Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 10, 2026
The original 1989 Tom Hanks movie The ‘Burbs was both a commercial and critical flop. Honestly, it wasn’t exactly a cinematic masterpiece, but it did have the irresistible charm of Tom Hanks at the peak of his comedy era. He took a big swing on a darkly comedic role - much like Jim Carrey did later with The Cable Guy - playing against his “nicest guy in America” image by going completely unhinged.
Fast forward to 2026, and the new The ‘Burbs series on Peacock has neither Tom Hanks nor any particularly sharp insights into suburban paranoia. It’s a television show that probably would have worked better as a single movie - except, well, the movie already exists. The series revisits the same concept: bored suburbanites with too much time on their hands cooking up conspiracy theories about their neighbors, only to find out that some of those wild suspicions might have a grain of truth.
This premise could have been a goldmine in an era of QAnon and Facebook-fueled conspiracies, where outlandish theories sometimes do have a kernel of reality. Yet Peacock’s The ‘Burbs opts for a largely apolitical murder mystery. It stretches its mystery (and a series of never-ending twists) well past the breaking point, and ultimately tees up a second season to resolve a storyline that barely gets scratched by the season finale.
Here’s the setup: A young couple, Samira (Keke Palmer) and Rob (Jack Whitehall), move back into Rob’s childhood home to raise their baby in a quiet cul-de-sac. They’re soon surrounded by quirky neighbors and a long-abandoned house across the street. As Samira hesitantly befriends the oddball locals - Lynn (Julia Duffy), Dana (Paula Pell), and Tod (Mark Proksch) - she uncovers a bigger secret tied to her husband. Rob and his newly divorced best friend, Naveen (Kapil Talwalkar), once had a childhood friend named Alison Grant who vanished from that abandoned house 20 years ago, presumed dead.
Spoilers: We learn that Lynn is hiding her husband’s body in a walk-in fridge, and Dana is wearing an ankle monitor. But the real puzzle revolves around Alison Grant. When a new neighbor, Gary (Justin Kirk), moves into the abandoned house, conspiracy theories bloom. Everyone, from Gary to Rob, falls under suspicion for Alison’s disappearance, but each time they close in on a suspect, there’s an innocent explanation.
After eight overly long episodes, here’s the big reveal: Gary is living with a woman named Trish, who is actually Alison Grant. Alison and Gary returned to her childhood home to dig into her own disappearance, which is connected to a string of other mysterious deaths - including Gary’s brother, Hank.
In other words, all the folks we’ve come to suspect are actually innocent. Alison never really disappeared. But as they get closer to the truth, they encounter a trash collector (Chad Lindberg) who tries to kill Alison. In the ensuing struggle, the trash man is killed, and the police and neighbors chalk up 20 years of strange disappearances to him.
Yet there’s no clear motive. In the final 10 minutes, Samira pieces together that the trash collector was likely a hired killer for the Homeowners Association (HoA), which has been quietly “cleaning up” the cul-de-sac by removing unwanted residents for two decades. Or at least that’s Samira and Rob’s theory, strengthened when Rob’s best friend, Naveen, is drugged and kidnapped by someone linked to the HoA.
Of course, if the series returns for a second season, we’ll probably find yet another “innocent” explanation. Even the sinister HoA may turn out to be a red herring as Samira, Rob, and their eccentric neighbors keep chasing after seemingly ordinary events they suspect are sinister for as many seasons as Peacock deigns to renew the series. One season is quite enough, thank you very much.
