‘The Boroughs’ Stars Break Down That Deadly Finale & Cliffhanger Glitch

“Stranger Things for grownups” is an apt nickname for The Boroughs, a sci-fi horror thriller also produced by the Duffer Brothers. Warning: The following post contains spoilers for The Boroughs Episodes 1 through 8.

The new series, which launched on Thursday (May 21), ends with the gang of retirement community residents (played by a crack cast of A-listers) defeating the monsters and settling in to enjoy the rest of their golden years. Maybe.

Jeffrey Addiss, who with Will Matthews created and showruns The Boroughs, reflects to TV Insider on what it was all about.

“When kids turn to you and say in Stranger Things that they saw a monster, nobody believes them. But also, when an older person turns to you and says they saw a monster, nobody believes them either. It’s just a different kind of coming-of-age story,” Addiss tells us.

It was a milestone no one wants when they move into The Boroughs, the idyllic New Mexico mid-century desert compound for seniors that hides a terrifying secret. After the suspicious death of weatherman and party-starter Jack (Bill Pullman) in the premiere, an investigation is launched by his friends: There’s engineer Sam (Alfred Molina); Wally (Denis O’Hare), a doctor with terminal cancer; artist Renee (Geena Davis); seeker Art (Clarke Peters) and his wife in an open marriage, former journalist Judy (Alfre Woodard), who was sleeping with Jack before his untimely demise.

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Pullman says Jack’s attitude was: “You get to this age, it’s like shooter’s alley. You could be talking to somebody one minute, and the next they’re gone. Alfre’s character goes in a search of finding out what killed Jack. He’s the catalyst.”

Avoiding coming of age was what drivs the monsters, who turn out to be the seemingly ageless cabal running the community. Their leader, Blaine (Seth Numrich), has designed the place as a food source for a supernatural creature they’d captured decades earlier called Mother whose blood they drink to remain young and healthy. Underground tunnels lead to each ranch house, allowing the hostage mama’s spidery children to slurp on the clueless sleeping residents nightly and then feed mom, keeping her veins ready to be tapped for youth juice.

In the finale, the pals free the ancient, long-suffering Mother and fulfil her wish to return to the cave where she was born so she can die surrounded by her children. It is a mission of love for the retirees, but especially Sam, who has a special connection to her because he has lived in two worlds – ours and a timeless one wherein he still communes with his late wife, Lilly (Jane Kaczmarek).

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In the action-packed finale, Sam has one final fight scene in the cave when Blaine makes an attempt to stop them from letting Mother die. Molina says of shooting it, “By that time, we were all kind of beginning to feel a little tired. I actually was getting over some bronchitis. But it was such a fantastic set. The production design was so brilliant. And then it was basically Seth and I kind of duking it out. Seth’s younger, and he’s a strong guy, he did most of the heavy lifting. He looked after me because I have to be honest, at that point, I did start to feel my years a little bit towards the end.” Mother’s reward to Sam is transporting him somehow so he can spend a few moments with his late wife in their home, dancing to their favorite Bruce Springsteen hits before he wakes again in the cave and flings Blaine’s now desiccated body off his chest.

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Despite Molina’s finale fatigue, Addiss says having a cast where almost all the leads were over 70 years old was never an issue during production, “In some ways, it was the opposite of what you might expect. They were a little bit more ribald and a little bit louder than you might expect. They’re fun.” Adds Matthews, “The group chat, the texts are going to get us all sent to jail with the things they say.”

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The gang uses gentler language to convince Wally, who has joined the Boroughs’ leaders after they rid of him of his death sentence, that Mother’s wishes should be honored. “Wally, he’s a decent, amazing person who is beset with certain temptations — and he fails,” O’Hare says. “He is brought to his senses by his friends, who wake up his conscience. But he [joins a scientific research team at The Boroughs] for altruistic reasons. It’s not just [that] he wants to save himself. He wants to correct the fact that he couldn’t save other people in the past from something like AIDS. And now he has the opportunity to take this tool and maybe make a difference in the world. Is that ego? Is that selfless? It’s kind of all of it.”

Although Wally seems to have made peace with his own terminal diagnosis and impending death by the end, Art hasn’t recovered from the fact that with Jack, Judy has broken the rule that made their open marriage successful – she’d fallen in love.

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Peters says he had no personal reference point for Art and Judy’s marital arrangement. “For me, it doesn’t quite work. I’m selfish that way. It’s not something you can prep for. I can’t go into my life experience and pull out something to say, ‘OK, that’s a point of reference.’” As for whether Art and Judy can recover, he says. “You might have to just wait and see what happens with us going forward because things have not totally been resolved. We know what’s going on, and if you have an open relationship, I imagine when it gets tested, then you know exactly where you stand. It was all right just playing, but love is selfish.”

Despite the triumphant ending, a final scene of Sam shows his reflection glitching in the bathroom mirror. He doesn’t notice, but it suggests he hasn’t quite let go of his connection to the Mother’s world. (Will Byers, anyone?!) Says Molina, “It’s important for the story because I think we already had an eye towards what’s going to happen, maybe Season 2 — if it happens. ‘Where’s it going to go?'”

The Boroughs, Netflix

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