1 of 2 | Left to right, Julia Duffy, Keke Plamer, Paula Pell and Mark Proksch star in “The Burbs.” Photo courtesy of Peacock
Palm Royale, Newhart and Designing Women actress Julia Duffy says she loves that her new mystery dramedy, The ‘Burbs, keeps viewers guessing until the finale.
“Every episode ends in suspense,” Duffy, 74, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“When I watched it with my daughter and her boyfriend — they had sent us three episodes — we had to watch them all in a row. I had told them as little as possible and they couldn’t stop watching it,” she said. “There’s so much mystery and you’re dying to know what happened and, meanwhile, it’s so funny.”
Her co-star, Night Court and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist alum Kapil Talwalkar, 32, added: “You watch the episode. It’s like fun, fun, fun, anxiety, over! So, it’s a great engine to keep you watching, but there’s not a single episode that goes, ‘And they lived happily ever after.'”
Loosely inspired by the 1989 Tom Hanks-Carrie Fisher-Bruce Dern movie of the same name, the updated series is now streaming on Peacock. It follows Samira (Keke Palmer) and Rob (Jack Whitehall) — a happily married couple with a newborn son — as they move to the suburban neighborhood where Rob grew up.
While Rob commutes daily into the city for work, Samira befriends their quirky, wine-guzzling neighbors, including Duffy’s Lynn, who are all fascinated by an abandoned mansion where a young woman Rob initially lied about knowing is believed to have been murdered 20 years earlier.
“Lynn is an empty nester and she tries to keep very busy by taking care of the neighborhood and spying on her neighbors,” Duff said.
“She has lost her husband,” she added. “She just seems like a very ordinary housewife in the cul de sac. But she has a really big secret that makes her very vulnerable and weird.”
Talwalkar plays Naveen, Rob’s lifelong best friend, who never moved out of the neighborhood.
“Naveen is going through a divorce. He is an exposed nerve. Everything is pissing him off,” the actor said.
“It’s a really fun character to play and then to get the journey of, like, getting my [expletive] together, getting my life back together, was awesome,” he explained. “He’s really fun and passionate and all over the place and vulnerable. It was a dream part.”
Duffy added: “There’s nothing small about Naveen’s emotional life. When he’s depressed, he’s passionately depressed. He makes me laugh so much.”
Samira and Rob moving into Rob’s childhood home couldn’t have come at a better time for Lynn and Naveen.
“That’s very exciting and very interesting for me,” Duffy said.
“His parents have moved elsewhere, but I’ve lived there a long time and I couldn’t stand his mother and we were bitter enemies. You’ll find out,” she added. “I really like Rob, but I really didn’t like his mother.”
“If you’re going through something really bad, who’s the best person that you want to have around? Your best friend!” Talwalkar said.
“It was like a lifeboat just showed up and I can’t wait. I want to dump all my trauma on him,” he added. “We’re both idiots. So, it’s great.”
Paula Penn and Mark Proksch also co-star.
Keke Palmer: Photos of the actress, singer, host
Keke Palmer arrives for the Family Television Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., on November 30, 2005. Palmer got her start in Hollywood as a child actor and appeared in “Barbershop 2: Back in Business” the year prior. Photo by Phil McCarten/UPI | License Photo
