Netflix’s new hit The Boroughs, a supernatural mystery from the team behind Stranger Things, drops a group of retirees into a picturesque desert community and lets them battle an otherworldly force that’s trying to steal the one thing none of us has enough of: time. It’s a fun, spooky, and surprisingly heartfelt binge. It also paints a picture of senior living that’s worth unpacking, because the show gets some things exactly right and a few things badly wrong.

Here’s our scorecard.

Right: A vibrant community worth moving into

The Boroughs (the place, not the show) is gorgeous. There are attractive homes, manicured streets, neighbors with stories, and something to do at every turn. On that, the show nails it. A great senior living community isn’t a waiting room. It’s a neighborhood. At Bridgewater Retirement Community, that means beautiful homes, interesting people next door, and a calendar full enough that “I’m bored” stops being part of the vocabulary.

Wrong: Memory Support as a mental ward

Here’s where the show veers into fiction. Its “care” spaces feel cold and clinical, and residents get treated like patients to be managed rather than people to be known. Real memory support looks nothing like that. At BRC, it’s warm, homelike, and built entirely around dignity—supporting each person’s abilities, honoring their history, and meeting them where they are.

Right: The residents are the heroes

This is the part the show gets most right, and it’s the part we love best. You might assume a retirement community is where people go to sit in rocking chairs and run out the clock. The Boroughs knows better. Its heroes are sharp, funny, brave, and fully in charge of their own story. So are ours. BRC’s residents are living engaged, interesting, full lives. And honestly? If a paranormal mystery ever broke out on campus, I’d put my money on them to solve it.

Wrong: The team is not harvesting your life force

Hopefully this goes without saying, but the staff at a real senior living community are not luring residents in so a monster can quietly drain the life out of them in exchange for eternal youth. The unnervingly upbeat corporate handlers in the show make for great TV but terrible representation. The team at BRC is here for the opposite reason—to support residents, remove obstacles, and help each person live the best version of their life as they define it.

The verdict

The Boroughs is a great watch, and underneath the monsters it’s really asking a beautiful question: what will you do with the time you have left? That’s a question we think about a lot, too (minus the supernatural conspiracy). The difference is, at BRC, the answer is about living well, not surviving a horror plot.