Drama
The Boroughs
‘The Boroughs’ is a sci-fi mystery centered in a retired community that comes with violence, sexual references and crude language.
Meet Hannah Wells—straight-A college student, talented musician, aspiring composer, and all-around nerd. She’s also completely hopeless when it comes to romance, which makes her crush on rockstar heartthrob Justin Kohl extremely inconvenient.
Now meet Garrett Graham—captain of the college hockey team and womanizer extraordinaire. His dad was a legend in the NHL, so he’s got a big future ahead of him and even bigger skates to fill. But he’s also a terrible student, and if he flunks another class, all the talent in the world won’t keep him on the school team.
These two Briar University students couldn’t be more different. It’s ironic, then, that they each hold the solution to the other’s problem.
Garrett proposes a deal: they’ll pretend to date so Hannah can get Justin’s attention, since as Garrett puts it, “every guy wants what he can’t have.” In return, Hannah will tutor Garrett to improve his grades and help him keep his spot on the team.
Win-win, right? Sure, except for two problems: Hannah hates hockey, and she hates Garrett.
But if love really is a battlefield, as they say, then sacrifices must be made. And so an alliance is formed—and against all odds, Hannah finds herself falling in love.
Only, to her dismay, she’s not falling for the guy she expected.
If you’ve been in a Barnes & Noble recently, you’ve probably seen a display of cartoon-cover paperbacks under a sign that says “Popular on #BookTok,” or something to that effect. Each book cover likely has an illustration of a couple next to a title in a bright, playful font. The man’s probably an athlete, and the woman has a book tucked in her arms with a hand planted sassily on her hip.
These romance novels have gone viral on “BookTok,” the readers’ side of TikTok, and most are what fans would call “spicy”—meaning they’re suggestive at best, sexually explicit at worst.
Erotic romance novels are nothing new, of course. But while they were once tucked into the back corners of bookstores and hidden from innocent eyes, they’re now shoved in your face as soon as you walk in the door, with quirky cartoon covers that give no indication of the content inside.
These “spicy” romances, whether they’re set in a run-of-the-mill college or a fantasy dragon-riding school, are far more dangerous than they seem. Readers-mostly young women–get to indulge in cheap, harmful fantasies, and lust is packaged into a $9.99 paperback you can read casually on a lunch break. It’s pornography turned palatable.
What does all this have to do with Off Campus, you ask? Well, the Prime Video series originated as The Deal, a novel you’d likely find front-and-center on that Barnes & Noble display.
And the screen adaptation doesn’t skimp on what helped the source material find success. Sex scenes are extensive and explicit, featuring both male and female nudity, and few conversations center on anything except who’s sleeping with who. Students drink excessively at parties, and foul language is constant.
Plus, there’s Dexter, Hannah’s best friend who makes his homosexuality overtly obvious from the moment we meet him, and Jules, a student who identifies as nonbinary (actress Julia Sarah Stone is a biological female and identifies as such). There are also a few darker themes to note. Garrett grew up with an abusive father, which makes him more violent in the hockey rink, and Hannah struggles with the trauma of a past sexual assault.
Off Campus is a college romance that leaves nothing to the imagination, and in a world that’s constantly confusing lust and love, it’s the very last thing we need. Here’s a proposition to rival Garrett and Hannah’s: If everyone stops reading the books on that Barnes & Noble display, maybe Amazon will stop bringing them to the screen. Deal?
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
To avoid getting kicked off the team, college hockey star Garrett Graham strikes up a deal with classmate Hannah Wells: he’ll pretend to date her to attract the attention of her crush, and she’ll tutor him to improve his grades.
At the beginning of the episode, Hannah accidentally walks in on Garrett in the locker room showers. We see rear nudity and closeups of his shirtless chest, and Hannah shows no intention of leaving until Garrett notices her there. Later, Garrett hooks up with a girl at a party; the scene is long and explicit, complete with female nudity. Hannah’s roommate takes off her shirt while changing clothes and walks topless around the apartment. Garrett finds a used condom in his shower drain, and his roommate Logan unapologetically takes responsibility. Hannah’s friend Dexter makes suggestive comments about other boys in their class.
Garrett and his roommates set up kegs of beer while preparing for a house party. At the party, students drink beer and do shots. (Since it’s a college party, it’s likely many of them are underage.)
Garrett has flashbacks to his childhood which imply that his father was physically abusive. Because of this, Garrett is more violent while playing hockey, and he’s briefly suspended from a game for slamming an opponent into the rink wall.
The f-word is used 21 times, while the s-word is used seven. God’s name is taken in vain twice. “D–k” is used once, and “h—” is used twice. Hannah sings along to “The B–ch is Back” by Elton John, which, naturally, repeatedly uses the word “b–ch.”
Lauren Cook is serving as a 2021 summer intern for the Parenting and Youth department at Focus on the Family. She is studying film and screenwriting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You can get her talking for hours about anything from Star Wars to her family to how Inception was the best movie of the 2010s. But more than anything, she’s passionate about showing how every form of art in some way reflects the Gospel. Coffee is a close second.
‘The Boroughs’ is a sci-fi mystery centered in a retired community that comes with violence, sexual references and crude language.
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