Picture Credit: Netflix
Described as Stranger Things with senior citizens, Netflix’s new sci-fi drama The Boroughs has proven an instant stand-out. Will it get renewed for Season 2? Early on, it felt more than likely, especially with the creators teasing their three-season plan, but the viewership might not be enough to justify continuing. Here’s everything we know so far about the future of the series.
After ending Stranger Things, Matt and Ross Duffer are already pursuing new projects at Netflix under their Upside Down Pictures umbrella. Earlier this year, they saw the release of Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, a brilliant, creepy, and atmospheric horror drama. In their latest foray as executive producers, they take viewers inside The Boroughs, an idyllic, sun-drenched oasis in the heart of the New Mexico desert.
There, we follow ex-engineer and widower Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina), a largely unwilling resident of the retirement community; all he wants to do is leave. However, he soon becomes embroiled in a conspiracy within the walls of the Boroughs involving mysterious monsters and a sinister managerial underbelly (because, like Stranger Things, the humans are always the real villains). Before long, he finds himself teaming up with other residents to get to the bottom of the conspiracy. Sam finds companionship and support in his fellow community members, most notably Judy (Alfre Woodard), Art (Clarke Peters), and Wally (Denis O’Hare).
Audiences are absolutely loving The Boroughs, and ratings are predominantly positive. The series currently boasts a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with audiences sitting at 79% and a 7.6/10 on IMDb.
Has Netflix renewed The Boroughs for Season 2?
Official Renewal Status: Pending But In Active Development (Last updated: June 11th 2026)
Netflix has not officially renewed The Boroughs for Season 2 as of mid-June 2026, although it seems clear that Netflix and the show’s creators have clear intentions for it to continue. The Boroughs certainly didn’t debut as a limited series; there’s a very clear intention to keep the story going, which is heavily teased in the final moments of Episode 8.
One highly positive sign is that Season 2 is already in active development. According to the WGA directory, Season 2 (2027/2028) is listed. While this is not a confirmation of a renewal from Netflix, it strongly suggests a new installment is being mapped out. This isn’t uncommon for big-budget sci-fi shows, which often get early scripts together so production can hit the ground running the moment an official green light is given.
How well is The Boroughs performing on Netflix?
For any series to score a renewal, it all comes down to the viewership data, as we’ve discussed numerous times before.
It’s now been a few weeks since the series debuted, so let’s take a look at how the performance has been thus far. So far, The Boroughs has spent 3 weeks in Netflix’s global top 10, amassing 117.7 million viewing hours and 18.8 million completed views. Here’s how that breaks down week-to-week:
| Week in Top 10 | Week Period | Hours Viewed | Views / CVE | Weekly Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | May 17 to May 24, 2026 | 35,300,000 | 5,600,000 | 2 |
| 2 | May 24 to May 31, 2026 | 59,400,000 (+68%) | 9,500,000 | 1 |
| 3 | May 31 to Jun 7, 2026 | 23,000,000 (-61%) | 3,700,000 | 4 |
Of course, those numbers don’t exist in a vacuum, and we can compare against prior renewals/cancellations to see exactly where The Boroughs fits in:
A few callouts from that graph. It’s sitting right in the danger zone from where we’re sitting, with all the shows beneath it canceled and even a couple above it, like Obliterated and The Waterfront, not getting season 2 renewals. The fall in viewership of 61% in week 3 may be the killer, but we’ll have to wait and see what the eventual verdict is. Given the budget of this show, we’re leaning towards cancellation.
Looking at the daily top 10s, the series featured at the number 1 spot in the TV show list globally for six days between May 26th and May 31st, but as of the time of updating on June 11th, it’s now fallen to #14.
Daily top 10 graph for The Boroughs
What to expect from The Boroughs Season 2
Season 1 tells a relatively complete story and covers an entire character arc for Sam Cooper, who begins the series as a lonely, grouchy new resident and ends it with newfound hope and new friends. By the finale, he is happy to remain in the Boroughs as a resident, no longer seeing it as a ‘gilded prison’.
“If Sam’s arc is about going from not accepting that death is part of life to embracing it, then he starts in a very sad place, missing Lilly,” co-showrunner Will Matthews told Netflix TUDUM. “We thought to help complete that arc — to heal that wound and create a little closure — [was] to give him this magical moment.”
However, the season ends on a massive cliffhanger curveball. With his friends over for dinner, Sam accidentally cuts himself and heads to the bathroom. Staring into the mirror, something strange occurs: his reflection glitches like TV static.
“[Sam] glitching in the mirror is a hint at where we hope to go [next],” co-creator Jeffrey Addiss teased to Netflix. “We wanted to have some fun.”
This wasn’t the first glitch we’ve seen; Sam hallucinates glitches of his wife earlier in the season. The show uses this effect as a byproduct of supernatural powers—much like how Stranger Things utilized flickering light bulbs. These glitches are born from the enigmatic “Mother” character.
“Mother puts out a signal, a sort of SOS, and that message gets picked up by people who are sensitive to it,” Addiss explained. “Mother is transmitting a signal, and that’s why we played with the idea of old TVs and this idea of transmission. There’s something happening, something going through the air.” Season 2 will undoubtedly explore the origins of Mother and the nature of this transmission.
The creators already have a ‘three-season plan’
The Boroughs. (L to R) Denis OÕHare as Wally, Alfre Woodard as Judy, Alfred Molina as Sam in The Boroughs. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
If one thing is for sure, creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews have a concrete roadmap for where they want the story to end.
“We have a very specific three-season plan, and we think we know the last shot of the last scene of the last episode,” Addiss told IGN. “How we get there might change a little, but we have the answers to all the questions, and a plan of how and when to answer those. We wanted season one to feel emotionally complete, but leave some questions unanswered. We really wanted [you] to feel like you got a full story, in case that’s all we get. If it’s a success, we’d like to tell you a bit more about what’s going on. What is Mother? We know the answer to that. We want to tell you, so hopefully people watch so we get that chance.”
Don’t expect the series to copy the exact Duffer formula of introducing a new villain each year, either. “We don’t think of it as a monster-of-the-season show,” Addiss revealed. “We do think of this as one large, complex story where crazy stuff continues to happen that’s surprising, but it is one story to us.”
The Boroughs Season 1 is now streaming globally on Netflix. Read our review here.
