Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Trump administration is backtracking on federal efforts to fight climate change. So city and state governments are stepping in. We think we are standing what can be the future of energy in Denver. On the Sunday Story, climate solutions on the local level. Listen now on the Up First podcast on the NPR app.
Something is definitely up in the new Netflix series The Burrows, which is about a seemingly idyllic mid-century modern retirement community in the middle of the desert. Is it monsters? Is it aliens? Well, it's something weird anyway.
Yep, that's the plot. But the real draw here is the cast. Alfred Molina, Gina Davis, Alfre Woodard, Dennis O'Hare, Clark Peters. It is fun to watch them get drawn into investigating these creepy goings-on, like a kind of septuagenarian Scooby gang. I'm Linda Holmes.
And I'm Glenn Weldon. Today we're talking about The Burrows on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
This week on Sources and Methods, every White House has an official counterterrorism plan, a strategy document, basically. But President Trump's new 2026 plan shifts focus to left-wing extremism. We're unpacking what's in the document and who influenced it this week on Sources and Methods. You can listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Joining us today is film and culture critic Kate Young. Hey, Kate, welcome back.
Yeah, it's a pleasure to be back again.
Great to have you. In The Burrows, Alfred Molina plays Sam, a recent widower whose family moves him into a picture-perfect desert retirement community very much against his will. It takes a while, but he eventually falls in with his neighbors, Judy and Art, played by Alfre Woodard and Clark Peters. Rene, played by Geena Davis, and Wally, played by Dennis O'Hare.
When Sam starts seeing things, the powers that be dismiss his concerns, but his fellow residents don't.
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Chapter 2: What is the premise of The Boroughs on Netflix?
Soon they're investigating the weird occurrences and mysterious deaths, which brings them to the attention of the young man who runs the boroughs, Mr. Shaw, played by Seth Numerick, who oozes charm and maybe some other stuff as well. The Burrows is streaming now on Netflix. Linda, what'd you think?
I really liked this. I thought it was really fun. You know, the Duffer Brothers who made Stranger Things are credited as executive producers. They didn't create it, but they're EPs. And I didn't really know whether it was going to feel like the things about Stranger Things that I liked or the things about Stranger Things that I didn't like. Mm-hmm. It does have a similar feel in a lot of ways.
It is a group of people kind of getting together to fight forces they don't understand. But I really liked seeing that, first of all, executed with older people rather than kids. And second of all, with this incredibly appealing cast. Everybody in this main cast, this sort of Scooby gang, as we said in the intro, is...
Chapter 3: Who are the main cast members of The Boroughs?
is somebody that I'm always happy to see. I'm always actively happy to see Geena Davis and Alfred Woodard and Alfred Molina and Clark Peters and Dennis O'Hare. It's really a terrific group of people. And as they kind of cohere into this group of friends...
I think there is a really good combination of some, I think, compelling emotional material about what it's like for them at this stage of their lives, especially because you see Sam, played by Alfred Molina, moving into this place that, you know, the original plan was that he was going to come with his wife, but she has since died. But he is sort of in this contract to live in this place.
So now he's moving there by himself.
Chapter 4: What is the significance of the septuagenarian Scooby Gang in the show?
His daughter, played by Jenna Malone, kind of moves him into this place and she loves him, but she also moves him there. And I found kind of his interior life very moving a lot of the time. I think he's wonderful in it. I think the marriage of Alfre Woodard and Clark Peters is really well explored. This is not a show that believes that when you are...
70 or 72, the only things going on in your life are activities at the senior center. These people still have a marriage that still has its own complications that revolve around the same things that any marriage can have in it. I liked the kind of underlying story. You know, by the end of Stranger Things, they had made the lore so complicated that I was totally and completely lost.
I don't know if there will be more seasons of this. They certainly leave the door open to it. But I did not feel in this season like it became difficult for me to manage. So I enjoyed and was invested in the kind of the underlying, you know, I think we can say monster story given the opening scene. Yep. So yeah, I really liked this. I was quite pleasantly surprised.
Cool. What about you, Kate? I mean, I feel mostly similarly. I think especially the cast is easily the best thing about it. I think for me, though, there was too much Stranger Things. And not necessarily because of the monsters, but because I felt like the monster story wasn't substantial enough to justify retreading that particular premise. However... The cast really is stellar.
And I think that I almost wish that I could transport them to a slightly different show and see what it looked like then. I think I came on the show when Grace and Frankie ended. And a lot of what I talked about then was about how much I like that the show directly deals with the fact that they're older, right?
There's a scene in this where they're all around a bonfire and they're basically showing off their battle scars from all the surgeries they've had to have because their bodies are failing them. You know what?
That ain't nothing.
Sorry. I had a whole new hippie style. And that was the stuff that really compelled me because I feel like we don't get enough stories about older people. And I did like that this was a story where they are forced to use the skills that they've now had to abandon because they're retired or they have to investigate things and follow their curiosities. And that stuff I found really compelling.
I just felt that the mystery itself was kind of a big nothing.
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Chapter 5: How does the character Sam's backstory influence the plot?
Clark Peters, like listeners, if you don't know the name, you know Lester from The Wire, maybe the greatest TV character of all time. He's here. He's waking and baking. He's having a good time. Good for him. I know that I would follow Dennis O'Hare anywhere because I have followed that man through some really lousy American horror story seasons. But, you know, I'm a sucker for them.
I'm a sucker for this setting, for this architecture. I kept saying to myself, I would live here. A hundred percent. It looks gorgeous. A hundred percent. It's gorgeous. Also, I do think it's a smart premise because, and this gets to what you're saying, Kate, but one of the main aspects of the Duffer Brothers, Spielberg, you know, kids sci-fi fantasy.
thing is the story engine the reason those things kick into motion at all is because nobody listens to kids nobody believes kids and that's the reason they got to go investigate stuff themselves and what this show understands is that in life there is a bell curve and as humans age they start getting ignored again and start getting disbelieved again so it's a great setting i had that same thought
I was concerned going into this, and I think some listeners might actually have a concern, that are things like dementia going to be treated on this show in a kind of a glib way as a plot device? You know, your mileage may vary. That's always going to happen.
But I do think, to Linda's point, I think they really respect these characters enough that the very first scene in this show features Dee Wallace and Ed Begley Jr. going through something, some complications in their relationship. And that scene works on two levels. I think it really gives the sadness room to register and breathe and exist there.
Alongside of or maybe on top of all the wacky sci-fi hijinks or whatever. I think the show has a certain respect for that.
Yeah, there is a particular development that happens fairly late in the show that has to do with Sam, his relationship with his daughter. And her trying to care for him and how she's responding to kind of changes in him that we know are motivated by things that are actually happening, but she doesn't. I found all of that very moving.
And I think also, you know, you mentioned Geena Davis having sex. And one of the things that I did really like about this, you know, you have elements of the emotional stuff and sort of plot devices that are about the fact that they're older, as Kate referred to. Right. But you also have a lot in here that could happen anyway. Mm-hmm.
And a significantly younger man who the story never remotely wonders whether he's really hot for her or not. And in fact, she never really wonders whether he's hot for her or not. For the two of them, this is a relationship that they're going to get into. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, they're using people here who are mostly 70 and above. I think Dennis O'Hare is in his 60s, but the rest of them.
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Chapter 6: How does The Boroughs compare to other shows like Stranger Things?
They're living in the real world. It just so happens that all of the residents are older. The way that those dynamics play out is so fascinating to me, and I desperately want more of that. And I just felt like there wasn't enough room for it because they were busy doing hijinks. And I kind of wish that it was more of like...
a simple maybe murder mystery so that it felt a little bit more grounded to match what I felt was coming from the interpersonal stuff. Because I really, I can't say enough good stuff about the way that these characters interact and the performances and how good they are. But I just feel like by the time we get to the last few episodes, it just feels like we're like on a cartoon chase. Yeah.
I don't care about the details of, like, which monster did what when, and especially since we've just gotten Stranger Things and they kind of bugged it, I didn't see the need to retread this. I think that if we had gotten it first, I might have been more open to it, because then it would have felt certainly more novel to have older characters in that kind of position.
But we've already done it, and I don't think that it brings enough new to the situation. for me to be really invested. I think in the early episodes, I was kind of intrigued because I didn't really know where it was going to go. And I thought that given what we had learned about their interpersonal relationships, that it would tie more directly into that. And that was kind of interesting to me.
But once we get those answers, I was honestly kind of like, that's it. I don't know that this was worth all of that.
Now, I'm glad you unpacked that for us because I wanted to come back to you and ask, like, is it just the sci-fi shenanigans that feels like it's taking away from these characters? But you said you'd be happy with something like a murder mystery or something, a smaller grounded story as opposed to the particulars of this particular sci-fi story. That's kind of what I'm getting from you.
The problem isn't that it's sci-fi. The problem is that it feels to me like we are doing the same story again with different characters. Even the design of the monsters looks fairly familiar. And I wish that it had been something that felt completely novel and fresh. Because as I'm doing right now, all I'm left with is kind of comparisons to something that I think does it better and longer and
While that, you know, lore did get too convoluted in the end, it was something that was interesting and engaging and new at the time, at least to me as an audience member. And I feel like this wasn't different enough to distinguish it because I think that the sci-fi is fine. There's some early developments when Sam is kind of figuring out like what... the feedback in his house is about.
He's fiddling with electronics. He's an engineer. And that stuff was actually compelling. I thought that was going somewhere really interesting. I don't even know how to describe it that happens in his apartment when they're experimenting. That was really beautiful and lovely.
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Chapter 7: What emotional themes are explored in The Boroughs?
I did reach a point somewhere around the middle where I sort of looked at one of the characters, not one of the main Scooby gang characters, but one of the other characters. And I thought, I think I know where they might be going with this. But it wasn't because of anything that struck me as particularly heavy handed. It was the actor performance.
And I thought, I like the fact that I feel like the actor's performance without more is making me feel like I understand enough about this character to feel like I'm starting to get where they're going with this. And I appreciated that. I don't mind figuring out the story. I just don't want to figure out the story and feel like you're making it super, super obvious to me. Right.
But I do like when I feel like I'm getting clues. I don't have a problem with that. So I think eventually they justify the use of this specific science fiction story in the context of these particular characters. And so because I found the characters so compelling, it did ultimately kind of hang together for me in that way.
I'm coming at this from a sci-fi bias, which is why I'm going to say a thing that no listener wants to hear about a streaming series or any series, which is for me, you've got to stick with it. Which is for me, I wasn't really on board until episode three, which is where the rubber meets the road, the momentum increases.
And to your point, Kate, a lot of the science fiction wackiness starts getting wackier. That's when I connected with this. It's not that I was bored in the early going when it was really, really character focused and character driven. I just needed more. And I get that by episode three.
Yeah. I mean, it might be just like, you know, the narcissism of getting older, but like the characters' ages was to me the most compelling part of this, specifically because it gives them life experience that a lot of the characters were more accustomed to seeing on screen don't have because they're not that old.
And so we essentially kind of by virtue of them being older, we have more experience stuff to play with, more information to play with. You mentioned the Dennis O'Hare character and kind of how his situation shapes the way that he responds to these elements. And like, I really liked those elements.
There's this particular speech that he gives where he kind of mentions the kind of work that he had been doing. And immediately that character made sense, right? And it was such a lovely moment because he plays it so well and it was so, it was so moving. However, we can do that without monsters. I felt like there was so much good stuff in it that just like,
It felt like a distraction from all of the great character work, because each and every one of the main cast is going through this wonderful, beautiful transformation as people, as they're figuring out what their lives look like at this stage. what kinds of things they want to be doing at this age, because they're all retired, you know, they can all be playing bocce ball or whatever it is.
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