The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 2: The Mourning After (2026) – Review
For a second there I thought I’d have to withdaw my claims of The Boroughs not simply being Stranger Things with old people…
I mean, with a cursory glance at the second eposode it certainly looks like that certainly could be the case as the individual characters are now starting to slowly approach the central mystery from multiple angles as they unknowingly pick away at an otherworldly conspiracy that’s all around them. But while The Boroughs seems to be taking a familiar route, the very fact that it’s old age pensioners that we’re following is what makes all the difference. While it’s regrettably true that there’s a more than equal chance the elderly would be ignored just as much as overstimulated kids, the fact that they’re near the end of their lives adds a sense of poignancy to proceedings that shines ever brighter in episode 2. I mean, if they’ve killed Bill Pullman off already, surely no one is safe.
In the wake of Jack’s death, Sam is understandably uncertain about how to proceed. You see, while the official cause of death is a heart attack, Sam can’t seem to find the ways to explain the inhuman lifeform he fought with last night after he discovered it feeding off of his neighbour’s life force or something. After his shaky claims of an animal attack are ignored, he tries to get answers by visiting the mentally frail Edward to try and discover what he meant when he blurted out “The Owl is in the walls” during that earlier home invasion.
Meanwhile, it’s become fairly apparent that Jack was having an affair with Judy who is taking his death incredibly hard, but can’t show it unless her husband Art finds out. But what’s doubly tragic is that not only does Art know, but he had accepted it despite worrying that she had fallen in love with him. But while he sneaks away from the Boroughs every day under cover of a golf trip in order to grow magic mushrooms, he experiences a bizarre phenomenon that sees thousands of crows commit mass suicide as they drive themselves into the ground. Elsewhere, Renee discovers that not only does she have an ally in new security member Paz when trying to figure out who’s been stealing quartz items from residents, but she finds that he’s looking for a bit of romance too. But slightly less upbeat is the fact that Wally is desperately trying to look into other, alternative treatments for the stage 4 cancer he’s slowly dying from.
But bringing things back to Sam, after Edward tells him that he “caught one” and that “the key is in the light”, the newest resident of the Boroughs tears his house apart looking for clues. However, his biggest breakthrough comes from screwing around with a sample of blood he got from the creature when he belted it with a hammer. With Wally looking on, Sam discovers that remarkable things happen when it’s placed too close to his television set – things that are seemingly out of this world.
So I suppose we should start with the rather surprising twist that Bill Pullman’s Jack has been killed off already after only the first episode. While it’s always good to keep an audience on its toes, I have to say, taking out President Thomas J. Whitmore from Independence Day so early managed to genuinely catch me by surprise, so I guess that’s a point to The Boroughs already. However, while the death manages to keep things moving a little different to that “other” Netflix show, the loss of a seemingly major character before the sci-fi plot even gets started manages to hit home that feeling that becomes prevalent whenever you reach a certain age – death will come for you eventually, and not at the hands of a spidery alien thing.
This gives us the chance to get to know our group of mature citizens a little more intimately as they all react to Jack’s “passing” in different ways. Obviously, what with there being a conspiracy to unravel, Sam snaps into detective mode as his engineer brain struggles to make sense of the things he’s seen and thus it compells him to return to the Manor and question Edward, despite his brain having all the cognitive powers of a sloppy blancmange. All he gets for his troubles are seemingly nonsense phrases that he manages to decode as Edward once managed to capture one of these creatures and that the clues lay within one of the light fixtures in Sam’s house. From here he resorts to some Joyce Byers house remodelling as he rips his house apart to make sense of whatever the hell is going on. But while Sam is busying himself with making sense of it all (him finding the idol from Raiders Of The Lost Ark in Edward’s storage locker is a beautiful nod), the rest of the cast deal in their own way.
While Renee strives to solve a mystery of her own (stolen quartz trinkets), her life-loving attitude and sassy smile has attracted the attention of Paz the security guard, who is already going over the head of his shady boss, Hank, and trying for a dinner date with the amused woman. Elsewhere we find Wally struggling with his own mortality as he grasps at various straws concerning his treatment and even goes so far to purchase his own coffin (why the fuck would a casket need a memory form lining?), but most tragic of all is Judy.
It seems that our hunch was correct as she really was having an affair with Jack and the way Alfre Woodard portrays her grief is nothing short of heartbreaking. Unable to mourn in public due to the secrecy of their relationship, she’s forced to carry this late in life tragedy all on her own. But while we discover that her husband’s frequent “golf trips” were mere cover stories in order to steal away and tend to his magic mushrooms, it turns out that Art’s known about the tryst all along, but has seemingly allowed it in order to allow his wife to be happy. However, it seems to have backfires as he openly wonders if she was in love with him and it a perfect example of the strange, intertwined drama that occurs when you’re in the winter of your life cycle.
Of course, we can’t leave until we’ve had that last minute burst of extraterrestrial wonder, and in true Spielberg fashion we end on a blast of awe as Sam and Wally’s experiments on the alien blood causes a light show that’s one part Close Encounters to two parts Prometheus and it ends up being the perfect cherry on the cake to an episode that not only turns the mystery up a notch, but has us already genuinely feeling for these characters as their various mature problems and coping methods are a damn sight more moving than a kid getting upset that his friends won’t play D&D anymore.
While things are understandably still moving slow, the familiarity of the mystery plot is enlivened by the surprise of Pullman’s premature exit (a common problem of men his age), the determination of Alfred Molina’s Sam and the sheer sadness of Woodard’s Judy. However, as the pieces will soon start connecting, hopefully we’ll get the ensemble together and moving in the same direction soon. After all, none of us are getting any younger…
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 1: Welcome To The Boroughs (2026) – Review
Growing old can be tough. Your joints freeze up, your brain fogs over and the world in general regards you as something of a nuisance rather that regarding you a font of wisdom, but hoping to address that balance is Netflix’s newest sci-fi show, The Boroughs. While some have taken the presence of the Duffer Brothers on producer duties as their cue to proclaim the show rather tritely as Stranger Things with old people, much like the aging characters located within there’s a little more under the hood than some may give it credit for.
Feeling more like they’ve taken the elderly camaraderie Ron Howard mined from Cocoon and thrown it headlong into the extraterrestrial paranoia of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, series creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (who also cooked up the unfairly under-appreciated Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance) are obviously treading in the footsteps of the denizens of Hawkins, but can they make our stay at The Boroughs a pleasurable one?
Widower Sam Cooper is being driven by his family to the Boroughs, a state of the art retirement community and he’s feeling plenty sore about it. You see, his beloved wife, Lily, had arranged for them to move there before a stroke tragically took her life and since Sam can’t get out of the contract, he’s being forced to go there alone and the sullen and grieving man doesn’t mind showing how he feels about it.
However, even though the curmudgeon hates the place, you gave to admit that the Boroughs is an impressive set up. Located in the New Mexico dessert, the bungalows are all spacious and neighbourhoods are all clean and picturesque and if any of the residents take something of a turn, the Manor ensures they are kept comfortable and safe while their minds and bodies finally wind down. But despite this, Sam still wants out of his contract, even when he’s approached by some of the friendlier locals.
However, sinister vibes occur when one night Sam is visited by Edward, the visibly muddled husband of Grace who both used to live in Sam’s house before he moved there. Thanks to an ominous cold open, we already know that a horrible and other-worldy fate occurred to his wife, but after the confused man wounds Sam with a knife, the local authorities arrive to take him back to the Manor.
The the wake of his attack, Sam is even more adamant he wants to leave and even confronts the Borough’s CEO, Blaine Shaw to get him out of his contract. But after neighbour Jack Willard convinces him to join a barbecue to welcome him, Sam begrudgingly finds himself warming to the spirited group made up of the flirty Renee; retired journalist, Judy and her weed puffing hubby, Art and good-natured cancer sufferer, Wally. But after a hair-raising close encounter with a creature that seems to be feeding on Jack, it seems that the Boroughs is hiding some surprising secrets.
Sometimes there’s nothing more satisfying than a good, solid first episode to lock you in to a brand new series. Not to belabour the comparisons to Stranger Things, but while the show turns out to be far more than just being a copy of that show that switches out teens for pensioners, you can’t help but be reminded of how good the opening episode of the Duffer Brothers’ pop culture smash really was. Much like the installment that introduced us to Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, “Welcome To The Boroughs” smartly lays out the scenario and all the characters with similar skill. Yes, there’s something of an argument to be made that some of the plotting follows the Netflix pilot manual to the letter (freaky opening, set-up, character intros, main character drama, closing shock), but when something works as well as this, why screw around with it?
Straight off the bat, we get some smart stunt casting after we witness Dee Wallace’s ill-fated Grace have a messed up run-in with some sort of spider-limbed being that end up being far nastier than both E.T. or the Krites from Critters. But while the whatever-it-is may vaguely recall every gangly-limbed creature we’ve seen in everything from 10 Cloverfield Lane to No One Will Save You, it’s still just enough creepy stuff to get you through an entire episode of set-up. However, the cool thing is that this introduction to the world of The Boroughs doesn’t actually need it to hold the interest as the characters and performances are more than enough.
Taking point is Alfred Molina’s Sam, a man who, by his own admission, found other people fairly tiresome even before his wife tragically died and while he’s obviously suffering PTSD from the event that only transpired five months earlier and is triggered by such things as Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road or the sight of someome choking, the actor still manages to project a gooey, wounded, interior under that crunchy, belligerent exterior.
Aiding him is a mature cast who also portray the typical, life loving types you tend to find in these sorts of things (again, Cocoon seems to be a major touchstone here) and while subsequent episodes will flesh them out more (depending on how long they survive, of course), everyone gets a good showing. Geena Davis grabs her colourful, quirky character with both hands, American Horror Story regular Denis O’Hare is fast with the quips, Independence Day veteran Bill Pullman is the resident ladies man, Clarke Peters quotes philosophy from under a cloud of weed smoke and Alfre Woodard’s journalist leanings will no doubt become invaluable as the mystery slowly unravels. You can tell that all their talents and quirks will all come to bear as the creeping, crawling things gradually slink into the light, but while the central conspiracy will no doubt dictate the plot more and more, watching these retirees deal with their advancing years proves to be genuinely endearing. All the little details are there (the flame decor on Sam’s golf cart is a winner even if he doesn’t agree) and with other threads waiting to blossom (the fact that Jack may be having an affair with Judy and Wally’s stage-four cancer will surely rise to prominence), but as we end the episode with Sam coming face to face with one of the multi-legged “Owls” as it appears to be leeching off Jack, there’s still plenty of intrigue to keep us going as the secrets behind the Boroughs slowly get exposed.
While the opening salvo of The Boroughs may not break the mold, any accusations of merely being an “aged up” Stranger Things are smartly vanquished by some winning performances by Molina and a similarly game cast. Whether or not it can manage to become as big a household name as that other show will remain to be seen, but it’s certainly proving the worth of the elderly when it comes to streaming shows.
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