Netflix’s The Boroughs, produced by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, begins life at a comparative disadvantage. Whereas its predecessor could take forever between seasons, losing nothing but its child stars’ cherubic looks, the new show has no such luxury. With each passing day, its oldster cast — including Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, and Geena Davis — is closer to the grave.
Of course, there are other arguments for extending The Boroughs’ run pronto. A story of retirement-village mayhem, the series zips along like a souped-up mobility scooter, gleefully ignoring the holes in its plot. That aging ensemble bursts with talent — so much so that its writers don’t mind killing off the occasional gramps or gran. At the center of its narrative is a spiderish monster, all sticks and sockets, appearing briefly before skittering back to its hole. But don’t, old man, tell the world what you’ve seen. All you’ll get for your trouble is a worried look.
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The Boroughs stars Molina as Sam Cooper, a retired engineer who moves to the village after the death of his wife. Oppressed by his new friends’ good cheer, Sam sets out to ignore them until a brush with the paranormal forces his hand. One moment, next-door neighbor Jack (Bill Pullman) is a harmless nag, relentless in his desire to share camaraderie and beer, and the next, he has become unwitting food. As a horrified Sam inadvertently observes, a creature has been sating itself on his buddy’s brain.
This causes problems. To begin with, the community is run by Blaine Shaw (Seth Numrich), surely the slickest scammer of old folks since John Mahoney’s nursing-home embezzler in 1989’s Say Anything. Also a concern: Brain-eating fiends are not exactly the sort of thing one reports. Like Stranger Things, The Boroughs makes great use of the fact that no one believes a word its protagonists say. As with the child, so with the geriatric adult. If “sure, honey” felt dismissive at age 10, wait until you hear it again at 80.
Is it any wonder, given the circumstances, that Sam decides to take matters into his own hands? Joining him are Art and Judy Daniels (Clarke Peters and Woodard), a pair of fun-loving septuagenarians with a knack for dropping everything and smoking a joint. Retired doctor Wally Baker (Denis O’Hare) is more reliable in a pinch, but can he be trusted to put the group’s interests above his own? Still comely at the beginning of her eighth decade, Davis plays Renee, a former music executive with a penchant for younger men. Perhaps her latest beau, security guard Paz Navarro (Carlos Miranda), will be of some assistance — that is, if he can outsmart his grasping superior, Hank (Eric Edelstein).
The Boroughs is not a frightening show, monster snack-time portrayals notwithstanding. Indeed, the production’s tone owes much to the action-comedy classics of the 1980s: Back to the Future, The Goonies, and Cocoon, the last of which is all but embedded in the new show’s DNA. Brought stirringly to the point of action, Sam and Wally deadpan such lines as “Whose golf cart are we going to take?” and rarely pause to reflect on the improbability of their quest. Half-funny jokes abound. Bizarrely, the series has (and earns) a TV-MA rating. Why fill with swears a show that might otherwise have been appointment viewing for the whole family? The answer is that The Boroughs isn’t for kids at all, but for seniors who never grew up. Call that a mistake if you wish, but expect more of the same in the coming fertility-crisis media landscape.
As the show’s plot advances, more and more of its concerns come to echo those of its presumptive boomer audience. Wandering beyond the community’s gates, Art discovers a tree of life, the fruit of which briefly and poignantly restores his youth. Much is made of our heroes’ fear of the Manor, an on-site memory-care facility to which misbehaving residents are sometimes sent. Even the production’s (too obvious) symbolism is geared toward its target audience. That creature cruelly draining and discarding the aged? It might as well be holding a sign that reads “For-Profit American Healthcare Industry.”
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The Boroughs is too much fun to sink entirely beneath this weight. Nevertheless, one wonders what a more Spielbergian touch in the writers’ room might have produced, particularly given the general excellence of the cast. As our cantankerous lead, Molina harumphs lovably from scene to scene, conveying both his character’s indomitable will and the wretchedness of his grief. O’Hare is very good as the compromised, self-effacing Wally, the figure on whom the show’s concluding plot largely turns.
Yet, the series’s finest achievement may well be the clarity of its thoughts on loneliness, an epidemic affecting senior citizens as keenly as any other group. Notably missing from The Boroughs are all but one or two of the residents’ grown children, a cohort that might have intervened had they not long ago outsourced the care of mom and dad. Intolerable. If they’re alive and can hear you, go call your parents.
Graham Hillard is the TV critic for the Washington Examiner magazine.
