SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “The Boroughs,” now streaming on Netflix.
Alfred Molina turns 73 years-old this weekend, but like his character on Netflix’s “The Boroughs,” he’s showing no signs of slowing down. This year alone, the “Spider-Man 2” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” actor — among his many credits — has already starred in the indie dramedy “When We Get There” and voiced the octopus Marcellus in Netflix’s “Remarkably Bright Creatures.” Now, he leads “The Boroughs,” a Netflix original series, which dropped all eight episodes on May 21.
Created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, and executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer of “Stranger Things” fame, “The Boroughs” follows Sam Cooper (Molina), a fiercely independent, retired engineer, who reluctantly moves into the titular senior living community shortly after losing his wife. Cooper quickly meets his eclectic elderly neighbors—composed of an all-star senior cast of Geena Davis, Bill Pullman, Alfre Woodard, Clarke Peters and Denis O’Hare—but before he can get comfortable, ghostly apparitions and mysterious disappearances tip Cooper off that something isn’t quite right in his new home.
The sight of a monster eating one of his neighbor’s faces at the end of Episode 1 is more than enough to confirm Cooper’s suspicions, and with the help of his new friends, they investigate the sinister, paranormal practices going on within The Boroughs. By the finale, they uncover the truth: The Boroughs’ longtime owners (Seth Numrich and Alice Kremelberg) have been draining the life from their elderly patrons to achieve immortality through the energy of an unwitting, magical matriarch, known as Mother.
