Suburbia has always had a way of hiding its rot beneath trimmed hedges and friendly waves. Peacock’s The Burbs, a series reimagining of Joe Dante’s 1989 cult favorite, knows that, and then asks what happens when the person peering through the blinds is a sleep-deprived new mother who already feels like she doesn’t belong.
The answer is a horror-comedy that is frequently funny, sometimes messy, but anchored by another magnetically watchable turn from Keke Palmer.
Created by Celeste Hughey, the eight-episode series shifts the perspective of the original film. Where Tom Hanks once spiraled into paranoia about the creepy house across the street, Palmer’s Samira Fisher arrives in Hinkley Hills with different baggage: postpartum anxiety, a career on pause, a baby to protect, and the uneasy awareness that she is one of the few Black women in a very white, very manicured community.
Her husband, Rob (Jack Whitehall), a native son of the neighborhood, is far more comfortable. Maybe a little too comfortable.
A Cul-de-sac of Suspicion
The premise will be familiar to fans of the movie. Across from the Fishers’ home sits a dilapidated Victorian tied to the decades-old disappearance of a teenage girl. Records are hard to find. Stories don’t line up. When a new, unsettling neighbor (Justin Kirk) moves in at 2:00 A.M., Samira’s sense that something is wrong kicks into overdrive.
Is it intuition? Is it sleep deprivation? Is it gaslighting, from others or from herself?
Hughey smartly uses that uncertainty as the engine of the show. Samira’s fears operate on multiple levels: danger to her child, cracks in her marriage, and the exhausting mental calculus of deciding whether something is truly threatening or just feels that way.
Palmer plays all of it with impressive agility. She can toss off a killer punchline, one early zinger about being a reclusive mom with leaky nipples lands because of her rhythm, and in the next breath let panic flicker across her face. Even when the dialogue wobbles, she rarely does.
Comedy First, but Not Comedy Only
If you’re expecting relentless dread, recalibrate. This version leans far more toward humor, often buoyed by Samira’s unlikely crew of amateur sleuths: Julia Duffy, Paula Pell, and Mark Proksch as wine-friendly neighbors who evolve from oddities into a kind of found family.
Their chemistry is easy, and the show is at its best when it lets this ensemble bounce off one another while inching the mystery forward. Whitehall, meanwhile, gives Rob a boyish affability that makes his secrets, and he definitely has some, more intriguing than sinister, at least at first.
The season delights in pointing suspicion at nearly everyone. Fingers move around the cul-de-sac like a game of supernatural Clue, and the fun comes from never being entirely sure who is fooling whom.
Updating the Idea of the Outsider
What makes the adaptation feel modern is its decision to center Samira’s outsider status. The series nods to racial discomfort and microaggressions, sometimes sharply, sometimes unevenly. At moments, those tensions seem primed to become the show’s backbone; at others, they’re treated as quirks of eccentric neighbors.
Still, Palmer and Hughey are clearly aware of the expectations that come with putting a Black woman in a suspiciously white suburb in a genre piece. Rather than turning the story into a simple echo of Get Out, the show aims for something looser and more satirical, a broader exploration of displacement, community, and how quickly friendliness can curdle into surveillance.
“Suburbia is a spectator sport,” Samira is told. The line lands as both joke and warning.
Love Letter With Easter Eggs
Fans of the original film will find plenty to smile at. Character names, visual callbacks, sardines and pretzels, even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance tied to Tom Hanks all function as affectionate winks rather than desperate nostalgia grabs. Hughey’s reverence for Dante’s movie is clear, but she isn’t trying to recreate it beat for beat.
Instead, she uses it as scaffolding for a story about modern parenthood, marriage, and the peculiar terror of not knowing whether you can trust the people living ten feet away.
So… Stream It?
The premiere shows real promise. Not every thematic thread feels fully thought through, and the mystery could either blossom into something juicy or collapse under its own coyness. But Palmer’s presence alone makes the ride worthwhile, and the ensemble is strong enough to suggest the cul-de-sac will remain entertaining company.
By the time Samira looks up at that house and sees someone staring back, her whispered, stunned reaction feels earned.
Yeah. Something is definitely up in Hinkley Hills. And whether it’s paranoia or proof, The ’Burbs makes you want to keep watching the window.
