The Boroughs: Denis O’Hare and Alfred Molina – Photo: Netflix
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Yona Spiedel is playfully coy when I bring up the final intriguing shot of season one of The Boroughs, a chilling new Netflix series set in a retirement village where not everything is as it seems.
Yes, I respond, I would like to know what that ending meant.
“We know what it means, but I can’t say what it means,” she says with a broad smile. “We’ve got to get people watching the show so that Netflix can give us another season.”
The show, featuring a powerhouse cast that includes Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, Dennis O’Hare, and Geena Davis, is built around a premise that balances poignancy with humor and scares with sobs. It almost begs for a second chapter.
Spiedel serves as a co-executive producer of The Boroughs and wrote its seventh episode, which features a key cameo by Mary McDonnell.
“Her character is based on my aunt,” says the 48-year-old writer over a recent Zoom call. “I had an aunt who didn’t have dementia, but was gay. She was my grandmother’s older sister, born in the ’20s. She lived a life that was authentic to who she was. She had a life partner, but we called her her friend. There was something about my grandmother’s generation that I wanted to bring to that character.”
The Boroughs: Mary McDonnell – Photo: Netflix
Spiedel, formerly known as Our Lady J, served as a producer-writer on Transparent, American Horror Story: NYC, and Pose, becoming the first out transgender writer hired to a television writers’ room.
While The Boroughs features LGBTQ characters and, in a pivotal way, addresses the AIDS epidemic, the show is primarily concerned with the challenges of aging. For Spiedel, it offered a chance to move beyond familiar territory and expand her creative horizons.
“I think with every artist, the goal is to get lost in the art so that the viewer or the listener or the reader doesn’t know who the creator is, but rather is witnessing and participating in a portrait of the world,” she says. “I had written about identity so much that I started to bore myself with my own words — and that’s never a good sign. I really wanted to expand and take in other parts of the world that had nothing to do with identity.”
She turned down a number of projects before The Boroughs came along with its sci-fi underpinnings.
“I’ve always wanted to do a sci-fi show,” she says. “When this came around, the script was incredible…. It was all just a perfect show to work on. I feel so lucky that they asked me to come on board.”
The show’s characters, all presumably in their mid-70s, though it’s never explicitly stated, each bring a universe unto themselves, she says.
“They’re all coming together to embark on what could be the final chapter of their lives. They’re here to retire, but they’re also here to live. And in doing so, everything from their past comes to the surface — bad relationships, times when they’ve closed themselves off to love, traumas they’ve endured. They’re all bringing that to the table. As a writer, that’s the richest thing you can work with.”
Spiedel is deeply concerned by the escalating political attacks on the transgender community.
“I don’t think you can control other people through love,” she says, “but I do think you can strengthen your resolve by making sure your mental health is in a state that can withstand the storm and that your social circles are strong. And these things are all done through love. I think that’s what made marriage equality so successful: it was a message of love. You remember how horrific the lashing out toward gay people was during the AIDS crisis and how gay people took that on their shoulders. But eventually, the thing that won legislatively was a message of love.
“And so I encourage my trans friends not to get caught up in the despair. Transitioning is something that has brought me peace of mind. And if something is disturbing that peace of mind, I’m going to study it and combat it and do everything I can to break it down. It takes a village, it takes all kinds, and I’m here to spread a message of love and to hold onto that to get us through the tough times.”
All episodes of The Boroughs are currently streaming on Netflix. Visit netflix.com.
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