Not unlike The Boroughs, Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews’ first encounter with Netflix played a bit like a bittersweet horror show. They landed a dream gig — running The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, an expansion of the classic 1982 Jim Henson film. But days after the first season won them an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program, Netflix pulled the plug. The two were crushed but undaunted. They beefed up their nerd bona fides by writing the animated Lord of the Rings movie The War of the Rohirrim and then got another shot with the streamer, when Stranger Things masterminds Matt and Ross Duffer came calling.
Addiss picks up the story: “We had a meeting with Matt and Ross and they went, ‘Do you have any ideas for a show?’ And we said, ‘Absolutely, so many. Let us get back to you.’ And we went to a bar and came up with this show, from a place of, ‘Let’s take all the things we love and throw them together.’”
“At the forefront of our mind was that Jeff likes monsters, and I identify as a 70 year old,” says Matthews, “and so we just put them together to make a show.”
Their optimism and good humor shines through in The Boroughs, which pays homage to classic genre films of the 1980s and early 1980s and features era-appropriate stars like Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, and Bill Pullman. But, unlike Stranger Things, The Boroughs is set in a present-day New Mexico retirement community. The show has been a fixture on Netflix’s most-streamed list since it dropped on May 21, with fans debating plot points and pouring over clues… and hoping for a second season to answer lingering questions.
READ: Behind ‘The Boroughs’ music, from Bruce Springsteen needle drops to John Williams homages
The showrunners joined Gold Derby for an off-the-rails conversation covering how The Boroughs’ all-star cast “saved” the show, the major Easter egg most fans missed, how much the creators have mapped up potential future seasons, and why they launched an ill-fated feud with Vince Gilligan and Pluribus.
Gold Derby: I remember talking to some folks from Netflix a few months ago about upcoming shows and they had The Boroughs circled. They kept saying it was “Stranger Things in a retirement community” or a Goonies–Cocoon mashup. Was that your elevator pitch when you were shopping it around?
Will Matthews: We’re definitely influenced by Amblin — we were thinking a little more like second-gen Amblin — but basically it was really just very pure. We like that stuff. It’s in our bones. But at the forefront of our mind was that Jeff likes monsters, and I identify as a 70 year old, and so we just put them together to make a show.
Jeffrey Addiss: We never shopped it around. It really was as simple as we had a meeting with Matt and Ross [Duffer] and they went, “Do you have any ideas for a show?” And we said, “Absolutely, so many. Let us get back to you.” And we went to a bar and came up with this show, from a place of, “Let’s take all the things we love and throw them together.”
And did it always have that, that retro ’80s, early ’90s vibe to it?
Addiss: We were very specifically targeting, funny enough, late ’90s, early aughts. Signs was a big touchstone for us. If you watch Signs, it’s also a movie set largely in a house and on the property around it, but it’s scored big. It’s operatic, and it’s got big feelings. Big ideas, smaller scope.
Matthews: I think a reason a lot of people feel that Amblin tone is because it’s so closely associated with Stranger Things and they’re so closely associated with the ’80s, but also because those movies were very genuine, heart on your sleeve. The good guys win. There’s hope in the world. It’s not cool to be gritty. It’s cool to be kind.
I assume having the Duffers and Netflix involved helped with the casting? You have dream ensemble — it’s unbelievable how stacked this cast is.
Addiss: That happened pretty fast. I think Geena [Davis] and Alfre [Woodard] were first, as I recall, and then I think Fred [Molina] came in right after that. Fred is amazing, and he’s one of the most kind people you’ll ever meet. He’s also never been No. 1 on a call sheet before. How crazy is that? His whole career, this was the first time.
Matthews: They just they liked the script, they liked the concept. And I think they liked the idea of being the lead characters, the heroes who drive the plot.
Addiss: You’re running through tunnels, you’re fighting monsters, you’re having adventures. … This whole cast was so prepared. Anytime they came on set, they were there early. They were running lines. They were ready to go. We lost no takes because of cast. They saved us. We made our schedule because of this cast. They didn’t want to let each other down, and they just were so kind.
Let’s talk a little bit about the very first scene. It’s very much like Scream or even Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, where you set up Dee Wallace, this famous actress from the from the ’80s, as a major character. Then she’s dead before the credits roll.
Matthews: We needed someone that you immediately love and care about and want the best for. Maybe you recognize her as the mom from E.T., but you look at her and you’re like, “I’m on her side, I love her, I want her to do well.”
Addiss: She was the dream when we wrote it. I remember talking about, “Wouldn’t it be funny if it was her?” And that first three-and-a-half minutes, I think that cold open has five different tones in it. It’s basically teaching you how to watch the whole show. It is funny, it is sad, it is scary. It is all of these things across three-and-a-half minutes with one actress and a second actor [Ed Begley Jr.] on an iPad and a monster. We needed somebody who could do all of that, and she has all of her emotion right there, ready to tap. She’s extraordinarily vulnerable and talented and just present in a lovely way.
And so it was a gift, because if those first three-and-a-half minutes didn’t work, didn’t teach you how to watch the show, I don’t think the whole show would work.
So many of these actors are like Easter eggs in and of themselves. My favorite is Geena Davis with her T-Bird. Is that the exact same model from Thelma & Louise?
Addiss: Here’s what’s so funny. We wrote that whole going-over-the-cliff thing before we cast Geena Davis. We always had Geena Davis in our mind. Then we got Geena Davis, and we were like, “Oh, well, we gotta leave it. It’s fun now, right?” It was an Easter egg to her before she was cast.
You guys got to rewrite Thelma & Louise. You gave her a happy ending.
[Laughs] She’s cast and we’re like, “OK, let’s at least not make the car exactly the same.” It’s so in your subconscious, we just kept getting closer and closer to that car. Then eventually we just embraced the whole thing. It is not exactly the same car, but it’s pretty close. We resisted until at some point we just tilted all the way in.
You obviously had a blast with the Easter eggs and homages. Mother’s children move around like the Xenomorph from Alien. There are Stranger Things allusions. There are riffs on Stephen King’s It. One character is actually reading ’Salem’s Lot. That was the first Stephen King book I read, way too young. I was 12, and I had nightmares about little vampire kids knocking at my window.
Addiss: That’s my copy of ’Salem’s Lot first edition that he’s holding in that episode. Stephen King actually said something nice about the show on Threads, and he’s my idol.
We were definitely inspired by the 1970s TV movie. King has talked about how ’Salem’s Lot is basically a town not worth saving, right? It seems perfect, but it’s bad underneath. For ours, the whole point was it is worth saving. We’re jamming on the same idea. I mean, Blaine [Seth Numrich] and Anneliese [Alice Kremelberg] to a certain extent are vampires, right? They’re drawing life to extend their own. We’re just created our own version of it. But we’re definitely playing with vampire lore and mythology.
While we’re talking about Easter eggs, was there anything you put in there that you felt like, “Hey, I hope the audience gets this or I hope they they see our wink here?”
Matthews: It’s amazing to us how many people didn’t notice the idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark, because it’s real clear it’s a shot. It’s right there. And some people were like, “Oh, man, I love that. And some people are like, “Oh, I didn’t know what that was.” So, you know, some Easter eggs. You just don’t know.
[Boroughs star Alfred Molina famously made his film debut in Raiders as the ill-fated guide who tries to steal the idol from Indy in the opening sequence.]
Addiss: There’s still a couple in there that people haven’t found, but they’re really deep, nerdy cuts, and it’s a lot around numbers. There’s also a lot of monsters hidden in the architecture. There’s a number of proboscis, the thing that comes out of its forehead, hidden in architecture. But most people found most of them.
Do you guys ever go in into the Reddit threads or or pay attention to the chatter online when it comes to theories about the show?
Matthews: Not really after the show came out. But I saw one theory — that is not at all what we did, but I was like, “That’s a great idea” — before the show came out. When there was just a trailer, there was a theory that Blaine — because Seth and Bill Pullman look similar — were the same guy in two different time periods. That’s a great idea!
Addiss: But we probably would have just asked Lewis Pullman to do it. He looks even more like his dad.
Let’s talk about Mother and the monsters. There are unanswered questions about the origin of the egg and the significance of the tree.
Matthews: We really wanted to do a flashback scene, a long flashback scene, to explain some things, like the tree and Marcus finding the egg, and things like that, and we just couldn’t find a way to make it work within the language of the show.
Addiss: The tree was explained very specifically, and we pulled that. As Will said, when we didn’t shoot that scene, we never fully explained what Mother is. The scope would be if we keep going, eventually we would explain that and how it all ties together. But that was never on the table to reveal in this season.
Since you mentioned it, is any word on Season 2? Did you map out multiple seasons?
Addiss Yep. Will and I have talked about it, and we have a map. But that’s really all I’d call it is a map.
Matthews: It’s more a map of emotions rather than plot points, character arcs rather than scenes.
Addiss: We know how it ends, because we know how it all ties up. But if we don’t get a second season, we feel like we left the characters in a really good place. They’re at a party and Sam glitched in a mirror, but you get the impression he’s going to be OK. He’s got friends, which was important to us.
With the New Mexico setting and supernatural events and exploration of grief and loneliness, The Boroughs almost plays in conversation with Pluribus. Different tones, but interesting intersections.
Addiss:They built the cul-de-sac down the road in Albuquerque. What was funny is Vince Gilligan is the king of Albuquerque entertainment, right? The street we were shooting on, on the lot was named after him.
Matthews: On the Netflix lot. He doesn’t even work for Netflix!
Addiss: Every day, we’d drive down to offices on Vince Gilligan Street. Everybody in the city knows them. There’s a there’s a Breaking Bad museum, right? They’re on the poster when you land at the airport. He’s earned it. He is amazing and he’s one of the best who ever does it.
We tried to start a rivalry with. We did. I’ll tell you honestly, we tried to start a funny beef.
Matthews: We’re like, “That guy’s had it too good for too long.”
Addiss: So we tried to start a beef, thinking he was funny, and I don’t think he ever even heard about it, because we’re just not on the same level. That’s the that’s the truth. That’s why it’s funny. It’s the guys at the corner, you know, trash talking for fun.
But when I saw the cul-de-sac, I was like, “That’s funny. We both built a cul-de-sac.”
Matthews: I tell you what, though. When I was watching, particularly the first and second episodes of Pluribus, I saw a lot of locations that we almost chose, and I was like, “Thank God we didn’t choose it, because there it is,” and Pluribus came out first. But you know, Albuquerque is a great place to shoot. It has a lot of beautiful desert vistas and it’s got a lot of great locations.
Addiss: We also, some of the actors overlap, because you’re pulling from the same talent pool. When you do watch the show, you’re like, “Oh, I know that one person. I know that person.” And it’s nice to see them working.
If Season 2 happens, maybe you can revisit the beef. Speaking of, in light of what Blaine says about things can be undone in the Boroughs, is he really dead?
Addiss: Blaine is dead. But what he said in that room is a big hint of where the story would go. We very carefully chose his words and rewrote it a number of times, and even cut a few lines from what we shot. It’s in there. It’s a hint. [“You have no idea what Mother is, what she’s capable of,” Blaine tells Sam in the finale. “Everything you think you’ve accomplished can be undone.”]
And Mother and all her children, are they all gone, too?
Addiss: They’re gone.
And you said Sam’s glitch was intentional…
Addiss: [Shaking his head] Nope. That’s the fun. Come on. Don’t ruin the fun!
Matthews: All different kinds of real.
Addiss: [Laughs] All different kinds of real.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
