Discover the hidden meaning of the TVs, Mother’s final gift to Sam, and the terrifying meta-textual twist behind that final ending glitch in Netflix’s The Boroughs.
Truth be told, there was a certain longing for that unique atmosphere of Stranger Things. The Duffer Brothers return as executive producers for The Boroughs, the new Netflix series where reality intertwines with a fantasy world made of monsters, malevolent figures, and creatures with incredible powers. This time, however, the protagonists are not children, but elderly residents in a retirement community that turns out to be the epicenter of a staggering chain of extraordinary phenomena.
The Boroughs draws viewers into the gradual discovery of what is truly happening within this suspicious organization—a place where everything seems perfect and everyone appears happy, yet troubling details keep surfacing about monsters, suspicious deaths, and the possible hidden agendas of the group running the community. And as always happens with the Duffer Brothers, the series is packed with unique symbols whose understanding becomes essential to fully grasp the show’s overall architecture.
Once we reach the finale, one specific detail leaves us all confused: why does Sam, standing alone in front of his bathroom mirror, experience a subtle glitch—the exact same glitch we saw in the villainous humans who stayed young through the Mother’s blood? The explanation is fascinating, and it involves the symbolic role that televisions play in the series as a tool capable of shattering the surface image of people who are not what they seem.
The Serum of Eternal Youth and the Malevolence of The Boroughs
The Boroughs is introduced to us as an idyllic retirement community. Nestled in a quiet desert area, its residents enjoy the final years of their lives surrounded by peace and social activities shared with neighbors. However, strange things are happening, and Sam Cooper immediately begins to notice the unsettling signs of what goes on the moment he arrives—reluctantly—at the community.
It is the death of Jack, the uncurably friendly neighbor, that opens Sam’s eyes once and for all. Upon entering Jack’s house to check if everything is alright, Sam sees a terrifying monster with tentacles buried deep in Jack’s throat, which turns out to be the cause of his friend and neighbor’s death. Naturally, no one believes him, and this instantly creates an immense sense of empathy between the audience and the protagonists.
This time, these supernatural events aren’t happening to imaginative children, but to older adults who, theoretically, should be perfectly reliable. Yet the tragedy remains: none of the residents of The Boroughs are taken seriously. Every time someone raises doubts about the bizarre occurrences in the community, the rest of the world dismisses it as the sad, advancing effects of senility. This unresolved inability to communicate—being labeled as “crazy” despite being completely certain of what they see with their own eyes—makes using elderly protagonists a stroke of genius, adding a layer of deep human drama to the dangerous events we witness.
Ultimately, Sam discovers that these monsters are feeding on their life force, extracting cerebral fluid from their throats every night. Alongside an improvised group of investigators gathered from his neighbors, he uncovers that the mastermind behind this operation is the CEO of The Boroughs himself, Blaine Shaw. The fluids harvested by the monsters are used to keep “the Mother” alive—a creature with healing powers held prisoner in the community so they can extract her blood, which the staff uses daily to maintain their youth.
The Role of Televisions and the Residents’ Battle
The series develops with great fluidity, gradually revealing the elements that help us grasp its ultimate meaning. Sam Cooper is an engineer, so finding practical solutions and strategic tricks to solve puzzles is part of his very nature. During one of his experiments, Sam discovers that televisions—especially old-generation cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs—have a destructive effect on the monsters’ blood. Both the creatures and the humans who feed on the Mother’s blood are deeply threatened by televisions, which are capable of triggering visual glitches so severe that they lead to their absolute defeat.
Why do televisions become a weapon against the supernatural beings of The Boroughs? The symbolism here is potent, and one immediately feels the need to uncover its explanation. In the series, old-school televisions possess the power to pierce the veil of appearances. When pointed at one of the staff members who appear eternally young, the screen reveals their true nature, exposing the hidden decay of decades of unnatural aging. If they remain under the influence of a CRT screen for long enough, the employees of The Boroughs literally explode, finally meeting the death that was destined for them long ago.
There is a deeply poetic component to the symbol of televisions in The Boroughs: the revealing power of cinema and high-quality television production, which metaphorically brings the true nature of things to light. The writers of The Boroughs clearly hold classic cinema in high esteem (did you catch the scene from Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity when Sam is watching TV?) and see television production as a way to bring out the best in us. Or the worst, if our nature happens to be malevolent.
The television thus becomes the most powerful weapon against the wicked beings who are exploiting the Mother’s healing powers for the small, selfish goal of living as long as possible. Sam and the others succeed in putting an end to this injustice, realizing that the Mother is not an evil entity, but simply another victim of The Boroughs. In the series finale, they allow the Mother to end her own life, putting a stop to her suffering, which finally clears the path for Sam to return home, as we see in the meaningful final scene.
The Ending of The Boroughs: Why Does Sam Glitch Too?
After the residents successfully defeat the malevolence driving The Boroughs and liberate the Mother from her prison, the finale treats us to a heartwarming moment. We see them happy at Sam’s house, celebrating their collective return to normalcy surrounded by friendship. However, the final scene takes a sharp turn, leaving us alone with Sam in front of his bathroom mirror—where he suddenly experiences those exact same visual glitches we tracked throughout the series. Why is Sam glitching too?
The glitch motif has naturally sparked immense curiosity among viewers. In a recent discussion on CinemaBlend, the show’s creators unpacked the concept, explaining the glitch as the tangible manifestation of a message the Mother is trying to project into the world. Within the logic of the narrative, the only beings who glitch are those who have interacted with or received the Mother’s blood.
Sam, too, received a profound gift from the Mother. As his late wife Lilly gently reveals to him in a dream following the Mother’s death, his reward for saving her is the ultimate currency: time. He has been granted the opportunity to live a little longer, to deeply enjoy the company of his daughter and his newly found friends.
Yet, we like to interpret that final glitch in an even more poetic, meta-textual light. Sam, now carrying the internal gift of the Mother, glitches the exact moment we observe him up close in the absolute intimacy of his bathroom. It is as if our own living room television screen is being aimed directly at him in that moment, piercing the veil of his reality and triggering the glitch just like a cathode-ray tube would to any other entity in the series.
As the camera finally pans away to the starry night sky, The Boroughs symbolically shuts off our television. It serves as a beautiful, final reminder that the most compelling symbols in our favorite series are always the ones that leave room for the theories that best reflect our own perspective.
The Boroughs: Frequently Asked Questions
The visual glitch is a side effect experienced by any being who carries the Mother’s supernatural blood or healing essence. On a narrative level, the show’s creators have explained it as a subconscious message the Mother is trying to broadcast to the world. On a symbolic level, the glitch represents the cracking of an artificial facade when exposed to the truth, the exact same glitch we saw in the villainous humans who stayed young through the Mother’s blood, which happens in the series when old-generation televisions are pointed at them.
Televisions, particularly old-school cathode-ray tube (CRT) models, act as a metaphorical mirror of truth. Because the villains are ancient souls using stolen life force to appear young, the radiation and frequency of the television screens pierce through their illusions. Standing in front of a screen forces their true, decayed age to catch up with them instantly, causing them to self-destruct.
Sam glitches in the final scene because he received a parting gift from the Mother for saving her life: extra time. As his late wife Lilly reveals to him in a dream, he was granted a longer life to spend with his family. Furthermore, the glitch happens in front of his bathroom mirror as a meta-textual nod to the audience—symbolizing that our own television screens are “pointed” at him, piercing the veil of his reality.
The Mother is a supernatural creature possessing immense healing and life-extending powers. She was held captive by Blaine Shaw and the elite staff of the retirement community, who systematically harvested her blood as a serum to achieve eternal youth. Rather than being an evil entity, she is ultimately revealed to be the tragic, primary victim of the community’s greed.
While Netflix has not officially announced a second season yet, executive producers the Duffer Brothers designed the rich mythology of the series to expand. The success of the initial launch window and the open-ended nature of the supernatural lore heavily suggest that the story of the retirement community could continue.
