Why you need to be excited about ‘The Boroughs’
If you thought your heart had healed after Stranger Things left us in tears at the end of season five… It’s time to think again because Netflix just walked back into the room with a fresh supernatural series from the Duffer Brothers. The new show is called The Boroughs, and it already looks like something that will have all of us kicking our legs and getting ready to restart all those subreddits.
And the Duffers are not going easy this time. Let’s see what we have got: rural weirdness? Yes. Retro nostalgia? Yes. A mystery? Yes. A group of misfit heroes? Hell yeah!
And listen… We miss Stranger Things, okay! We miss Hawkins. We miss the trauma the show left us with. So when Netflix revealed a new supernatural series produced by the Duffers, it felt like a big win. The only plot twist we know so far is that this time the heroes are not kids on bikes. They are retirees in New Mexico who wake up one day and discover their golden years might not be golden at all.
The Boroughs comes from Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, who are the geniuses behind The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and the Duffer brothers are here to add their seasonings to it. And with that, we have a Stranger Things-equivalent show already knocking on our doors. Sounds a bit like The Thursday Murder Club now, doesn’t it? So let’s dive in.
What is The Boroughs about?
So picture this: there is a retirement community in the middle of the New Mexico desert that looks super serene from the outside. You have your usual golf carts rolling around, and neighbours are all acting sweet; overall, it’s a peaceful retirement home. And just as you let that settle in, a new guy moves in. He is still dealing with heavy pain, and on day one, he runs into something supernatural that makes him realise this place is not the calm little bubble it pretends to be.
He ends up befriending a few residents who apparently carry a natural instinct for reading people. They do not treat him with pity. Instead, they treat him like someone who walked into a problem that needs attention. Once they start talking, the group realises the community holds secrets. They pick up details that no one else notices, and they follow those details that will turn them into the most unlikely team you will meet in a supernatural story.
The deeper they go into the mystery, the more the whole town starts to feel off, just like Stranger Things. Things that should not connect begin to match up. The group does not run from any of it. As we said, Netflix already gave us a glimpse of old people solving a murder mystery last year with The Thursday Murder Club, and after its success, The Boroughs seems like a good idea.
Who is in the cast of The Boroughs?
Dear God. The cast is giving retired golden agers. We get Alfred Molina, who raised the standard of the entire genre without breaking a sweat. Then we have Geena Davis, who we’ll be seeing after such a long time, bringing that sweet and warm energy. We also have Alfre Woodard, and there is also Denis O’Hare, who has never once given a performance under 200 percent.
There’s also Clarke Peters and Bill Pullman, with his mysterious energy. We also have Carlos Miranda, Seth Numrich, Alice Kremelberg, Rafael Casal, Dee Wallace, Ed Begley Jr, Jane Kaczmarek, Eric Edelstein, Mousa Hussein Kraish, and Beth Bailey.
Wait, doesn’t this cast feel like a neighbourhood you want to move into immediately so you can ask for sugar? But the only twist is, you might accidentally uncover a monster conspiracy with them.
Behind the camera, we have creators Addiss and Matthews teaming up with the Duffer Brothers and have Hilary Leavitt as executive producer. Ben Taylor directs the first two episodes.
When does it release?
This is the part where you might want to do a little dance because the wait is not long at all. All eight episodes drop on May 21. Get that tattooed if you want to.
It feels so strange yet good because one minute, we were grieving the loss of Eleven in Stranger Things and consoling ourselves by yelling “I believe,” and now we are on the doorstep of a new show we won’t stop talking about for months. Looks like stranger things are on our way (get it?).