Netflix’ latest hit show, The Boroughs, has swiftly been dubbed Strangers Things for the next gen and after devouring the entire debut season, I have to agree.
It’s also not a surprising comparison to make when you learn the show comes from the minds behind the Hawkins-based drama.
Set in a New Mexico retirement community of all places, the supernatural thriller follows a group of elderly residents who uncover a dark conspiracy — their charming immortal caretakers have been harvesting brain fluid from sleeping residents to feed an ancient creature whose blood keeps them forever young.Yikes, right?
The eerie mystery takes us right through to a gripping finale that left us with as many questions as it did answers. So let me unpack it…
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The Boroughs Ending, Explained
The eerie mystery takes us right through to a gripping finale that left us with as many questions as it did answers. So let me unpack it…
In the final episode of The Boroughs, we finally learn the full truth about Mother — a powerful being who hatched from an egg discovered by a miner named Marcus Shaw back in 1949, whose descendants went on to build the Boroughs retirement community as little more than a feeding ground, harvesting brain fluid from sleeping residents to keep her alive. Sam and his crew decide the only merciful thing to do is let her go.
They bring Mother back to the mysterious underground tree and watch as she dies surrounded by her children, exploding in a blaze of light that takes the villainous Blaine with her. Before she goes, though, Mother gives Sam one final gift — a fleeting moment back in his old home with his late wife Lilly, where the two share one last dance to Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.”
It’s the closure Sam has been searching for all season. Meanwhile, Judy gets a second chance at life after Mother miraculously revives her from a stab wound dealt by Anneliese. Just when it seems like the dust has settled, the show pulls the rug out one last time: Sam catches his own reflection glitching like TV static in the bathroom mirror…
It’s the kind of cliffhanger that has me convinced a season two announcement is imminent.
Why Did Sam Glitch At The End Of The Boroughs? A Theory
The biggest talking point in the finale came as Sam looked into a mirror before his reflection glitches. While the show’s creators have been coy about its meaning, what we do know is that glitching has been the show’s visual language for Mother’s influence all along. Sam saw visions of Lilly glitching throughout the season, and even Blaine experienced it in a dream — all of it Mother’s way of transmitting a signal to those sensitive enough to receive it.
“There’s a lot in the show about transmission and signals: the signal that Mother puts out, the voices that Sam’s hearing, the glitching — we call it ‘glitching,’” co-showrunner Jeff Addiss told EW. “So it was not done idly. Everything about it is very specific, and it sets up what we imagined to be the next chapter of the adventure.”
Some viewers have theorised online that the glitch is because Mother actually inhabited Sam’s body after the explosion. Others suggest Sam is in some kind of time warp, with the ending mirroring that of Stranger Things’ season one finale.
“This reminds me of how Stranger things ended season one… Will was in the bathroom alone and threw up an upside down slime into the sink,” one reddit user writes.
“Sam seems to be inhabited by aliens/whatever mother is. Perhaps this sequence if events isnt even real. Mother can construct scenesand people experience tine differently in them.
Perhaps mirror glitches are its “tell” that its a time warp thing, like the Will’s tell was the spooky feeling grabbing the back of his neck and puking up bits of Upside Down.”
It’s a compelling theory… We’ll just have to wait and see if it’s right.
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