While I’ve tried (and failed) to avoid bringing up Stranger Things too much during my travel of The Boroughs, I do have to throw my hands up and concede that, yes, a sizable part of the show’s storytelling owes an incredible amount to the multiple years of happenings that befell the citizens of Hawkins, Indiana. While the cast of zesty pensioners certainly were different to Mike, Eleven and the gang, the narrative paths that had each of them slowly pick apart a sci-fi conspiracy from a completely different angle would have be obvious even to someone who’d never visited the Upside-Down before. I’m not pointing this out as a bad thing – in fact, the whole affair has been giving me fond memories of Stranger Things’ first season which was still relatively small scale. However, with “The Grey Rebellion”, we find that The Boroughs has a couple of surprises in it after all as the villain’s of the piece have an offer to make that’s decidedly un-Hawkins like in its execution.
The jig is up and the attempts of Sam, Judy, Renee, Wally and Art to uncover the extraterrestrial goings on behind the scenes of the titular retirement village crash and burn after being caught red handed by CEO and arch conspirator, Blaine Shaw. Arrested by his goons and delivered to the Manor strapped up with bags on their heads, the group understandably believe they’re about to be executed – but when they find that they’re being addressed by an unrestrained Wally, they learn that a deal is about to be made. The terms are simple; mention none of the alien goings on to anyone and they can go back to their retired lives under the condition that they never leave the Boroughs ever again. However, breathe a word that the Shaws are using alien spider-children to drain cerebrospinal fluid from the residents and channel it into an elixir that stops human aging and they’ll be sent straight to the Manor where they’ll be treated like dementia sufferers for the rest of their lives.
Wally has already agreed as his work examining the alien biology has impressed the powers that be and he’s been asked to join the group and take the fluid that’ll see off his cancer as long as he drinks the concoction daily. This inspires the rest of the group to fold and days later, we find them back experiencing the daily grind, while Wally gets a tour of the inner workings of the place. However, due to their martial issues, Judy and Art find that going back to normal isn’t as easy as they’d hoped; but while Renee and Paz are trying to cook up an escape attempt, notoriously difficult Sam simply climbs the dividing wall and walks the distance to the nearest phone overnight.
Exhausted, her rings his daughter for aid without knowing that Shaw has already planted seeds in her mind that her father is starting to lose his marbles which results in a painful betrayal. But while Sam is destined to rot in the Manor, his comrades decide to scrap escaping and go on a counter attack instead.
At no point has the Dufferesque storytelling negatively affected how much I’ve been enjoying The Boroughs – if anything, it’s made the show reassuringly familiar – but a side effect has been that I’ve found most of it fairly predictable. A lot of the story beats I’ve seen coming from a mile off and I’ve predicted a lot of revelations long before someone is polite enough to verbally confirm it as the episodes have rattled along, but either episode six, we find that a minor change up has suddenly made the show weirdly unpredictable. Simple fact is, the notion that the good guys have already lost three episodes before the end of the season proves to give The Boroughs its own gulp of life-invigorating elixir that finally breaks free of some predictable plotting.
On paper it sounds like it’s the worst decision the show could possibly make as it essentially halts the momentum of the plot just as we’re approaching something of a climactic build. But while other Netflix shows have tried similar tricks and seriously marred the flow of their seasons, The Boroughs uses it as something of a bit of breathing space in order to fully earn some of the decisions our characters ultimately make. Maybe the reasoning works so well is because the slowing of the pace matches the demeanor of the leads and having them gradually regain their spirit and confidence after getting outmaneuvered fits more with the story the show is telling. It also reveals a major flaw in the villain’s thinking that fits a major plot point of the entire show that wouldn’t have worked if the leads were younger.
Simply put, Shaw give the gang a second chance because he needs Wally to help them out with an alien conundrum and they just don’t take the old age usurpers that seriously despite the trouble they’ve caused them. While some may shout accusations of lazy storytelling or a deployment of plot armour at the desicion, it’s actually a telling commentary about how the elderly really are neglected and underestimated; plus, it’s kind of fun to discover that this is one secret conspiracy that’s literally being held together by a wing and a prayer as the Shaws and their conspirators actually have an incredibly narrow vision when it comes to a wonder fluid that essentially grants immortality.
Another thing The Grey Rebellion adds is a greater understanding of the aliens which provide the goo in question. It turns out that what Shaw discovered decades ago was an alien egg that eventually hatched the central creature known as the “mother” and after giving birth to the spider-legged beasties known unsurprisingly as the “kids” we discover that after they harvest the brain fluid from the different rotations of residents and feed it to their mother who looks strangely human(ish). From here she produces the wonder slime that all the staff eagerly drinks, but already Wally is growing frustrated at how the Shaws are wasting something that genuinely could make the world a better place.
Of course, this doesn’t help Sam much, who replies that his daughter’s inadvertent betrayal is partly down to his lack of communication with her. In fact, while a lot of The Boroughs’ mysteries have now been revealed, one that still remains an enigma is the visions of his dead wife he’s been having. Alien telepathy coming from the ailing Mother, perhaps? Do the jigsaw puzzles he’s been seeing mean that she wants him to solve a puzzle and find her? Now that his defiance has stuck him in the Manor, he’s going to have a hard time figuring it out.
A rather strange change in pace manages to give The Boroughs the shift it needs to leap off the Stranger Things writing techniques it’s been relying on and start catching us unawares again – after all, mysteries should be unpredictable, right? But with only two episodes to go, don’t expect that slower speed to last particularly long.
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