‘The Boroughs’ presents a mystery adventure show set in a retirement community where something menacing seems to be lurking in the shadows. The show revolves around Sam Cooper, a former engineer and recent widower, who reluctantly becomes a member of the Boroughs, a town designed specifically for people to retire in their old age. However, the community, ripe with neurological conditions and looming death, is actually harboring a big secret. As it turns out, spindly, leggy creatures pose a consistent and ever-present threat to the residents, but only in the dark of the night. Once Sam has the misfortune of stumbling across one such supernatural threat, he and a group of other like-minded senior citizens come together to save the world from an unseen threat. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Boroughs Recap
After the tragic passing of his wife, Sam Cooper finds himself on a one-way trip to The Boroughs, the old-age community he and Lily had planned to retire in. Now, despite his mounting grief and unwillingness to make the move, contractual obligation pushes him into the new home. Still, he makes sure to drag his feet and oppose the condescending “transition manager,” in-house digital assistants, and eclectic, friendly neighbors along the way. His first night at the new place ends in disaster when the previous owner, Edwards, breaks into the house and injures Sam with a knife. In the aftermath, the CEO behind the community agrees to talk to the engineer in an attempt to dissuade him from involving the local cops. The owner, Blaine Shaw, is amicable and offers him a termination of contract while also implying that the town might be the only place equipped to handle his loneliness.
The next night, Sam accepts Jack’s backyard barbecue offer, mingles with the rest of the residents of the cul-de-sac, and decides to give the town an actual try. Things immediately go wrong early next morning when an alarm compels Sam to break into Jack’s home, where he witnesses his friend being fed on by a creature of the night. By the time authorities arrive, the Creature escapes, and Jack’s death is declared to be the result of a heart attack. Nonetheless, the engineer remains dubious of the whole thing and decides to investigate by looking into Edwards’ manic claims about there being owls in the walls. This leads him to accidentally uncover the Creature’s blood and its otherworldly nature. As a result, Sam ends up recruiting the help of Wally, a retired doctor and fellow neighbor.
Judy, a married woman who was having an affair with Jack, also ends up embroiled in their misadventures after retaining her own doubts about the nature of her lover’s death. Together, the trio learns that the Creature responsible for Jack’s death has also been infiltrating their houses in the middle of the night and feeding on their cerebral fluids. Consequently, they come to the conclusion that they must lure the Creature out and kill it. Meanwhile, Judy’s husband, Art, is off on an adventure of his own in the desert, leading him into a Cave of Wonders that houses a mystic peach tree. This peach harbors special qualities of restoring one’s youth upon consumption, but only for a short period of time. During this time, Art’s path crosses with Annelise, the Blaines’ wife, who seems interested in his secret to youth.
This is because both she and her husband are actually decades-old people whose own methods of eternal youth are starting to fail them. Simultaneously, Renee and her younger lover, Paz, a security guard at the community, come to the same conclusion through their own separate investigation. Eventually, all these neighbors’ narratives collide in the desert, where they share information and put the pieces together. Nonetheless, this victory is short-lived as they’re quickly apprehended by Baines and his close-knit circle of parasitic immortals. While the others are forced into compliance, Wally chooses to work for the CEO, enchanted by the idea of curing the inevitability of aging. In the end, this leads to a big confrontation in which Sam and his friends find themselves fighting to help the Mother of the creatures, who has been bled dry for her blood’s special powers.
The Boroughs Ending: Is Sam Dead or Alive? Why Does He Glitch?
At the very end of the show, after Sam and his friends have helped out the Mother Creature and taken out the bad guys, the climax finds them enjoying a hearty moment of family and community. During this time, one scene shows the engineer’s reflection glitching in a mirror with no immediate consequences or explanation. However, it isn’t the first time such a phenomenon has occurred. A similar glitching effect can be observed previously in Sam’s visions of the apparitions of Lily, his dead wife. Additionally, Baines witnesses an identical thing in his nightmare about Annelise’s demise. In both of these instances, the glitching has accompanied the Mother’s attempts at communication.
Therefore, it would be fair to assume that Sam’s climactic glitching is also in some way related to the Mother. However, given her definitive fate, it’s unlikely that it is a signal of another attempt at connection. Instead, it’s much more probable that the glitching signifies the protagonist has, in some way, for better or for worse, changed due to his concluding proximity to the Creatures during their death. In the confrontation against Baines inside the Cave of Wonders, both the engineer and the CEO are within the same radius of the blast that follows the Mother and her kids’ deaths. However, while Baines is obliterated from the exposure, Sam manages to make it out alive.
This is likely a result of the Mother’s decision to shield Sam from the blast and spare him from destruction. However, the nature of the Creature’s powers isn’t fully known. For the same reason, it is entirely possible that in saving Sam’s life, Mother ended up leaving an imprint or an influence on him. As such, the glitching is an early sign of a bigger change that awaits Sam. The creators of the series, Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, have spoken about this climax and shared how this is meant to pay homage to ‘Stranger Things’ and its similar season 1 ending. “(Sam) glitching in the mirror is a hint at where we hope to go (next),” Addiss told Netflix. “We wanted to have some fun.”
Why Does Sam Help the Mother? Why Does She Want to Die?
Initially, when Sam learns about the Creature and its predation over the Boroughs’ residents, he wants to kill the supernatural being as a way to avenge his friend, Jack. However, he soon learns that the matter at hand is much more complicated than that. Furthermore, his old age and Baines’ control over the demented situation make it less likely that anyone, even his own daughter, would believe him and his account. Therefore, he shifts his priorities to self-preservation and simply aspires to get out of the community with his life intact. That is, he truly realizes the scope of hurt and entrapment the Mother is undergoing.
The two have been in conversation over the course of the entire show through flashbacks, visions, and other hauntings Sam experiences of Lily’s apparition. These are all actually the Mother’s way of attempting to communicate with him and beg him to help her out. The Creature has been trapped and enslaved by Baines and his people for decades, used as an eternal fountain of youth. Nonetheless, her own lifetime was limited, and much of it has been drained by the greedy, opportunistic humans. Therefore, now that she is at the end of the line, she just wants to embrace the end with dignity and her children by her side. Sam, who intimately understands the complications of aging, can’t help but extend a level of empathy towards her.
In doing so, Sam and his friends recognize that the real monsters are the human-bred Baines and his gang, while the Creatures are actually victims in the situation. Furthermore, he realizes that helping Mother translates into honoring her wishes. On the other hand, the latter’s acceptance of her doom stems from the tragedy of a lifetime of imprisonment. From the looks of it, Mother has been under Baines’ lock-and-key ever since she was born in 1949. As such, she has never known a life outside of a cage. Tragically, by the time help arrives, she has already reached the end of her life. For the same reason, her last and only act of freedom lies solely in dying on her own terms.
How does Sam See Lilly? Does He Time Travel?
The season’s climax brings another unique instance that remains shrouded in intrigue. After the Mother and her children go out in a burst of light and energy, Baines dies, but Sam meets a different fate. He is transported back in time, on the day of Lily’s death, when the two were at their home together, dancing. Initially, the scene may appear as a dream sequence, but the reality remains much more convoluted than that. One of the key details we know about Mother is that she doesn’t experience time in a linear format. Instead, for her, time is an ever-expanding thing where the past, the present, and the future are all coexisting.
This is why she can form connections with people like The Duchess or Sam, who are undergoing personal tragedies of their own, distorting their own perceptions of time. In the end, after Sam helps her actualize her final wish, the Mother wishes to part ways with him by imparting one last gift to him. She allows him another short-lived moment with Lily, the love of his life. For much of the series, the protagonist’s biggest inner conflict has stemmed from his inability to process the grief of losing his wife. Therefore, by getting to experience this one moment, likely achieved through some tinkering with time on the Mother’s part, Sam finally achieves the closure needed to accept Lily’s fate.
Does Judy Die? How Does She Survive?
Near the end of the season, Judy and Art put themselves directly in harm’s way to save their friends. After escaping from the Manor, with a kidnapped Mother, the gang makes a plan to escape via the interconnected oven tunnels running in the town’s underground. However, Judy and Art stay behind as distractions. As a result, they also become the prime target for torture. In an attempt to locate Sam and the others, Annelise stabs Judy to get Art to talk. She targets crucial points on the body that won’t immediately kill the woman but render her in dire need of surgery.
Eventually, Baines and the others find their own way while Judy and Art manage to escape and regroup with their friends. Nonetheless, with no medical help available, save fr Wally’s limited expertise, things seem bleak for the former journalist. That is, until Mother decides to take things into her hands. Despite being significantly weaker and drained, she decides to impart an act of kindness on Judy and use her powers to save her life. Whether she does this out of empathy or as a way to prove her humanity to the others, the Mother ends up saving Judy’s life in the end.
Do Blaine and Anneliese Die? What Happens to the Town?
The Boroughs town started in the 1950s after Marcus Shaw decided to open a retirement town for elders. However, the origins behind his mission were more insidious than anyone ever realized. In 1949, an egg was discovered that hatched the Mother, a supernatural creature, whose blood holds the ability to freeze the consumer’s aging. This proved to be a particular boon for Marcus, whose wife was suffering from Polio at the time. Nonetheless, down the line, the couple realized they needed to constantly feast on the Mother’s blood in order to retain the anti-aging and immortaliizing abilities.
Moreover, in order to keep the Creature strong enough for her to continue producing enough blood, she needed to be fed on human cerebral fluid. For the same reason, the Shaws ended up building the Borough as a hidden way to have their own personal cerebral fluid farm to keep the Mother alive and keep a handle on their own eternal youth. From there, they continued to play the roles of their own predecessors to keep up the charades, taking on the personas of Blaine and Anneliese Shaw. However, the end of the Mother’s natural life puts a damper on their plans for eternity.
In the end, the Mother’s end promises to herald in the end of the spouses as well. Anneliese is already struggling with her life energy after sustaining a big hit during her confrontation with Art. She also meets an early end, vaporized by Sam’s old TV contraption. On the other hand, a vengeful Blaine makes it all the wya ot the Cave of Wonders where he tries to defeat Sam. Yet, he only ends up being perished under the blast of the Mother and her children’s deaths. In the end, the Boroughs become a safer place overnight. Even so, logistically, its fate remains up in the air. With the owners gone, the retirement community’s future rests on a precarious balance.
Read More: Where is The Boroughs Filmed? All Shooting Locations
