Entertainment
From ‘The ‘Burbs’ Set, Keke Palmer and Jack Whitehall React to That Bonkers Finale Reveal
[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for the Peacock TV series The ‘Burbs.]
Summary
When you write about television and you love learning about what goes into the production of a TV show, there’s nothing like the experience of driving onto a studio lot and walking around outdoor and soundstage sets where you can tell every little detail has been thought about and discussed with multiple departments. On June 12, 2025, Collider (along with three other media outlets) got the opportunity to head over to the Universal Studios Hollywood back lot to visit the set of the Peacock series The ‘Burbs, starring Keke Palmer, who’s also an executive producer, and Jack Whitehall. The eight-episode whodunnit comedy from creator Celeste Hughey, inspired by the 1989 movie starring Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher, is set in present-day suburbia and follows a young couple who have reluctantly moved into the husband’s childhood home in the cul-de-sac he grew up in.
Samira (Palmer) and Rob Fisher (Whitehall) move onto a street that promises to be the safest place to live, but the quiet little neighborhood quickly proves to be much more as old secrets come to light and a sense of danger looms. A new neighbor moves into the creepy Victorian across the street, and Rob along with his best friend Naveen (Kapil Talwalkar) are reminded of someone they once knew. A trio of nosy but well-meaning neighbors – Lynn (Julia Duffy), Dana (Paula Pell), and Tod (Mark Proksch) – with secrets of their own help Samira and Rob get to the bottom of what’s going on in Hinkley Hills while also uncovering the fact that things may not be as safe as they’ve been told.
At a studio like Universal, next to the soundstages on the back lot are a variety of streets and locations that could be dressed to look like they’re anywhere, in any time period. While The ‘Burbs TV series and movie were shot in the same houses on Colonial Street, previously known as Mayfield Place, but now called Ashfield Place, nothing is an exact replica, helping establish the fact that this is not a sequel. Even so, there are Easter eggs and nods to the movie, as well as fun little details of their own that they’ve sprinkled throughout.
Joe Dante’s 1989 Movie ‘The ‘Burbs’ Inspired This Seth MacFarlane-Produced Mystery Series
All eight episodes of The ‘Burbs are now available to stream on Peacock, but executive producer Seth MacFarlane originally had the intention of making another movie when he first got the idea for the re-imagining. When he and his fellow Fuzzy Door EPs Erica Huggins and Aimee Carlson were discussing their favorite movies from that era, they realized that the cult favorite was definitely one of them.
“It was Covid, there wasn’t a lot happening, and he felt like maybe this was a movie you could make on the back lot at Universal with 25 people and get away with it,” said Huggins on set during a break from filming the season finale. Cut to a year later, we couldn’t get the deal done … Covid kept continuing on, and we all got busy with something else.”
But that wasn’t the end of it, and The ‘Burbs came back around after the strikes when they thought it might work better as a TV series. Added Huggins, “After Covid, there was the idea of neighborhoods, how you know your neighbors, and what your neighbors mean to you. Since we were all at home and walking the streets of our neighborhoods, creepy houses that have always felt like a little bit of a blight on those neighborhoods made you wonder, ‘Who’s in there? What’s in there?’ It heightened the paranoia from living through Covid.”
Once the idea was in place and they were ready to move forward with the TV series, the next to sign on was showrunner Hughey, who immediately knew Palmer was the only person that she could imagine as Samira. “It was important for me to tell a fish-out-of-water story about a Black woman and a new mother, and experience the world through her eyes,” she said. “[Keke] is the perfect person to do that.”
‘The ‘Burbs’ Movie and the TV Show Are Both of Their Time, With the Peacock Version Having More of a Modern Edge
While The ‘Burbs still has a creepy new neighbor in the foreboding Victorian on the opposite side of the street, they didn’t want to just do a repeat of the Klopeks from the movie. They also decided to reclaim the Munster mansion and transform it into the Victorian, as the Klopek house instead became a normal residence for Naveen. “Your way in is, ‘What is this new creepy family doing?,’” explained Carlson. “That’s a great engine for the season, but as it unfolds, we reveal new mysteries about the characters. That’s the beauty of a television show that you don’t get to do if you only have two hours. That’s where a lot of the fun surprises in the series come from.”
In case you were wondering, they did send movie director Joe Dante the script for the pilot and Huggins said that he loved it and was happy that somebody was doing something with it, and that he wished them well on their journey with it. Added Hughey, who also wrote the pilot, “1989 was a very different time in the country. There was a little bit more fear of the foreign … and the Klopeks were a foreign family that people were unsure of. Because of the Covid of it all, we’ve had to know our neighbors and understand and rely on each other. That was more the essence of our show and how we interact with the world now. It’s about trying to find common ground with everyone around you, which is possible.”
This time around, the creepy neighbor is Gary (Justin Kirk), whose odd and suspicious behavior sets off alarm bells for Samira as she starts to poke around. Thankfully, Samira isn’t alone in her interest in the cul-de-sac tea, and she’s quickly joined by Lynn (Duffy), who’s very familiar with the neighborhood’s history, Dana (Pell), a blunt and direct retired Marine, Tod (Proksch), who’s equal parts socially awkward and very observant.
“You don’t choose your neighbors,” said Carlson when talking about the ensemble surrounding Palmer. “It’s inherently diverse in who they are as people, but also their personalities. It’s everything you want in an ensemble show. They’re all really distinct from one another and those conflicts obviously drive a lot of comedy.”
Added Huggins, “The tribe of characters that we’ve built around Keke are unusual and interesting in their own right, and they are all carrying a secret that we reveal throughout this season. Not completely, but mostly. Things that get revealed along the way become part of their personalities and you understand the reasons why certain things are happening. The bigger bad in the show gets revealed in a way that’s very unexpected within the cul-de-sac. Each of our characters definitely has a personality that is connected to where they live and what their secret is.
The Love Between Samira and Rob Fisher Is at the Heart of ‘The ’Burbs’
The relationship between Samira and Rob is already established when we meet them, but because they’re in a new chapter of their lives, as parents, they’re still adjusting and figuring out what that means. “Especially as relatively new parents, that was something that we really related to,” Whitehall explained, with he and Palmer being parents themselves. “There’s a real richness and depth to the story that we’re telling with them.”
Palmer added, “They’re finding themselves again after having the baby. They did fall in love with each other and they did already have this history, but as new parents, that all goes down the drain once the baby comes. All of a sudden, you don’t know each other anymore. I do think we were able to have fun with that … Me and Jack healed, doing this.”
Walking around the set for the Fisher home, it was easy to get a sense of the love Samira and Rob have for each other, with all the photos scattered around. The details help create a relationship that brings the couple together in times of danger and helps them uncover what’s really going on in their neighborhood.
Executive Producers Huggins and Carlson knew immediately that Palmer and Whitehall were on the same page when it came to their characters. “It was just an instant connection,” said Huggins. “They had chemistry. You could feel they were jumping off each other’s humor and sensibilities, and it was really sweet.”
The natural ease Palmer and Whitehall found with each other easily translated to Samira and Rob. “There were so many conversations and arguments where we were like, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve literally said these words,’” said Whitehall. “It’s so brilliantly observed and relatable in such a wonderful way. It has this nuance and these different layers that are funny and touching.”
If Anyone Tells You That You’re Moving to the Safest Place To Live, You Should Find Somewhere Else To Go
When an unresolved mystery from Rob and Naveen’s past becomes a part of their lives again in the present, Samira has to work through her initial suspicions that they could somehow be involved. Whether it’s knowing her husband well enough to know that he isn’t a murderer or supporting his wife in a way that they can figure out the cul-de-sac mysteries together, Samira and Rob are going to discover who’s really responsible for whatever is going on in their neighborhood. And in the finale, with Naveen being driven off in the trunk of a member of the HOA, who’s responsible for keeping things safe in ways that are clearly very questionable, the series sets up new questions for a possible Season 2.
“[Samira’s] investigative work, thus far, has been pretty good, so I feel like we’re a good team now and we’ve got the support network of the found family of neighbors behind us,” Whitehall said during an interview with Collider at a junket to promote the series launch. “I think they stand a good chance of finding [Naveen] and rescuing him from the trunk of that car.”
In that same interview, Palmer added, “There are so many questions. Where the hell is Naveen? That’s number one. What are you hiding? The thing that you find out about Hinkley Hills, and the reason why it’s the safest town in America, is because people are hiding a lot of things about what happened there. It’s a constant unraveling of one lie to cover up the next lie.”
While ‘The ’Burbs’ Does Resolve Some of Its Mysteries, There Is More Story To Tell in a Possible Season 2
Expanding the ideas and themes of The ‘Burbs for a TV series means that there are still areas to explore moving forward. Getting some answers doesn’t mean you have all the answers, but Hughey has a sense of Season 2 and beyond. “We get to the end of the season with a big ah-ha of what we’ve been tracking through this particular season,” Huggins said during the set visit. “But something bigger comes up at the end that reveals a bigger problem. So, it’s a continuation of the same characters and some of the same storylines, but the end reveals a bigger problem that they have to tackle. It’s definitely meant to continue.”
Hughey added, “We reference Season 2 constantly. We’re like, ‘Okay, we’ll save that for Season 2. And then, we’re going to do this. And this character comes in then.’ Even on set, the cast was like, ‘Okay, in Season 2, we’ll do this.’ It’s not fully mapped out, but we know what the big bad is in the second season and what new adventures they’ll get into. We haven’t mapped it out for five years, but we can definitely see the vision for the next several seasons.”
Part of that vision for Hughey is adding neighbors to the cul-de-sac. “Some people will leave to make room for other characters. Some people can come back. Paula’s character, Dana, talks about her wife the whole season, and I’m hoping to have her come in next season.”
And if for some reason things don’t work out and they don’t get to move forward with a Season 2, Palmer and Whitehall have ideas for more Tom Hanks projects they could remake. “I would do Big,” declared Palmer. “But that’s one of the most popular, so it’s really bad to try to do that because you’re not going to do it. I would do a fake Big that’s called Small, so it reminds me of that, but it ain’t that.”
“Maybe Forest Gump 2,” added Whitehall. “There was a script that was written, apparently. I’d still be running.”
The ‘Burbs is available to stream on Peacock, where you can also watch the 1989 Joe Dante movie.
- Release Date
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February 8, 2026
- Network
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Peacock