Pitch-Perfect Creature Feature

It's a genre gem. While the Duffer brothers departed Netflix earlier this year for a lucrative deal with a rival studio, they delivered a final project that outshines their only remaining work, the mixed-reception animated series Stranger Things: Tales from '85. So the Boroughs review's unequivocal: this supernatural thriller, set in a New Mexico desert retirement community, is a creative home run with a smart witty script, a terrific ensemble cast, and an engrossing central mystery.

A Widower Walks Into the Desert

Sam Cooper, played with gruff precision by Alfred Molina, is a recently widowed retired aeronautical engineer. He moves into The Boroughs against his will. The contract was signed when his wife Lilly was still alive, and the company refuses to let him back out. So he arrives bitter, snapping at his long-suffering daughter Claire and pretty much anyone else in his orbit. Grief sits on him like a second skin. Then he meets his neighbor Jack.

Bill Pullman's Jack is all relentless good humor and unforced generosity. He has become the unofficial favorite of the community, especially among the women, and he wastes no time pulling Sam into his inner circle. That circle includes Art and Judy, a retired doctor named Wally who is battling terminal prostate cancer, and Renee, a former music manager played by Geena Davis. The ensemble clicks from the first shared scene.

Meet the Inner Circle

• Art and Judy, played by Clarke Peters and Alfre Woodard
• Wally, a retired doctor with terminal prostate cancer, played by Denis O'Hare
• Renee, a former music manager, played by Geena Davis
• Jack, the beloved linchpin of the group, played by Bill Pullman

But something is wrong beneath the polished surface of The Boroughs. The pilot's cold open shows the previous occupant of Sam's house, a woman named Grace, being attacked in the middle of the night by something spindly and strange. Her husband Edward, now suffering from advanced dementia, keeps ranting about an "owl in the walls" and accusing Sam of being "one of them." His mind may be crumbling but his warnings are not hallucinations. Someone has been stealing every piece of quartz in the community. Art watches a flock of crows dash themselves inexplicably into the desert floor.

The Big Swing at Episode One

The Boroughs review must pause here to acknowledge what the show pulls off at the end of its first episode. It kills Jack. Sam discovers the creature crouched over his new friend's lifeless body, feeding. A major star's character is gone before the opening credits of episode two, and the decision is as bold as it is effective. Jack's death becomes the linchpin. His loss forces the surviving neighbors to work together and solve the mystery of how and why he died.

The Boroughs is a creative home run, with a smart, witty script, terrific ensemble cast, and engrossing central mystery.

Alfred Molina delivers one of the episode's standout scenes when Sam breaks down to Jack before the tragedy, ranting his wife's dead and the world keeps spinning, oblivious, while he bottles grief. It's entirely believable. And Jack's gentle, hard-won wisdom earns a tearful smile in an exchange played to perfection by both actors.

Age and Invisibility

The show holds an unflinching mirror to how society undervalues seniors. When Sam and his allies begin to uncover the truth about The Boroughs, they face a wall of silence. They cannot broadcast their findings to the authorities. They cannot run to the media. Nobody would believe them. People would assume senility or dementia had taken hold, and they would find themselves prisoners in The Manor, the community's pastel-hued memory ward, courtesy of CEO Blaine Shaw and his wife Anneliese.

But that framing misses something. The Boroughs review reveals a show less interested in simple victimhood than in the quiet ferocity of people who refuse to be dismissed. These are meaty roles with broad emotional ranges. The cast proves that the pool of world-class acting talent over sixty runs deep and remains criminally underused.

Why Thunder Road Hits Different

The series threads Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" throughout its entire season. Viewers of a certain age might find it jarring to see elderly residents of the memory ward belting out the song on karaoke night. But the math checks out. Born to Run was released in 1975, fifty-one years ago. Springsteen himself turns seventy-seven this year. For Sam, the song carries extra weight: he and his late wife were dancing to it when she collapsed from a sudden stroke.

The Door Left Open

The Boroughs works perfectly as a standalone one-off, but the finale leaves several nagging questions unanswered. Hints of a broader mythology linger at the edges. The supernatural ongoings could be much bigger than this season's classic creature feature. The Duffer brothers served solely as executive producers here, and it remains unclear whether they would stay involved in a potential second chapter. Co-creators and showrunners Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews would need to flesh out that mythology and embed it in another compelling mystery.

The Boroughs review ends with a simple hope: that they get the chance. Here is the part worth emphasizing. Netflix has lately shown an appetite for senior-themed series, with two seasons of the excellent comedy drama A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson as a grieving widower rebuilding his post-retirement life.

• Grief, aging, and fear of death woven into the monster narrative
• A creature that serves as a central metaphor, with the characters questioning who the real monsters are
• A retirement community setting that doubles as both sanctuary and trap
• An ensemble of veteran actors given the kind of material they deserve

What The Boroughs review makes abundantly clear is that genre storytelling gains something vital when it centers on characters the industry usually ignores. The monster is terrifying. The mystery is gripping. But the people are what stick with you.