The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 8: Triple Audible (2026) – Review

Over the past seven episodes of The Boroughs, we’ve come to meet a gang of mature heroes who have shown us that age is only a state of mind and that advancing years shouldn’t mean someone should be written off like a wrecked car when they still have so much more to give. It’s a timely message, but regardless of this, the end will eventually come to us all and it’s certainly come to Netflix’s latest show.
But how does The Boroughs go out after a season of sci-fi hijinks? Is it a spirited affair that goes out while still full of life and vigor, or does it run out of steam and just slowly grind to an exhausted stop?
While I’m not expecting anything like a massive cliffhanger to hint at future seasons, a good, solid ending would probably do everyone a world of good; I mean, all the Stranger Things kids had to worry about was not looking like they were in their twenties in the long stretches between adventures, I’m not sure you’re gonna get five seasons in ten years out of these guys…

The mission to free the alien Mother and end the murderous conspiracy of the Boroughs is well under way. Despite breaking Sam out of the Manor, the gang’s escape is put on pause when Renee gets a call from Wally who demands they all turn back and re-enter the retirement home that’s trying to kill them. It seems that Wally’s burst of conscience has caused him to remove the ailing alien matriarch from her lab and get her to a place where she won’t be poked and prodded by opportunistic, wannabe immortals.
However, after getting Mother to his friends, we discover that Wally’s ultimate plan is also to have Mother poked and prodded, but in the name of good to explore all the vaccines and cures her miracle biology could provide. But the cancer suffering doctor is dismayed to discover from her mental link with Sam that all she wants to do now, is die.
Trapped in the Boroughs, the gang split once more to facilitate the alien’s wishes. Sam, Wally and Claire attempt to get Mother to the peach located in the tunnels located under their very feet while Renee and Paz break back in to the main facility to release Mother’s captive children. But after Judy and Art’s job to stall a desperate Blaine Shaw and his equally worried staff end with the former reporter fatally stabbed by Anneliese Shaw, time becomes a much more intense factor.
Can Sam get Mother to her final resting place? Can those TV set he rigged up ages ago finally do some good? Or will the sheer fear of death that the Shaws feel lead them to ultimately triumph, continue to go on living forever and feeding off the elderly? The Boroughs may be celebrating its 75 year anniversary, but it, and a whole lot more, could end on this very night.

So I have to say that, despite thoroughly enjoying The Burroughs for the lion’s share of its run, “Triple Audible” ends up being something of a weak ending for a season that’s done exemplary work differentiating itself from the tonally and narratively similar Stranger Things. While I wasn’t expecting giant monsters, worlds hanging in the balance and a twinge of excited dread in my belly that believes anything could happen, the finale ends up being predictable and even a fairly bit sloppy in it’s execution. To be fair, if you were even a remotely bit savvy to the influences The Boroughs wore proudly on its sleeve, there was a chance that you also were about two steps ahead of the show as it barrelled along – in fact, the familiarity it brought only added to the fun ambience the show has cultivated. However, it’s ultimately meant that not only do we get a closing episode that’s disappointingly predictable, but it’s also one that trades into some worryingly lazy plotting.
Maybe back in the 80s, we were cool with bad guys managing to get to locations they had no way of reaching just to provide a shock return that isn’t even that shocking, or just having random stuff happen that isn’t explained or set up just to facilitate a neatly happy ending, but for some reason it just doesn’t scan particularly well here. While the show already made it clear that Shaw’s dastardly plot wasn’t born from the mind of a super capable secret society, but a clutch of people just trying to cling onto immortality, the bad guys in this episode are dangerously unprepared. Yes, it all stems from the fact that they’re made so vulnerable precisely because Blaine and Anneliese have overlooked the potential of anyone over retirement age, but even judged by those standards, the Shaws proves to be fairly easy to vanquish. They blunder into obvious traps, keep unnecessary hostages when they should be killing their foes and are strangely unable to physically overpower their elderly enemies when they’re supposed to be charged with alien super-juice and it all feels like the show is drastically cutting corners in order to drag the story to where the writers want it to go without getting caught up too much in the details.

If the episode featured some tighter writing, maybe we wouldn’t notice, or even care that it’s playing fast and loose with movie logic, but when you find yourself openly wondering how a weakened Blaine can get to the mine on foot and fight Sam the same time he got there by van (not even a shortcut through the tunnels would properly account for it), something has gone wrong. Even the attempts at building drama an tension feel a little half-hearted – why would mortally wounding Judy make us scared for her when we already know there’s a character with healing powers in the same room and furthermore, why would the show allow Judy to give a touching farewell speech to Art and just leave Mother to patiently wait for her cue when she could have given her medical attention immediately?
However, that’s not go say that the show, at its roots, is still as charming as ever and while some of the writing let’s the series down in the final lap, there’s still plenty of things that work just fine. For example, I really could have done with more of the double act of Wally fussing and caring for the misshapen Mother as he wheels her to freedom and the reveal that a charred and twisted Hank was actually a fan of Paz’s band is kind of an amusing send off for the ailling henchman. The fact that the Shaws actually profess their love for one another while finally facing death is a nice touch and Mother wanting to finally die surrounded by her children is actually quite poignant too and fits in nicely within the overall message of the show and the moments where Sam is given a vision of his wife as a parting gift guarantees a quivering bottom lip at the very least, but when the final moments of the show end up being almost a shot for shot retread of the twist at the end of Stanger Things’ first season (both Will and Sam are both standing in a bathroom looking at themselves in the mirror when we get the sizable hint that things may not be over), you realise that The Boroughs’ last moments find it stumbling rather than skipping.

Despite a rather flat, predictable, finale, it would genuinely nice if we got to visit The Boroughs at least one more time just to iron out a few questions (who’s actually running the place now) and spend more time with this motley crew while we still can (the cast aren’t exactly spring chickens, you know). But while that Spielbergian vibe is as strong as ever, it’s a shame that the show attempted to stick the landing on legs that were far too wobbly to take the strain. Age is but a number, I’m told – but in this case, the number ends up being a mere three stars out of five…
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 7: Time To Go (2026) – Review

This is it. This is the exact kind of episode I was hoping for when I first heard what The Boroughs was going to be about. Now that all the extraterrestrial cards are now on the table the show is free to have all of its characters fully clued up and on the move without the need (mostly) to take the time to spell out all the intricate details of the central conspiracy from multiple points of view. Unbound from such necessities, The Boroughs is now fully prepped to slam a slippered foot fully on the gas and haul off with a frantic rescue attempt.
While the show has been faithfully filling the brief of merging Stanger Things with Cocoon up to this point, “Time To Go” sees everyone pushing the concept to it’s most enjoyable limits as the final pieces of the puzzle drop into place and everyone gets to pitch in and do their thing.

After being turned in by his own daughter who believes that his claims of brain sucking alien monsters are a sympton of a much more serious problem, Sam languishes in the Manor; the part of the Boroughs that supposedly cares for the more infirmed populace. Surrounded by the mentally feeble and emotionally delicate, it truly seens that his battle to avenge the death of his neighbour, Jack, has failed abysmally – but as he weighs up his options, wheels are turning elsewhere that may yet grant him his freedom. For a start, Claire is feeling pretty shitty after betraying her father in his hour of need, but after she turns on the clutch of televisions he rigged up in his home, the resulting field brings the alien out of the transition manager, thus proving that Sam isn’t crazy after all.
Meanwhile, pivoting their escape plan into a rescue plan, Judy, Renee, Art and Paz have cooked up a makeshift plan on the fly to infiltrate the Manor and get Sam out. As Art draws security away from the front desk and Paz slips behind the computer to remote open any necessary doors, Judy and Renee go undercover as residents to get their comrade out. But while all this is going on, Wally is still in the belly of the beast as he tends to the ailing, alien Mother which supplies the Boroughs’ staff with their youth restoring goo. But after coming up with a theory of how to restore her with a blood transfusion from her spider-legged spawn, sinister head honcho Blaine Shaw isn’t willing to wait for the weeks of testing needed to make the procedure safe.
Meanwhile, Sam has found something of an unlikely guiding light in the near-comatose form of the Dutchess, a fellow inmate who explains that the visions of his wife he’s been having are being beamed into his head by Mother as a call for help. Shifting his rage into forgiveness, and changing his aim, Sam is primed to be rescued by his friends while Wally is feeling his allegiance once again start to move.

“Time To Go” is pretty much everything you’d want from a penultimate episode to a show that’s mostly been reading from the Stranger Things operators manual; it’s fast, it’s funny and it deals out the answers to any lingering mysteries quicker than a Mississipi card shark. Everyone is moving in unison, yet still running around like headless chickens and now that the mystery is all but off the table, there’d nothing left but a mad, merry sprint to the end. It’s nice that the elderly characters can keep up too, proving to the Hawkins gang that you don’t need to be suffering puberty to have the cardio needed to foil weird, sci-fi shit. However, while our OAPs (some of whom are pushing 70, remember) keep the energy levels up to an impressive degree, the episode ensures that it takes the time to engage the heart before getting it racing.
Finally getting to properly join the fun is Jena Malone’s Claire, who inadvertently made the Lando Calrissian move of selling out her troubles father to the authorities while having no clue that her father’s claims were bang on the money. However, the scene where she accidently catches the condescending Kayleigh in the field of her dad’s TV weapon proves to be a telling as it is jarring – for a start, it confirms that whomever has been chugging the golden, alien goo has had their DNA fundamentally changed to something that’s worryingly close to Mother. The fact that decades of being fed human brain fluid has also caused the alien matriarch to take on a more human guise probably means that anyone who is in on the Shaws conspiracy is probably a lost cause and after leaving a highly confused Kayleigh to it, Claire races to the Manor to rectify her mistake. Of course, by this time, Geena Davis and Alfre Woodard have formed quite an endearing double act as they sneak, graft and fake their way into the Manor to mount their hastily planned jail break, but while some of the episode’s funniest moments from from this random double act (watching them hurriedly bicker about who gets to ride in a wheelchair is a legitimate joy), the bulk of this episode really is mostly devoted to Sam completing his arc from a grieving husband who is quick to hate, to someone with a bit more empathy.

There’s more than a little of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in watching a defeated Alfred Molina try to assimilate with the shuffling inmates of the Manor and I suppose that makes Deadpool’s Karan Soni’s abusive Tony the Nurse Ratched of this scenario. Anyway, while there, Sam goes on something of a mini quest that takes him right to the core of his anguish by means of a karaoke session that’s equal parts heart rending and heart warming and, of course, it has all to do with Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road. We’ve already established how painful his wife’s favorite song is to hear, so watching him sing it, and even breaking in the middle, is bolstered when the other inmates join in and turn this ode to grief into an emotionally lifting moment. I would say that the moment is fairly wasted on just being used as a diversion to get cigarettes for the bizarre Dutchess (possibly should have been switched for the later bus stop diversion), but it does introduce us to a randomly strange new character in the form of Mary McDonnell’s partly comatose resident who also has a connection with Mother. OK, so it’s a little overly convenient to introduce a brand new character who just so happens to have all the mystical answers our hero needs at exactly that time, but the Dutchess is such a thoroughly odd eccentric, with her whispy grey beehive and her lesbian lover with a resetting memory, it’s tough not to be enthralled by her. And with that, all we have left is the final episode and with Wally deciding to try and bust Mother out even in the wake if discovering Shaw’s penchant for murdering the weak links in his chain.

Once again, for a show that banks so much on being a big, sci-fi mystery, I’m surprised at how much of The Boroughs I’m managing to predict in advance (of course the aliens have a Mother/Queen chaste; of course she’s been using telepathy on Sam; of course he used Thunder Road to beat his grief), but none of this has managed to halt how much fun it’s been watch these fantastic fogies stage their imperfect little jail break. All that’s left now is to wrap things up and with so many things still in play, matters should keep the high energy for this episode – but here’s hoping it doesn’t wither and fade now the end is in sight.
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 6: The Grey Rebellion (2026) – Review

While I’ve tried (and failed) to avoid bringing up Stranger Things too much during my travel of The Boroughs, I do have to throw my hands up and concede that, yes, a sizable part of the show’s storytelling owes an incredible amount to the multiple years of happenings that befell the citizens of Hawkins, Indiana. While the cast of zesty pensioners certainly were different to Mike, Eleven and the gang, the narrative paths that had each of them slowly pick apart a sci-fi conspiracy from a completely different angle would have be obvious even to someone who’d never visited the Upside-Down before. I’m not pointing this out as a bad thing – in fact, the whole affair has been giving me fond memories of Stranger Things’ first season which was still relatively small scale. However, with “The Grey Rebellion”, we find that The Boroughs has a couple of surprises in it after all as the villain’s of the piece have an offer to make that’s decidedly un-Hawkins like in its execution.

The jig is up and the attempts of Sam, Judy, Renee, Wally and Art to uncover the extraterrestrial goings on behind the scenes of the titular retirement village crash and burn after being caught red handed by CEO and arch conspirator, Blaine Shaw. Arrested by his goons and delivered to the Manor strapped up with bags on their heads, the group understandably believe they’re about to be executed – but when they find that they’re being addressed by an unrestrained Wally, they learn that a deal is about to be made. The terms are simple; mention none of the alien goings on to anyone and they can go back to their retired lives under the condition that they never leave the Boroughs ever again. However, breathe a word that the Shaws are using alien spider-children to drain cerebrospinal fluid from the residents and channel it into an elixir that stops human aging and they’ll be sent straight to the Manor where they’ll be treated like dementia sufferers for the rest of their lives.
Wally has already agreed as his work examining the alien biology has impressed the powers that be and he’s been asked to join the group and take the fluid that’ll see off his cancer as long as he drinks the concoction daily. This inspires the rest of the group to fold and days later, we find them back experiencing the daily grind, while Wally gets a tour of the inner workings of the place. However, due to their martial issues, Judy and Art find that going back to normal isn’t as easy as they’d hoped; but while Renee and Paz are trying to cook up an escape attempt, notoriously difficult Sam simply climbs the dividing wall and walks the distance to the nearest phone overnight.
Exhausted, her rings his daughter for aid without knowing that Shaw has already planted seeds in her mind that her father is starting to lose his marbles which results in a painful betrayal. But while Sam is destined to rot in the Manor, his comrades decide to scrap escaping and go on a counter attack instead.

At no point has the Dufferesque storytelling negatively affected how much I’ve been enjoying The Boroughs – if anything, it’s made the show reassuringly familiar – but a side effect has been that I’ve found most of it fairly predictable. A lot of the story beats I’ve seen coming from a mile off and I’ve predicted a lot of revelations long before someone is polite enough to verbally confirm it as the episodes have rattled along, but either episode six, we find that a minor change up has suddenly made the show weirdly unpredictable. Simple fact is, the notion that the good guys have already lost three episodes before the end of the season proves to give The Boroughs its own gulp of life-invigorating elixir that finally breaks free of some predictable plotting.
On paper it sounds like it’s the worst decision the show could possibly make as it essentially halts the momentum of the plot just as we’re approaching something of a climactic build. But while other Netflix shows have tried similar tricks and seriously marred the flow of their seasons, The Boroughs uses it as something of a bit of breathing space in order to fully earn some of the decisions our characters ultimately make. Maybe the reasoning works so well is because the slowing of the pace matches the demeanor of the leads and having them gradually regain their spirit and confidence after getting outmaneuvered fits more with the story the show is telling. It also reveals a major flaw in the villain’s thinking that fits a major plot point of the entire show that wouldn’t have worked if the leads were younger.

Simply put, Shaw give the gang a second chance because he needs Wally to help them out with an alien conundrum and they just don’t take the old age usurpers that seriously despite the trouble they’ve caused them. While some may shout accusations of lazy storytelling or a deployment of plot armour at the desicion, it’s actually a telling commentary about how the elderly really are neglected and underestimated; plus, it’s kind of fun to discover that this is one secret conspiracy that’s literally being held together by a wing and a prayer as the Shaws and their conspirators actually have an incredibly narrow vision when it comes to a wonder fluid that essentially grants immortality.
Another thing The Grey Rebellion adds is a greater understanding of the aliens which provide the goo in question. It turns out that what Shaw discovered decades ago was an alien egg that eventually hatched the central creature known as the “mother” and after giving birth to the spider-legged beasties known unsurprisingly as the “kids” we discover that after they harvest the brain fluid from the different rotations of residents and feed it to their mother who looks strangely human(ish). From here she produces the wonder slime that all the staff eagerly drinks, but already Wally is growing frustrated at how the Shaws are wasting something that genuinely could make the world a better place.
Of course, this doesn’t help Sam much, who replies that his daughter’s inadvertent betrayal is partly down to his lack of communication with her. In fact, while a lot of The Boroughs’ mysteries have now been revealed, one that still remains an enigma is the visions of his dead wife he’s been having. Alien telepathy coming from the ailing Mother, perhaps? Do the jigsaw puzzles he’s been seeing mean that she wants him to solve a puzzle and find her? Now that his defiance has stuck him in the Manor, he’s going to have a hard time figuring it out.

A rather strange change in pace manages to give The Boroughs the shift it needs to leap off the Stranger Things writing techniques it’s been relying on and start catching us unawares again – after all, mysteries should be unpredictable, right? But with only two episodes to go, don’t expect that slower speed to last particularly long.
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The Boroughs, sci-fi fun with the old folks

https://oldaintdead.com/the-boroughs-sci-fi-fun-with-the-old-folks/

The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 5: Another Beautiful Day (2026) – Review

Yep, it’s round about that time that all the various threads and arcs that are buzzing about The Boroughs like moths round a bug zapper need to start coming together. I mean, if they don’t come together now, we’re not going to have enough episodes of all the disparate characters coming together to finally figure all this sci-fi shit out. As it stands, we’ve got quite a varied selection of avenues to merge together that encompass aliens that suck brain fluid out from the back of your throat, peach trees that give the elderly a taste of their youth back and members of the Boroughs’ staff who are not only far older than they look, but have far more sinister secrets under their metaphorical hats. One by one, our plucky cast of golden oldies have uncovered these strange, connected conspiracies without having the slightest clue that their peers are also stumbling on otherworldly shocks, but now it’s time for some major communication – and it’s about time too.

After discovering that the alien that’s been feeding on their brain fluid has been gaining entrance to their homes via trap doors located in their ovens, Sam, Judy and a very nervous Wally have given chase after the avenging reporter in their midst pumped a couple of bullets into it. They discover a maze of tunnels that exist under their homes that connects their entire neighbourhood and ultimately leads out towards the dessert and after catching up to the mortally wounded creature, Judy puts it out of its misery. However, while they think that Jack has finally been avenged, Sam realises that this is actually a different alien and the sounds coming from where they’ve come from clues them in to getting a move on.
Meanwhile, chief of Boroughs security, Hank, is desperately trying to plug a leak that’s seen Renee and Paz discover that he actually died in the 70s. Chugging back a revitalising gold liquid, Hank takes both Renee and Paz hostage with the intention of driving them out into the desert and faking their suicides – but even more alarming than this is the discovery that Art has made.
After that revitalising peach wore off with violent, gastric side effects, Art awakens in the hospital with Anneliese Shaw for company. But after Art circumvents her questions, he returns to the mine to collect more miracle fruit only to discover that the tree has withered and died. Even more disconcerting is that Anneliese has followed him and reveals that she and her husband bought this very mine back in the late 19th century before equiring further about the peach. After Art offers up the stone as all that it left of the wonder fruit, Anneliese suddenly swallows it, causing an inhuman transformation to transpire, but it’s at this point, Sam, Judy and Wally arrive via their tunnel, shoot Art’s attacker and flee in his car. Picking up Renee and Paz on the way after they’ve managed to vanquish Hank, it seems that everyone has some serious explaining to do – but they soon find that a very pissed Blaine Shaw is already set his retribution in motion.

As we rattle past the halfway point, we reached that moment in Stranger Things inspired media where everyone finally gets their acts together and has a moment to indulge in some exchange of information. I have to say, even in their production capacity, The Duffer Brothers have gotten their timing down after delivering pretty much the same format five times before back in Hawkins. But with the coming together of the characters, that means the veil gets lifted off a number of the secrets, which leads to that all enticing drip-feed of info. However, without a Dustin to excitedly spell it all out for us (or Steve Harrington), let’s see what we’ve discovered so far…
For a start, those creeping aliens have been sneaking in at night and draining the residents, but it seems that these beasties aren’t even close to being the main threat. Oh, they’re a sizable threat to be sure, but with Paz’s revelation that the Shaws and Hank have a room of them caged up, it could be that the multi-legged crawlers may be just as much victims as they are dangerous. To be fair, the Shaws have mostly been kept by the wayside aside for the odd, isolated scene, but here we get to spend some revealing time with them that confirms that the owners of the Boroughs are indeed dar older than they look and may not be entirely human anyone – if they ever were. We get this from the lips of Alice Kremelberg’s Anneliese who confirms some of our suspicions with a brief history lesson – and then confirms the others by having a full on body horror attack after gulping down Art’s peach stone. While it’s unclear if the Shaws are aliens masquerading as humans, or are humans transformed by whatever it is they’re doing with their reserves of extraterrestrial goo (eating it, bathing in it – anything goes apparently), they’ve definitely cashed in their villain chips, which is further highlighted by Hank going full psycho killer.

Yes, Hank’s murder plan is oddly complex but choosing to stuff Renee and Paz in the trunk of her car, drive them out to the dessert, gas them into further unconsciousness with exhaust fumes and then set them up to look like an elaborate murder suicide – but it’s totally fucking worth it when you realise it’s all in service of an utterly unnecessary (but truly magnificent) nod to Thelma And Louise, much in the say way Alfred Molina came face to face with the idol from Raiders Of The Ark a couple of episodes ago – any chance of mechanical octopus tentacles showing up anytime soon?
Anyway, “Another Beautiful Day” emerges as one of the strongest episodes to date, purely because we were waiting for a lot of these exact  things to occur – even Stranger Things prioritised stretching out the build up a bit too long in order for the pay off to be even more joyous. Plus those little details are still paying off beautifully, such as Judy naming her gun Ethel in honor of her journalistic inspiration, Ethel Payne (first lady of the black press), or the group’s failed attempts to stay hidden at a diner at closing time. But with only three episodes to go, we’ve thankfully still got lost of details still to iron out – obviously it seems that Shaw has the upper hand as he and a small army of goons arrive to forcibly take the gang back to the Boroughs and no doubt indulge in a spot of expositional monologue-ing, but the fact that Anneliese alluded to them needing a new way to replenish themselves means that our heroes may have a few cards left to play – and I’m not talking gin rummy…

We’re well on our way to the finale now, with clearer lines being drawn while the overall mystery is still being cultivated. However, for all the freakish transformations, violent vomiting and alien euthanasia, the real draw is that the gang is now fully together for the first time since that BBQ from the first episode and it’s here that shows like this start to really come alive – if everyone stays alive, that is.
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 4: Forbidden Fruit (2026) – Review

As we reach the midway point of the season, it’s time for another upshift of mystery to keep those stakes steadily rising. We have a marauding alien on the loose that considers cerebrospinal fluid a delicacy; we have a trio of pensioners that are determined to avenge their dead friend but uncovering whatever this conspiracy is; we have clues that tie the owners of the titular retirement village know something is going on and finally, we have the discovery of a strange peach tree whose fruit seems to contain healing properties. The plot, as they say, is thickening.
Obviously, this is par for the course for this sort of thing as the people behind The Boroughs have quite famous previous experience, but while the overall patterns of this show tend to be fairly similar to a certain other show, it’s still an impressive selling point that this plucky group of coffin dodgers can keep up with other monster-busting casts a third of their age.

After being caught at the funeral home after their impromptu autopsy of Jack, Sam takes the rap and is taken to the Manor, while Wally and Judy hid and while they wait to see what happens to their colleague, Sam gets into something of a threatening conversation with Boroughs CEO, Blaine Shaw, where both make the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf into thinly veiled warnings. Released back into the populous, Sam’s determination has merely increased and once he reunites with his partners in crime, they cook up a plan to lure in and take down the creature that’s been literally leeching off them.
Meanwhile Art is reaping the benefits of taking a huge bite of a peach as it finds that not only does it have restorative properties, but his renewed vigour stretches to him losing the grey in his hair as it adds a youthful snap to his step. But before he can share his miraculous discovery, he takes an emotional gutshot when he finds that his wife has kept an item of Jack’s clothing, which fully confirms her feelings about her dead lover. His elation about his youthful transformation all but shattered, he bumps into Blaine’s wife, Anneliese Shaw, who has some rather disturbing advice – but before he can properly think about it, the effects of that space peach wear off with agonising effects.
Somewhat out of the loop is Renee, who us already finding that her relationship with security guard Paz hitting speed bumps already. But while ignorant of fluid sucking aliens or miracle fruit, she has a case of her own when she discovers that head of security, Hank, apparently is actually a prison warden named Milton Hauser who died in the 70s. After looking up his son and questioning for info, Paz discovers something freakish in the restricted areas of the Boroughs.
But as we get back to Sam, Judy and Wally, they find that their well laid plan isn’t quite so well laid as they thought – but after the creature escapes through a trap door located in Sam’s oven, that plot just keeps on thickening.

We’re reaching that point where a huge breakthrough feels like it’s tantalisingly on the horizon as all those little details the denizens of the Boroughs have learnt so far are painting quite the picture. Obviously, we have no idea how it fits together just yet, but as the various threads threaten to intersect at any moment, we’re at that stage where we’re practically yelling at the screen for the slower members of the cast to get up to speed with everybody else. Yes, it’s a case of characters not communicating vastly important pieces of information in order to draw out that all-important tension, but if it worked for nearly ten years in that other Duffer Brothers show, then it’ll sure as hell work here. In fact, while I’m loathe to mention Stranger Things in these review in an attempt to avoid too much comparison, “Forbidden Fruit” really does bring back warm memories of the simpler days of the first season where the cast wasn’t quite so crowed and the scale wasn’t quite so huge.
Just watching these characters go about their own little obsessions and get caught up in amateur monster hunting, or detective work really is its own reward at this point and while I may suggest that the show is starting to plateau a little bit, it’s the solo arc of Art and his wonder fruit means the show gets to fully plough into one of its biggest influences. The second I first heard of the premise of The Boroughs, my brain immediately thought of Ron Howard’s Cocoon, even if the cast’s attitude to extraterrestrials is more Sigourney Weaver than Don Ameche and watching Art take full advantage of his energised state ends up being incredibly sweet.

Not only has the grey in his hair gone, but he’s even able to thwart a robbery in a convenience store due to a punch from his earlier years – but after we get the requisite montage of him enjoying life (he doesn’t smoke younger folk at basketball unfortunately), his comedown is devestating after he discovers exactly how much Jack’s death has hit her. Worse yet, when the effects of the peach wear off, it’s disastrous and it’s made all the worse by the rather unsettling presesence of Anneliese Shaw who seems to be just as unsettling as her husband.
Elsewhere, Renee manages to finally catch up to her peers by launching fully into her own investigation about the origins of brutish security head Hank. While it may also be beneficial to discover just why the producers hired someone who looks noticely similar to 2016 David Harbour, we discover that Hank isn’t just complicit in the conspiracy, he’s actually a sizable part of it considering that he apparently died in the 70s. Furthermore, he seems to have what sounds like a whole bunch of aliens like Scar locked in a special room which Paz manages to uncover before his ass is knocked out.
But while all this means that some sort of narrative crescendo is surely about to occur, still the most beguiling thread is the hunt for an alien that leads to some of that improvisation fans of that other show will surely appreciate. Fashioning a dummy that uses a humidifier to expell Sam’s cerebrospinal fluid into the air (don’t ask), Sam, Judy and Wally hope to lure the creature into a trap marked by dozens of old-school televisions. Hoping the screens will have the same, explosive effects on the creature as it does on it’s blood, the low-tech, high hopes approach to monster mashing prove to be the most endearing connection to Stanger Things yet and the easy banter of the trio meshes well with the tension when the creature actually shows up.

If you’re not trying to cram the entire show into a single sitting, there’s a tendency to feel during shows like this that maybe it’s time everyone got a bit of a move on and start swapping notes. But then, if I’m feeling impatient, it’s only because I’m fully invested in the plot and characters and in eager to find out what the hell is going to happen next. But with Art writhing in agony on a bathroom floor and the gang discovering that aliens have a secret passage in everyone’s ovens (strange choice), we’ve still got a ways to go.
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 3: A Pyramid (2026) – Review

Nothing seems to back up a good sci-fi mystery more than copious use of flashlights. The X-Files knew it, Spielberg knew it and the makers of The Boroughs certainly as savvy enough to equip their alien busting OAPs with enough battery power to search for the truth. This, of course means that we’re reaching the section of a Duffer Brothers Netflix show where the game is well and truly afoot as our characters start to connect the dots and pair up into various, hopefully entertaining combos. It’s always been my favorite aspect of that other show (I wonder if I’ll actually get through a review without ever referencing Stranger Things once – probably not), but let’s see if the Duffer’s producing influence can rub off on the new show and make it just as rewarding.

Things are getting weirder, but things are getting clearer too, and if the show does it’s job right, this is where the sparks truly start to fly.
While Sam shows Wally the dazzling lightshow that occurs when you expose the blood of that mysterious creature to the rays of a TV set, neither are aware that they’re being watched. However, the eyes that study them don’t belong to some otherworldly predator, but the shrewd, journalist peepers of Judy, who is looking for answers in the aftermath of Jack’s death. While Wally purchases various equipment, Judy spies on both him and Sam as her suspicion rises, but unbeknownst to her, there’s another mystery happening right in her own marriage as her distant husband, Art, has made his own, fascinating discovery. After witnessing a huge murder of crows suddenly murder themselves by flying directly into the ground, he’s locked in on discovering why as he’s obsessed with uncovering the blind spots of the universe.
However, while Sam, Wally, Judy and Art are all obsessed with exploring the unknown, Renee is obsessed with exploring the hunky physique of ex-drummer/new security guard Paz. But while Paz’s boss, Hank, seems to know far more about the errant, quartz-stealing creature than he’s letting on (he even refers to it as “Scar”), it seems the the beastie that killed Jack is also feeding on Renee while she sleeps in a post coital glow.
After using up all the alien goo in their tests, Sam and Wally surmise that the only other answers available to them will come from performing a secret – and highly illegal – autopsy on Jack’s body as it lays at the local funeral home. Caught read-handed by Judy, she angrily demands answers and after the morbid examination is performed, it seems that the puncture marks in the back of Jack’s throat not only proves that something was feeding on the base of his brain, but matching marks in Sam and Judy’s throats mean that they’ve all been fed on too.
But while Sam takes the rap when Hank arrives, Art discovers a bizarre, glittering peach tree hidden in a mine outside of the titular retirement home. A peach tree whose fruit seemingly has the ability to heal wounds…

There’s a subtle, up-changimg of gears that occurs whenever these types of shows start merging the characters into little groups as they all gradually begin to realise the creepy shit they’re obsessing over is part of a far bigger conspiracy. After all, if we’re to compare it once again to that other show (there it is again), I’m sure we’d agree that the most rewarding parts are discovering which combination of characters work best together. It’s with this in mind that we debut the union of the belligerent Sam, the quick-witted Wally and the grieving Judy and as alien-hunting trios go, they’re pretty damn fun. Grumpy/sassy double acts are always a goldmine for charisma and Denis O’Hare’s rapid fire, bitchy comments work well with Alfred Molina’s gruff, uneasy-with-people demeanor. Watching them bumble their way into have to perform an informative by undeniable crime (an autopsy on a buddy isn’t exactly your average misdemeanor) provide the exact mixture of fun and tension shows like this require and with the addition of Alfre Woodard’s grieving Judy, it also retains a real dramatic heft to go with it’s Scooby gang antics. One of the gems of the show is that it isn’t afraid to pause the sniffing out of clues in order to explore the pitfalls of being old and having both Sam and Judy take a moment while Wally gets to his grim work to bond over their respective grief for their lost loves is exactly the sort of thing that separate The Boroughs from its peers. I mean, why wouldn’t you gravitate to having Alfre Woodard tearfully explain away her complex relationship with Art while describing what Jack meant to her?

But old age isn’t all death and mourning – especially if you’re Geena Davis. As Renee manages to get lucky with Paz due to their shared interests (music, each other) we also get a timely reminder on the validity of a mature lover due to an extended bout of biddy fiddling (sorry, not sorry). In addition to this, Art’s solo odessy out in the middle of the desert may have unlocked the core of this mystery thanks to the discovery of an ethereal tree that grows healing fruit. I have to say, a lot of what’s happening in The Boroughs is going pretty much what I suspected and the healing peach pretty much confirms it. There’s no doubt Wally’s anxiety about his cancer will soon butt up against this wonder fruit and have strong suspicions that the CEO of the Boroughs and his wife may very well be far older than any of their greying residents.
But until then, the mysteries of the inhuman encounters continue to swell. Whatever the Hell this “Scar” is, it’s been feeding on everyone that’s living in the vicinity of Sam’s house in a most invasive manner – but it’s the fact that Hank is on its trail armed with a piece of futuristic tech that really throws out some big questions. While it’s easy to believe that the Boroughs’ population is being harvested to feed this thing and possibly others of its kind, there’s a sense that this Scar could be an aberration, or even some sort of parasite that’s not directly connected to the central conspiracy. But then it’s just this sort of conjecture that makes watching slow burns like this so much fun, especially when you trying to get two or three steps ahead while you try to connect the dots and when you combine it with the superlative character work, not to mention the Spielbergian imagery (the Boroughs lit up at night looks like a UFO from Close Encounters; shots of sausage-fingered alien hands) you get prime TV.

As the momentum picks up, the Boroughs is getting more intriguing with every new episode and the show is thus far holding a steady balance between the heartfelt drama and the growing mystery of the lithe creature that likes to target the elderly – no, not Paz you dopes, the alien! Anyway, I’ll be interested to see if we’ve got some big surprises in store as I feel like I’ve figured out a lot of the story already. Still, here’s hoping I’ll be proven wrong.
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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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'The Boroughs' Trailer Finds Misfit Retirees in a Supernatural Mystery!! Check It Out!! #AlfredMolina, #AlfreWoodard, #AliceKremelberg, #BethBailey, #BillPullman, #CarlosMiranda, #ClarkePeters, #DeeWallace, #DenisOHare, #EdBegleyJr, #EricEdelstein, #GeenaDavis, #JaneKaczmarek, #JenaMalone, #KaranSoni, #MousaHussienKraish, #Netflix, #RafaelCasal, #SethNumrich, #TheBoroughs

https://movizark.com/2026/05/06/the-boroughs-trailer-finds-misfit-retirees-in-a-supernatural-mystery-check-it-out/