Stranger Things Meets Thursday Murder Club in The Boroughs

Marrying the supernatural thrills of a sci-fi adventure with the warmth (and emotional intelligence) of older characters, the Duffer Brothers’ next Netflix series promises to deliver a strange alchemy. Made up of eight episodes, arriving later this month, The Boroughs is one of the more ambitious projects we’ve seen from the streaming giant in a while: a show about retirees fighting monsters in the New Mexico desert.

If you enjoyed Stranger Things and The Thursday Murder Club, you’re going to love The Boroughs. Created and written by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, the minds behind The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and produced by the Duffer Brothers – who famously created Stranger Things, one of Netflix’s most successful series ever – The Boroughs has naturally already sparked considerable buzz thanks to this strange blend.

Here’s everything you need to know before it lands on Netflix.

The Boroughs: Plot, Cast, Release Date & More

Greenlit by Netflix back in April 2023, filming finally got under way on The Boroughs in autumn 2024, stretching into early 2025 on location in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s a long time coming then, with the eight-part series finally set to arrive on the small screen in May 2026.

Denis O’Hare as Wally, Alfre Woodard as Judy & Alfred Molina as Sam in The Boroughs. (Netflix © 2026)

The Plot

Set in the seemingly idyllic titular retirement community nestled in the New Mexico desert, The Boroughs begins when Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina), a grieving widower, moves in hoping to find some peace in his golden years. Instead, he encounters something far more sinister: a monstrous threat that forces him to band together with an unlikely group of neighbours to uncover a dark secret threatening their community.

What unfolds is a tense, thrilling ride that balances scares with humour and emotional depth. Flitting between intimate character moments and high-stakes action, this a world where golf carts and retirement potlucks sit uneasily alongside supernatural danger. But at its heart, The Boroughs grapples with a deceptively simple but universally resonant question: what will you do with the time you have left?

Watch the trailer below for a taste of the action.

The genesis of The Boroughs is rather funny. ‘When Jeff was a child, all he did was draw monsters. And when Will was a child, he started planning for his retirement,’ Addiss and Matthews explain. ‘So a show about a group of retirees who fight monsters really plays to both our strengths.’

To get the project off the ground, they emailed the Duffer Brothers with their vision. ‘For years, we’ve wondered why no one has made a film like Ron Howard’s wonderful Cocoon since, well, Cocoon,’ the famed screenwriting duo says. ‘Then, out of nowhere, Jeff and Will emailed us an idea for The Boroughs. They were adamant that – unlike so many stories about older characters – this wouldn’t treat aging as a punchline. Instead, it would treat its characters as real people facing real challenges…along with a few supernatural ones.’

‘While the characters are a little older than the kids in Stranger Things – they ride golf carts instead of bikes – the spirit is very much the same,’ the Duffer Brothers continue. ‘At its core, this is a story about belonging and growing up – no matter your age – filled with adventure, wonder, comedy, scares, and tears.’

Debuting in summer 2016, set in the 1980s, Stranger Things – one of Netflix’s most successful (and most expensive) original series of all time – centres on a group of nerdy pre-teen friends living in the rural town of Hawkins, Indiana. But their lives are turned upside down (wink wink) when one of their group is abducted by a mysterious alien creature. Running for five seasons up until December 2025, Stranger Things gathered countless awards along the way and has been cited by the likes of Variety and Empire as one of the very best television shows of all time.

The Boroughs retirement community. (Netflix © 2026)

Is The Boroughs Real?

While The Boroughs is not based on one specific retirement community, much like 2025’s The Thursday Murder Club, the series taps into the growing trend of retirement communities over retirement homes.

These are more modern spaces where older individuals are given more freedom to live out their later lives in a community with like-minded (and similarly aged) individuals. Think board games, cake making, and endless activities with lots of shared amenities like lounges, conservatories, gyms, kitchens and dining rooms. And while residents don’t go home to their houses off-site, their individual lodgings are more akin to solo apartments (even bungalows) than the transient, basic rooms retirement and care homes have become known for.

In the Thursday Murder Club, retirement community Coopers Chase comes with plenty of amenities plus crime-busting activities. (Sir Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren & Pierce Brosnan in The Thursday Murder Club. © Giles Keyte/Netflix)

This rather unique and growing concept has clearly captured the imagination of writers. Speaking on The Thursday Murder Club, for example, broadcaster and writer Richard Osman says mined inspiration from his own mother’s retirement home in the British countryside. ‘You just sit and chat with these people and they’ve lived these extraordinary lives,’ he told Netflix. ‘You hear these amazing stories and gossip and wisdom, and you think, “These people are so overlooked.”

‘The idea that these people with their wisdom and their invisibility would be the perfect people to solve [a crime] is exactly where The Thursday Murder Club comes from,’ Osman says. ‘Take these people who are underestimated but who have these incredible skills, put them together, and they can achieve anything.’

Swap murder mystery for supernatural hauntings and you’ve got The Boroughs.

Alfre Woodard as Judy in The Boroughs. (Netflix © 2026)

The Cast

Leading the ensemble is British-American star Alfred Molina as Sam Cooper, the grieving newcomer at The Boroughs retirement community. Known for his long-spanning career and roles in the likes of Murder on the Orient Express (2001) and Meantime (1983), the acclaimed actor says he was drawn to the role for its complexity, adding: ‘there was also something about the character’s grumpiness that appealed to me. As I read more and more episodes, I thought, “This is a character that could really go somewhere.” He starts off in one place and is somehow forced to go somewhere else. He may not like it all the time, and he may not want to, but he has to.’

Molina is joined by a stellar ensemble, including Thelma & Louise star Geena Davis, Clemency‘s Alfre Woodard, American Horror Story‘s Denis O’Hare, The Wire‘s Clarke Peters and The Sinner‘s Bill Pullman. ‘According to some very unofficial napkin math, our stars bring something like 350 years of craft to The Boroughs,’ Addiss and Matthews observe. ‘We knew they would be great. We didn’t expect them to be so fun. They can make you laugh or cry with just a look.’

Geena Davis as Renee in The Boroughs. (Netflix © 2026)

The full cast we know is as follows:

• Alfred Molina as Sam Cooper
• Geena Davis as Renee
• Alfre Woodard as Judy
• Denis O’Hare as Wally
• Clarke Peters as Art
• Bill Pullman as Jack
• Jena Malone as Claire Cooper
• Carlos Miranda as Paz
• Seth Numrich as Blaine Shaw
• Alice Kremelberg as Anneliese Shaw
• Mousa Hussein Kraish as Dr. McGinnis
• Karan Soni as Toby
• Rafael Casal
• Ed Begley Jr.
• Jane Kaczmarek
• Eric Edelstein
• Dee Wallace

Alfred Molina as Sam in The Boroughs. (Netflix © 2026)

Release Date

All eight episodes of The Boroughs arrive on Netflix on Wednesday 21 May 2026. This is a full-drop release, meaning you’ll be able to binge the entire season in one sitting.

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