As the opening credits of The Boroughs on Netflix rolled, we were flabbergasted at the names in the cast. But what we were even more flabbergasted at was that these immensely talented actors were playing people in a retirement community.
THE BOROUGHS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: The camera zooms into a cul-de-sac at night. In the window of one of the houses, we see Grace (Dee Wallace) making herself dinner.
The Gist: Grace watches Jeopardy! then puts on lipstick for her nightly FaceTime with her husband Edward (Ed Begley Jr.), who is in memory care. He keeps talking about “the owl in the wall,” which she assures him isn’t there. Later that night, she’s awakened by a noise. As she goes to investigate, she’s chased by a beady-eyed monster. Then she’s grabbed right outside her front door; the door slams and the knob hits the floor.
That house is in The Boroughs, a retirement community in the middle of the New Mexico deseert that’s been there since the 1950s (Edward stays in The Manor, which is the community’s nursing home). Sometime after Grace disappeared, we see Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina) being driven to The Boroughs by his daughter Claire (Jena Malone) and her family. He doesn’t want to go. The idea to move to The Boroughs from Chicago was the idea of Sam’s wife Lilly (Jane Kaczmarek), who died of a stroke after they bought a house there but before they had a chance to move. Unfortunately, Sam couldn’t get out of the contract.
Sam, a former engineer, thinks he’s moving to “God’s waiting room,” among other epithets. He’s moving into the house Grace and Edward used to own; when he sees that there’s an Alexa-style system that responds to resident requests, he rips it out of the wall.
The first neighbor he meets is Jack Willard (Bill Pullman), a loquacious former TV weatherman. Eventually he meets some of his other neighbors: Renee Joyce (Geena Davis), who drives a vintage car and teaches at the community center; Judy Daniels (Alfre Woodard), a former journalist, and her pot-smoking conspiracy-spewing husband Art (Clarke Peters); and Wally Baker (Denis O’Hare), a witty retired doctor.
We see how fresh Sam’s grief is when he goes to see CEO Blaine Shaw (Seth Numrich) to try to terminate his contract and hears “Thunder Road” on the speaker; it’s the same song that was playing when Lilly had her stroke. But when Sam encounters Edward in his house, looking for Grace and the owl in the wall, and ends up getting attacked, Shaw decides to grant his request.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, with the Duffer Brothers among the executive producers, we’ll probably be the hundreth critic to say that The Boroughs is essentially Stranger Things with retirees. There are shades of Cocoon, as well.
Our Take: Where we really saw the potential of The Boroughs was when Sam finally accepts Jack’s invitation to a “welcome to the neighborhood” cookout. We see him staying quiet but getting a better idea of who his neighbors are and how they might be able to lend him support and vice versa. He also already knows some secrets — like how Jack and Judy are having an affair.
Just like with Stranger Things, the show needs to establish how the group relates to each other before they take on their common enemy, which is the monster that rears its head (and claws) again before the end of the episode. There certainly is a component of this that’s related to how Blaine Shaw conducts business, but for now he’s just creepy AF.
Of course, all of this is helped along by the show’s incredible cast, led by Molina. We’ve always appreciated the subtleties of Molina’s performances, but he brings that in spades as Sam. He’s grumpy, but he’s also barely covering his devastation over the sudden death of Lilly. When we see him realize that he actually has people he can lean on at The Boroughs, the difference in his manner is subtle but very satisfying to watch.
Given who’s in the supporting cast, we also know that they won’t take much time to find who their characters are. Pullman’s Jack, for instance, is a bit chatty when he first meets Sam, but by the time he’s giving Sam the pep talk, he feels like the Pullman from Independence Day and other shows and films where he’s avuncular but powerfully reassuring in his manner.
Davis, Woodard, Clarke and O’Hara all do a lot with their brief scenes in the first episode, and we’re excited to see them all as Sam leads the group to find out where the hell this beady-eyed monster came from.
Performance Worth Watching: Since we already mentioned Molina, we’ll give Geena Davis her due. Actually, she doesn’t need us to give her her due, because she’s Geena Davis. But she very effectively uses her signature combination of sexy intelligence as Renee.
Sex And Skin: Around the fire at Jack’s cookout, everyone shows their scars, but that’s about it.
Parting Shot: Sam goes into Jack’s house to find him missing, but he comes face-to-face with the monster that’s been attacking residents.
Sleeper Star: We don’t know if he intended to do this or not, but Eric Edelstein seems to be doing a strong David Harbour impression as the cynical security officer Hank Williams. We don’t hate it.
Most Pilot-y Line: We tend to think that people who move into communities like The Boroughs are a bit older than Sam and his neighbors, unless they have physical limitations and need the help. Maybe we’re wrong, but the idea that all of these people are just past 70 and already retiring to the desert weirds us out (but that could be because we’re from the early half of Gen X, and 70 isn’t as far off as we think it is).
Our Call: STREAM IT. The stellar cast of The Boroughs is the biggest reason to watch this series, even if the story might be a bit predictable. We’re actually more looking forward to seeing their friendships grow and develop than see how they defeat the monster that keeps making the reseidents disappear.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.