I admire how seamlessly and thoroughly the set design and background decor of Stranger Things 3 integrates the grid motif that was the hallmark of season one and continued in season two. It’s everywhere, but nowhere is it as pervasive as Starcourt Mall.
In a shot from above, our heroes look like little figurines against the grid of the atrium’s tile floor. In the food court and in the research chamber far underground, El and her father stand tall under two very different dropped ceilings, each a honeycomb of coffered cubes. In the bright mall bathrooms, graphic squares of color cheer up the cube motif; in the back room of Scoops Ahoy, the square blue edging of the walls conjures up images of the Holodeck.
And—because this season more than any previous is about the familiar turned strange—everywhere, occasionally, the familiar grid pattern is punctuated with an octagon. The corridors of the labyrinthian military compound, the many towers of eight-sides glass cabinets cutting the rooms into cubbies, the interior of the fountain in the mall’s food court. If some of the narrative’s angles are off—a little too winking, a little too glib—the overall pattern is true to the original, and a little bit more. It’s a bit more complex, with a few new angles introduced, a few more side stories, a broader range of references for the series and responsibility for the characters.
And Stranger Things has kept its sense of humor—about itself, about its characters. A standout scene in the previous episode was the fast-paced catch-up as character babble about their discoveries and bring each other up to speed. There’s a nice reprise of that in “The Battle Of Starcourt,” when Steve sums up the big picture, “just to be clear”: “This big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it’s some kind of weapon?” he recites back. ”But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon with melted people?” (Repeating her impatient “Yes!,” Nancy gives off strong ex energy.) Bless you, Steve Harrington, you exposition-excuse in a pompadour.
Everything after Murray Bauman’s loud, yoo-hooing entrance has the angles and the energy of a classic action flick, with no winking. Murray traces their path on the (admirably clear) schematics they extracted from Alexei while he and Jim Hopper confer confidently, all hairy chins and solemn squints. It’s a beautifully constructed scene, the food court’s neon signs adding a lurid cast to the everyday surroundings, thrumming score in the background keeping time as seconds tick away, every actor simmering with mingled determination, desperation, and half-formed plans. And fear. Everywhere, submerged, there’s fear.
Fear for themselves, but that’s not predominant. If it were, Hopper and Bauman wouldn’t be planning their infiltration of a secret Soviet lab. Dustin wouldn’t be volunteering to join them. No one would be doing anything but cowering in terror. They’re afraid for themselves, but they’re more afraid for this world. And these two grizzled men are going to save the day.
Then Erica, the upstart, the agitator, the experienced, breaks in. “What, you’re just going to waltz in there like it’s Commie Disneyland or something?” The cut to Lucas’ expression when she chimes in “I’ve been down in that shithole for 24 hours and, with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you’re all gonna die.”
Dustin agrees, taking over Bauman’s map. “It’s a bit of a maze down there,” he says with airy confidence, “but between me and Erica, we can show you the way.” Seeing Hopper’s face, he adds, “Don’t worry, you can do all the fighting and the dangerous hero shit. We’ll just be your… navigators.”
It’s a smart plan. It’s the only plan. And Dustin lays it out with such assurance, such confidence in its obvious practicality, that I genuinely believed for one beat that the grown-ups would agree, even though I am a grown-up.
But Hopper puts his foot down, and everything stops when he does: the scene, the music, the action-movie fun, just for a minute. “No,” he says seriously, then jovially. “No.” He’s not taking children into an underground Soviet lab on U.S. soil, no matter how helpful their intel. Hopper isn’t just a grown-up, isn’t just a lawman, isn’t just a man responsible for the good of his town. He’s a parent. And he’s trying to be a good parent.
“The Battle Of Starcourt” is an answer to the unasked question of “Chapter Five: The Flayed,” when Lucas looks around the rag-tag group of kids in Hopper’s cabin, their parents useless or unreachable, and speaks the truth, the fear that comes into every young adult’s life one day when an emergency arises. “They’re not here,” Lucas says. “It’s up to us.”
The unasked question is this: Am I allowed to be a child? Am I, a teenager so often straining against the restrictive rules adults impose on me, am I allowed still to seek their protection and their comfort?
The answer, if the adults in a child’s life are trustworthy, is… sometimes. The answer is whenever possible. The answer is we will do our best to keep you safe. We will plan and back-up plan and double-check; we will do research and work hard and try to keep calm, even smiling, in the face of danger, because we want to you be safe and we want you to feel safe. The answer is if I can make you safe, you will be safe.
The answer is I hope so.
And the answer, I’m sorry to tell you, is also no. No matter how hard adults (parents or not) work to keep children safe (and to let teens be children for a little bit longer), we cannot protect you from the unknown, or even the mundane, forever. One day, you will have to be the adult, because there will be no one else to step into that role. Nancy, tucking up her hair as she wheels the station wagon out, brightly reminding everyone “seat belts!,” knows that.
Sometimes, there is no grown-up to take care of the danger. Sometimes, there is no supernatural superhero, no odd, sweet girl with near-omnipotent powers to fend off the foe. Sometimes, it’s just you and your friends and, if you’re lucky, you can use your smarts and your skills as leverage.
It’s awful watching El, her resources drained, trying to budge that New Coke can. It’s also a relief, at least to me, that El will not have to be the last bulwark between this world and destruction yet again. She has done so much, been relied upon too many times for too many tasks, and it is time for El to rest. It is time for someone to save El. It is time for the grown-ups to do what they have to do.
You could read this as a metaphor for almost any current American atrocity. Or you could read it as the bare minimum standard for acting like an adult: If you can protect children—living, breathing children with names and hobbies and hopes and dreams—you do it.
Even Billy understands this, deep down. Billy knocking out Max, then Mike, feels for a split second like a cruelly effective shortcut to get them out of a coming fight scene. Seeing him knock out El with the same ease is a brutal shock. But it’s a necessary reminder that, however powerful she is when “recharged,” right now, she’s as vulnerable in her way as any of her peers.
This is as good a place as any to insert Hopper’s scrawled words to El, the “heart to heart” he never got to give her. This is what Hopper writes after he stops mouthing his way through Joyce’s words about boundaries and safe spaces, and this is what Jim Harbour narrates uncomfortably, comfortingly, over much of the epilogue’s end:
“I know you’re getting older. Growing. Changing. And I guess if I’m being really honest, that’s what scares me. I don’t want things to change. So I think maybe that’s why I came in here. To stop that change. To turn back the clock. To make things go back to how they were.
But I know that’s naive. That’s just not how life works. It’s moving, always moving, whether you like it or not. And yeah, sometimes that’s painful. Sometimes it’s sad. And sometimes it’s surprising. Happy.
You know what? Keep on growing up, kid, don’t let me stop you. Make mistakes, learn from ‘em, and when life hurts you—because it will (echoing Karen here)—remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you’re out of that cave.
But please, if you don’t mind, for the sake of your poor old Dad, keep the door open three inches.”
Throughout these reviews, I’ve been calling the protagonists, this big band of scrappy champions, “heroes.” I wondered occasionally if I was overusing that word. Then “The Battle Of Starcourt” reprised a song from season one, their success transforming Peter Gabriel’s stark “Heroes” from cutting (as it was in “Holly, Jolly”) to triumphal. They stood up against evil that sought to take over their world, because someone had to. They’re heroes.
A lost little girl, cruelly crafted into a weapon by monsters who mistreated her. A broke, stressed-out single mom who stretches her tiny frame to do the work of a “two-man job.” A little boy with prickles on the back of his neck and fear in his heart. A pearl-smiled science nerd, a strategic thinker with the heart of a hero, the new kid in town with the fast skateboard and the triage skills to dress a wound in the field. A washed-up reporter with a little bit of Russian and a lot of moxie. A beaten little boy who learns, at the very last, to turn his rage against those who would harm the vulnerable. A loose-cannon drunk with a beer belly, a sad history, a bad sense of boundaries, and a greater love for his daughter than for himself can be a hero. They can be heroes.
Anyone can be a hero. They did it. And so can you, when you stand up against the wrongs you see around you, and when you grow up enough to put aside your own pain and take care of the vulnerable. We can be heroes, just for one day.
Stray observations
- Structurally, I understand why the Neverending Story scene couldn’t be a post-credits scene, but it broke the tension with merciless speed. Maybe that’s a feature, not a bug, for the series’ most sensitive viewers?
- The rule in horror is that no character is out of play until you see them dead, and sometimes not even then. I still crowed in delight and joy and even surprise when the post-epilogue stinger rolled, with mention of “the American” held in a prison somewhere deep under Kamchatka. I hope they make it to Enzo’s someday.
- The gate in that underground chamber is just a gussied-up, sleeked down version of the zombie gate in Day Of The Dead.
- Dustin and Lucas’ courtly presentation to Erica of Will’s old D&D manuals promises she’ll be more integral to any future outings, I hope.
- That’s it for Stranger Things 3 episodic coverage! There’s so much more to say and to speculate on, so have at it in the comments, and thank you for joining me.
546 Comments
I guess Sheriff Hopper is alive?I did find amusing the enormous visual references to Jurassic Park in the mall. At one point the Mind Flayer roars in the center court, the Starcourt Mall sign dangling, from a cord like Mr. T-Rex and the banner at the end of Spielberg’s film. I mean if you are going to borrow heavily, might as well have fun with it
Alternate theory: the “American” being held captive could also be Dr. Brenner, who was confirmed to be alive in Season 2, though his whereabouts were never established. It would make sense that Brenner fled the country after the events of season 1 and somehow fell into the hands of the Russians, which would explain how they knew about the Upside-Down, and all the goings on in Hawkins.
That is certainly a better theory the one a woman in my office texted.“It’s Barb”
That’s just crazy. Barb is clearly the Mind Flayer.
More like the mind numb-erer
That would be the craziest twist and I don’t think I’d hate it.
Or poor Benny, the hamburger guy who was the first person to be nice to El in Season 1. Yes, you may object that we saw his body, presumably murdered by Hawkins Laboratory thugs, but we saw Will’s “body” too. They can fake those. I don’t get why Barb gets a fan club but everybody forgets about Benny.
I remember Benny, but sadly I he’s not there. #rememberBenny
I don’t understand the obsession some people have with Barb. The whole point of her character was to taken and killed. Yeah it sucked that she died but by this point, people need to let her go.
It was a joke!Did your sense of humor get trapped in The Upside Down?
oh okay, but there are people out there who chant Justice for Barb unironically.
I partially agree with you. Like, back then I understood the frustration. Barb up and disappeared, we as the viewers knew what happened. But her best friend didn’t, her parents didn’t. She was an established character, and for them to try to write her out like that was a bit insulting. Yeah, Nancy was concerned for an episode, but then more pressing things happened, and Barb was never mentioned again. That’s just bad writing.However, I agree with you now though. There’s no reason to still carry that torch. The character got closure…..so to speak, Nancy learned the truth, Barb’s body was found, it’s been over a year (in story time), people have moved on. It’s ok to let Barb stay in the past, having the show continue to bring her up at this point does nothing for the story. As you said, Barb served her purpose.
In my opinion Barb wasn’t a major character at all. It was a small role and the way Stranger Things handled her and her disappearance was par for the course for this sort of horror fare. But then because of the way she looked or something she became a meme. So then people started getting into the character of Barb herself even though there wasn’t much there and got to the point that the Duffer Brothers themselves wrote a Justice for Barb storyline for Stranger Things 2 which made it seem like she was this big part of Nancy’s life, which is essentially a retcon.
I didn’t say she was a major character, just an established one. Which is more than most of the nameless characters that up and died or disappeared. Barb was Nancy’s best friend, hell she seemed to be Nancy’s ONLY female friend. Yeah, Nancy kind pushed Barb aside in favor of Steve. But that’s what happens in a lot of relationships. That’s what Mike did to Will in this current season. He and Elle were in this relationship, and all of a sudden didn’t have time for his other friends. Now, I know what you’re going to say, you’re going to say “but his other friends are main characters”, and yes you’re right, but that’s not my point. My point is his other friends were still important in his life even if he wasn’t making time for them. That’s where Barb is with Nancy, just because Nancy was enamored with Steve doesn’t mean Barb wasn’t a big part of her life. Barb was enough of a character that deserved a modicum of closure. Someone finding her body, finding a token of hers that told people what happened to her, just something so Nancy wouldn’t (hypothetically) wonder whatever happened to Barb for the rest of her life. Having a character like Barb just up and disappear, then forgotten about with no closure is short sighted story writing.
I can’t let go. I won’t.
I think a lot of people identify with the feeling of a friend ditching them in their youth to pursue a boy or girl. Barb had that happen in the worst, most brutal way possible and was treated with such disdain.Also:
That makes more sense than the Russians capturing Hopper. If he’s alive, I figure it’s because he jumped/got sucked into the gate and is in the Upside Down.
Having seen the AVC news story about S3 having a post-credit scene, I had assumed we’d end with Hopper in the upside-down. What we actually got was probably better, though it’s tough to envision the future seasons without Dad/Cop-Cop/Dad.
Unless the explosion transported everybody including the Russians in the suits. I think the guy thrown in with the monster was one of them.
I like this theory the best.
The guy said Brenner was alive, I don’t believe it was confirmed in any way.
That was my thought too. Brenner would be the obvious person – at least among the established characters. The Soviets may have started trying to break through to other dimensions on their own, however without someone like Eleven they couldn’t punch through. But they had to have found out at some point that the American’s had figured out how to do it.They couldn’t have found out about Eleven herself – at least not any useful intel – or they would have been looking for her. But information had to have leaked somehow. There’s no other way they could have found out that the barrier had been breached in Hawkins. And based on that they determined that if the breach hadn’t fully healed, they could punch through it without an enhanced person as long as they were in the vicinity.If Brenner is the American in that cell, I’m not sure if he defected or if they snatched him up and smuggled him to Russia. If he willingly defected I wouldn’t think they’d keep him in a cell.
That was my thought as well. But really I think they have both of those ideas in mind and probably haven’t totally decided yet. I think it would carry more emotional weight to see the characters coping with Hopper being actually for real gone, but we’ll see how it actually plays out.
Brenner was *rumored* to be alive. Eight conjures his fetch to force El to confront her trauma.
Another alternate theory: it’s Batman.
Long-haired, scraggly-bearded Hopper will surely appear coming from the shadows in the final seconds of episode 1 next season.
Contract negotiations with David Harbour begin Monday.
I’d be leaving six packs of beer in the woods, just in case.
I think Hopper — who left no ashes — probably jumped through the gate into the Upside Down before Joyce turned the keys, figuring a 0.1 percent chance of survival is still a chance.
The American being Brenner nicely mirrors the space race, which was driven in large part by real world bad guys (Nazi missile scientists) early on. The Soviets keeping Brenner alive for his knowledge but not giving him luxury accommodations fits with that (actually, it puts them ahead of how both the USA and USSR treated their former Nazis, who were given pretty much a free pass for their part in building missiles to deliver nerve gas into civilian centers).
The last time they used Peter Gabriel’s cover of “Heroes”, it was when they pulled the fake Will Byers corpse out of the quarry. So I think it was definitely a tip of that hat that Hopper is not actually dead.If they decide to go five seasons instead of four, I could see getting Hopper back being a big part of season four, and then saving the final confrontation with the Mind Flayer for season five.I wouldn’t mind if they pulled a Halloween 3 and went with a completely different threat for season four — perhaps one of Eleven’s sisters or brothers from MKUltra who is using his or her powers for evil?
Or split seasons 4 & 5 between the two camps. There’s too many characters! And I like all of them, pretty much. I mean, just because Mike and Lucas are at the bottom of the list, doesn’t mean I want them killed or written off the show.
Mike and Lucas are at the bottom of your list? They’re in my top tier!
I think I read somewhere that season 4 will be the last season.
My bet is that Hopper is in the Upside Down. The Mind Flayer will possess him and use him to get El to open the gate again.
Nah. My assumption is that a traumatic event causes El to get het memories back, and her first response is to look for Hopper. Have the thrust of the season be the kids being proactive rather than reactive and El having to lean on the rest of the team because her powers are diminished.
i presumed hopper escaped through the gate into the upside-down, giving them a natural start-point and reason to get everyone back to hawkins next season, but ‘the american’ certainly seems to suggest he’s in a russian prison.
I sort of hate to analyze the story based on what’s happening in the real world, but I __suspect__ the producers made this ambiguous not only because it’s a great teaser/cliffhanger, but because it gives them some flexibility with casting. I mean, if Hellboy had been some kind of huge hit for David Harbour (we now know how turned out …) or if any of his upcoming films lead to more film roles, his availability might be limited.Though having read through the comments, I love the idea of it being Brenner and this plot point being more planned vs. “Hey, let’s make the Russians have ‘an American’, we can figure out who it is later!” 😀
I would assumed he’d have signed a multi-year contract with the show, though,
My working theory is that “The American” is one of the number siblings Brenner supervised. Maybe Eight/Kali, but possibly one we haven’t even met so far.
I like this theory the best.
If they introduce another number sibling I want it to be Twelve.
Not (specifically) Jurassic Park, but The Relic, a film I am loving more with time!
I also thought of Jurassic Park when Nancy was driving everyone away in the station wagon and the Mind Flayer was chasing them, with Steve and Robin in the way back watching it come at them. I really wanted Steve to yell out, “Must.Go.Faster!”
I would bet that he was pulled into the upside down, although that seems much worse than being captured by Russians. I think Mathew Modine is the American, because it would make sense that he’s feeding the Russians info on how to access the gate through Hawkins.
I think he got pulled into the Upside Down (or jumped in out of desperation) and ended up getting blown out one of the failed Russian gates when the device exploded (along with one Demogorgon?).
What about Murray? Did we ever see him again after he surrendered beneath the mall?
I think my biggest problem with the series is I don’t understand what the Russians were doing. For awhile I thought it was going to be the Russians trying to invade the US via a sneak attack by coming through the upside down, but I don’t think that’s the case? They were just.. trying to access it, like the US government was the first two seasons? Meh.I also understand Joyce’s choice for moving out of Hawkins, but on the other hand, as Hopper said, there are people who know what her and her family has been through there. I guess she’s trying to move away from it all, but the internal trauma is still going to be there. And it’s also leaving the rest of the kids to fend for themselves if something happens again. I did like this season better than 2, and I think part of the reason is that it wasn’t another “Eleven saves the day” ending. Everyone helped, and Eleven was not the focal point of the victory.
My understanding was that Joyce had to move away. She talks to Hopper about having to sell the house, presumably because the mall has made the store she works at go out of business. I assumed she and the kids were moving because she found a job in a bigger city.
But downtown Hawkins could be revitalized with the slogan “Shop Downtown! It’s disaster free!”.
I think it’s easier to draw the conclusion she’s moving because of the bad memories from living in Hawkins. First her son disappearing and the demogorgon, and then losing Bob. Losing Hopper too was just the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
There’s a small story thread that the mall is ruining small businesses around town but there’s absolutely no hints of Joyce having found a new job elsewhere.
The Russians were in a race with the US to be the first to conquer and weaponize the Upside Down. It’s a fucked-up version of the Space Race.
Right, Erica saw that cage when she and Dustin were escaping, and the Russians had a Demogorgon at the end. Looks like they wanted to build an army of creatures or something.
Yeah, trained attack demogorgons would be a frightening weapon.
The inclusion of stuff like the Department of Energy has always been a direct reference to the arms race. It’s not the eighties unless all your anxieties are connected to The Bomb.
This, pretty much.
Yeah, I find a pointless race to beat the US to a scientific breakthrough believable.
There’s a brief explanation early on that the Russians had been trying to open the gate numerous times on their own soil unsuccessfully so they decided they had to try in a place where the gate had already been open before. Why are they trying to open the gate? Damned if I know. I was also initially pissed that Joyce stuck to her decision to move but it also makes sense from her perspective. Will and El need to be away from that gate if they’re ever going to have a chance at a normal life. That whole sequence of everyone saying goodbye was heartbreaking though.
Although this fact goes against the following idea, I also thought that they wanted to open the gate on US soil to unleash the upside on the Americans. It does make sense with the post credit scene where they show that they know what the upside down contains since they captures a demogorgon. They may have realized what it contains and then figured that the only way to really open the portal is at the original site so a win-win for them
It was really hard to watch. Brought back painful memories for me.
It really makes sense that she’d leave. I know you can’t run away from trauma but staying in a small town where everything’s a reminder of it doesn’t seem like a good idea either
I think we’re going to get an arc for Joyce in Season 4 that includes A) leaning into Stephen King Country heavily, followed by B) yeah, the trauma is inside and the family wants to be back with people who understand and support them, in Hawkins.
You really don’t understand Joyce’s reasons for moving away?All she has in Hawkins is a dead-end, insecure job in a wretched small town dying a not-so-slow economic death where (not incidentally) three times in the last three years both of her children have nearly died gruesome deaths at the hands of a supernatural entity of unspeakable malevolence that keeps trying to kill them all. Oh—and that supernatural entity actually did kill, in rather spectacularly horrifying fashion, the one decent boyfriend she’d managed to find following her divorce from her abusive spouse.Honestly, at the beginning of the season, the only reason I could think of for why she hadn’t *already* moved herself and her children away from Hawkins was Because Plot Reasons.
I was more bugged that the Russian coverup was so weak. Why bother smuggling Russian uniforms and weapons into the US? Why not just buy what you need at K Mart? Why have thugs with assault rifles guarding the innocuous looking loading dock?
Obviously you have to suspend disbelief enough to imagine the Russians could build this huge underground facility and smuggle in all of those soldiers and scientists and equipment, but for some reason it felt more ridiculous to me that they seemed so cavalier about covering their tracks.
The whole thing was flat-out preposterous. There’s no denying it.
To be fair to the Russians,the Upside Down would be the scientific discovery of the century,if not all time.
I think my biggest problem with the series is I don’t understand what the Russians were doing.I had this same exact thought. At least for the US government in the first two seasons, it was clear they didn’t want to have opened up some interdimensional portal. They were just trying to spy on the Russians. But what the fuck was the Russian endgame with this shit? Honestly, that might be my biggest criticism of the season. At least the government menace in the first two seasons made sense. There was a logic to it. This was just… what? (Apart from that, I will say I really liked the season a lot.)
What I didn’t get, is why did the Russians decide to dress like Russians? If a kid finds your secret base, just pretend to be Americans.Seriously did you ship all of those uniforms?
Seriously did you ship all of those uniforms?Ship? I want to know if their facility had a built-in laundry service, since they weren’t taking Russian military uniforms to the Hawkins dry cleaner.By the middle of the season, I was already wondering why the Russians had such good intel on the upside-down. For them to have not only knowledge of the creature invasion from Season 2, but a living asset from the prior season, at least opens the door to figuring out what the Russians knew (and when they knew it).Watching the season, I had assumed the Russian plan was to literally open up the door to the upside-down by having tunneled to the reverse side of the crack in Hawkins electric plant / secret psy-soldier training facility. While they made it sound like the tunnels were significantly larger than the Starcourt mall…they never made it seem like things stretched out that far.I think the writing staff did a good job of splintering the narrative into so many component parts, before pulling the threads together and bringing us to the (almost literal) fireworks factory.
Ever since Robin carried a Helmet in one scene and so conveniently spoke Russian, I kept waiting for the reveal that she was Little Nikita.
It bothered me that nobody in the crew ever stopped to say “The place you are trying to reach is full of monsters you can’t control, are you idiots? Yes we know all about it, it almost killed us twice already and you guys aren’t even close to properly equipped to deal with the nightmares in that world. Guns and bombs won’t work. Fire is only a temporary solution.”
Same, with the Russians. I mean, what was the coded transmission for? Why would they need to issue a coded map to the facility when it seemed like everyone who worked there was shipped directly to it?Was it supposed to be some sort of check-in mechanism with the Kremlin? As long as someone was repeating the code, the operation was going well. I dunno, and I hate that this is the thing my brain decided to get hung up on.
My biggest problem is HOW did the Russians have the ability to move that many men and that much materiel into the middle of Indiana without anyone noticing? Hollow Earth? Did they teleport? Drove me nuts.
Well, they used the building of the mall as cover. Takes a lot of men and trucks to build a huge mall. Getting the men *into* the US is a bit trickier, but if The Americans taught us anything it’s that Russia had a network in the US and that can be done gradually.
This is why malls are dying—no Russians anymore.
I also feel like, living in Hawkins at this point was probably too painful for her. She had now witnessed TWO men she loved die right in front of her. I can’t imagine the pain that living there would conjure every day. I mean at least after Bob was killed in Season 2, she had Hopper to lean on. But after Hop, she had no one and it would be a constant reminder of what she lost. Though I also feel like taking her kids away from the only other people who experienced the same trauma is not a great idea and would further isolate them – we will see how that works out in season 4.
I think they just wanted to beat us to it, and they had to do it in Hawkins because that’s the only access point. Being able to access another dimension seems like it could have potential military advantages. They’ve seen what demagorgons are like–imagine getting an army of demagorgons to use in battle?
Let’s just say the Upside Down has the same physical dimensions as Earth. Flayers and their ilk aside, imagine if you could move an entire army undetected through an alternate dimension.Damn, I’d hate to see what kind of sea creatures the Upside Down has.
A lot more people with trauma now. The relatives of the Flayed, the dead hospital people etc.
One plot hole: perhaps I missed some bit of dialog, but just what was the the Mind Flayer constructing with those chemicals and fertilizers?
I didn’t quite get that either. It seems like they were required to ingest those chemicals so that they could turn to flesh sludge, but I don’t remember any explicit confirmation of that.
I had considered that, but then the Mind Flayer seemed to be able to control the “state” of its hosts, which would seem to preclude the need for chemicals.
True, and the only hosts we see eat the chemicals are the rats and Mrs. Driscoll, but if you notice the chemicals seem to leave black ooze coming from the host’s mouths and both newspaper guys (whose names allude me) seemed to be smeared with the same substance, as though they too had eaten the chemicals. Nancy notes that the chemicals seemed to change Mrs. Driscoll’s chemical structure when looking at her chart. The kids also talk about how combining chemicals makes an entirely new substance. The only thing that makes any sense is that the Mind Flayer somehow needed hosts to ingest these chemicals before he breaks their bodies down.
In the scene at the pool with billy and mrs wheeler he is about to drink chemicals (I assume chlorine?) before she walks over. That is why he was in the closet. I still don’t get the why of it though.
Billy has definitely ingested the chemicals, as he has the black veins when the Mind Flayer is in control and black goo coming out of his mouth when he dies.
Just about all the chemicals they were forced to take in were fairly caustic chemicals including fertilizer to an extent. I get they were liquidating their innards and that their skin was only a shell that was being controlled by the flayer. It seems the brain was intact enough to allow some semblance of normalcy in between being taken over but the more they liquified themselves the more they became less human in their actions i.e. the mayor and the Driscoll lady who was pure catatonia in the hospital (“schizophrenia”)
That is both a brilliant explanation and disturbing as all hell.Also, wish they’d showed the kids ferreting that out for the sake of the ew factor as well as the narrative. Might even have gotten our favorite science teacher involved in another scene.
Didn’t like the “ra ra ra America bs.” It was a bit too much at times. I guess that was how 80s movies were tho. I hope hyper capitalist Erica gets eaten by a monster working for the communists next season.
Yeah, I binged season 3. What else do you do on a July 4th that’s hotter than the 9th ring of hell?
I loved it. Period. Warts and all.
I even hope, in my heart of hearts, the American in the Soviet gulag is Hopper rather than Bauman (although Bauman would be cool, too!). Hell, I bought that Glenn could slither under a dumpster in the middle of a zombie smorgasbord so Hopper avoiding a room-killing core meltdown is a piece of cake.
And MAJOR props to Gaten Matarazz for proving that adorable can be studly as well.
Pretty sure Bauman made it out at the same time Joyce did. He was with her when the American troops entered the complex.
That’s right! Oh, be still my heart! Hopper lives!
I’m crushed by Hopper’s death, but his survival would be such a cheat. I think the American is probably a captured scientist from season 1 who gave up the secrets of the DoE lab at Hawkins, which is how the Russkies know about the Upside Down and that it can be reached from Indiana.
It is a cheat, but it has to be though. If he was really gone, they’d want to convey the full emotional impact with the viewers, which would require showing him to us dead.
Yeah, he wouldn’t be the kind who would want to stick around l.
There’s a theory upthread that it’s Brenner, too. My personal theory is that the American is just . . . an American prisoner of no descript, and that people are reading way too much into the line.
Which is also the most painful possible outcome for me, because Hopper is my #1 fictional crush.
I wonder how long we will have to wait to find out. Time between season two and three was almost two years.
The can’t wait too long, I think that Will being in the background a lot was a cover for how much he has grown. He looked like an adult dressed up in little kid clothes in some scenes.
As soon as they didn’t show Hopper’s actual death his return was inevitable. They would have made you watch them burn his face off if they were really killing him.
The explosion blew backwards, not forwards. Hopper was in front of it. No issues with him living, to me
Not to mention there was already that energy field in front of him that looked very shield-like. If he wasn’t found in the rubble by the Russians (I mean the Russians vacated that base unrealistically fast anyhow…), he had to have been thrown in the Upside-Down, but then the question becomes how did the Russians get him from there.
“My personal theory is that the American is just . . . an American prisoner of no descript, and that people are reading way too much into the line.”Hopper and Joyce were referred to many times as ‘the American(s)‘ though, and only them. The kids and teens were referred to as something else. I also don’t know if I buy that it’s a random American, because what would be the point of referencing an American if they aren’t anyone meaningful, especially in a ‘end credit’ scene which exist for the sole purpose of teasing and leading up to the next ‘thing’. I also don’t recall the Duffers ever doing a fake out like that before.
IT’S HOPPER, DAMNIT!
Why go out of the way to specify, in a post-credits scene no less, than the unseen prisoner was American if it isn’t going to be significant?
Dammit, the Ninth Ring is the coldest one, Six and Seven are where people get lit on fire
It was never going to capture the fun and surprise of the first season, but I’m impressed by how well they kept the franchise going without feeling like they were just going through the motions.
That tag implying Hopper is still alive is my one big gripe about the finale, and season actually, that I otherwise quite enjoyed. Not least because it made the Key explosion scene have to be edited in a nonsensical way to have that even be possible. A lesser gripe from the sci-fi nerd in me is the vagueness in how the Mind Flayer/Upside-Down/Gate stuff really works. Then again, Russians built a massive, secret compound whose entrance was in a mall and nobody noticed so… if I accept that premise I don’t really have a leg to stand on with the other stuff.I thought the pace of the season was good, with only a few sporadic lags, and they certainly upped the effects budget which was effectively creepy and downright gross at times. Mostly though, I just enjoyed most of the character interactions, with Keery and Hawke, really stealing the show. Hawke’s Robin integrated into the cast seamlessly in a show that struggled a bit to introduce new characters in the group last season.
Robin had me as soon as she called Steve a “dingus” and whipped out her “You rule/You suck” whiteboard.
There was IMPORTANT INFORMATION on that whiteboard.
There was IMPORTANT INFORMATION on that whiteboard.The score was 5 to zip, favoring “You Suck” and R is certainly smart enough to remember that “data” easily.IMO, the board was merely performative; just a visual prop for her main hobby of trolling Steve.(That’s totally when I started to fluv Robin too.)
I loved Robin and Steve, and I’m so glad they didn’t go the romance route with them.
And I love how, even though the show ruled out a romantic relationship between them, by the finale that friendship is ironclad. Each of them would die for the other one. Even if they end up living on opposite coasts, they’re going to be in each other’s lives in some way or another.
Yes! I loved that bathroom scene where he admitted his crush on her and her response was “Tammy,” he processed it for a moment, accepted it wordlessly, and told her she deserved better.
Yeah, the show has enough couples bickering, and enough “will they, won’t they.” This was perfect. They were the best subplot, though Erica wore thin as the bully. I’d say the older teen bickering couple was the weakest subplot
We all thought we knew it was coming, but then it was cleverly subverted.I love both characters, and think they’d make a kick ass romantic couple, but I guess a kick ass plutonic couple will work too.
Well the mayor did mention that the Russians were buying up property around Hawkins. I don’t think that it would be a huge leap in logic to have the Russians be the people who actually constructed the mall in the first place. They knew the gate was there so why not build an underground base and then stick a mall on top of it? Made sense to me.
Oh, yeah, I assumed the Russians built the mall. It’s still so preposterous that it’s not even reasonable. The logistics of doing that is impossible. Building a giant underground structure, especially that deep, is a monumental task that takes specialized equipment, thousands of man hours, an ungodly amount of steel and concrete, and a place to put all the earth that is excavated. You’re talking about thousands of runs by huge dump trucks just to put that earth… somewhere. It’s impossible not to notice and it’s a multi billion dollar project. Beyond all that, it’s ridiculous that Russians trying to hide their presence actually just chilled in uniform, out in the open, with AKs. Or that people in the mall were chill with guys walking around, chasing the kids, while openly armed in full tactical gear. Even in 80s Indiana somebody would’ve called the cops. Not to mention, there was no point in the Russian code shit. The Russians controlled the elevator and were getting deliveries of stuff sent to them by other Russians. There was no point in that ruse. It was all preposterous on any level of logic. That said, I could put all that aside, and really enjoyed the season no matter how silly the basic premise was.
Logic was thrown out the window in season 1 when nobody notices any of the weird shit that happened in Hawkins. Basically, the required level of suspense of disbelieve is only growing as this shit escalates with a 30 foot monster made of fuckin’ liquefied people!It’s made even better by the fact that you keep getting these blurbs about how everyone OUTSIDE Hawkins are noticing all this weird, unexplained stuff. It’s quite frankly, part of the gag at this point.
The logistics of the Russia stuff is preposterous, as you say, but it seems more of a feature than a bug, part of the riffing on how shoddily constructed so many 80s films are. It’s right there with Robin being able to translate Russian (It’s a UNIX system, I know this!) in a day because she’s studied some romance languages in high school. Or the Goonies-like aspect of these kids really being action heroes who repeatedly help save the world, especially Erica being a 10-year-old Sarah Conner. Or a small town alcoholic sheriff being able to out-fight multiple highly-trained Russian spies. It’s intentional fridge logic, and that’s the charm of it.
The tunnel was way longer than the mall, though. And even if they did construct it, how did they do it in under a year?
I agree about the Hop tease. I said before we started the finale was that one of the biggest weaknesses of the show was its unwillingness to do any kind of real damage to the core group, so I was very pleased to see that they didn’t make it out of this go-round unscathed – then they killed all that goodwill momentum.
The explosions were the biggest hints that Hopper is still alive but… trapped in the Upside Down. If you rewatch the scenes, he is gone from the scaffolding before the explosions started. He escaped through the gate.
The other big hint is his final lines of the season:
“But please, if you don’t mind, for the sake of your poor old Dad, keep the door open three inches.”
He isn’t in Russia, he is Upside Down, and the door needs to be reopened.
Hopper was cutoff by the penumbra, I think he dove through the rift.
I’m wondering if the Duffer’s might not be considering whether to actively/retroactively make “the upside down” be a post-apocalyptic future? One where The Mind-Flayer was created (maybe, even, by The Russians) and went on to destroy everything… and now wants to come back to do it all over again (earlier).Thing is, though there are possible ways to weave that in (I feel it would explain Will’s “flashes”, the appearance of the various “people” in Billy’s weird flash, the Russian’s having a Demogorgon – maybe this is one they created that went on to BECOME The Mind-Flayer) that’s really all it is… one POSSIBLE future for Season 4, given how little we actively know about WHAT the u-d is.I doubt it will go that way but… it COULD.
This show is three for three with the season climaxes; it’s continually impressive to me how smoothly they knit everything together.One thing I’ve noticed about streaming shows is that increasingly they seem to be aware that between the generally shorter number of episodes, serialization, and the all-at-once production and release system, there’s no longer any reason that these shows need to maintain a sort of functional day-to-day status quo in the setting. They can have the characters go basically anywhere between seasons and it doesn’t matter as long as they can manoeuvre them into the same place as needed for the next story (if need be, the next premiere can even have them already together on vacation or whatever). With broadcast shows, generally, you needed a stable, unified setting and disruptions of that setting had to be temporary.
Most streaming series treat a season as an 8-13 hour movie so, like a movie sequel, they’re not tied to the typical serialization you’d see in broadcast TV. It’s an advantage in many ways, but also lives or dies on the audience buying that the characters are still recognizably themselves while getting across what changed about them in the interim through experiences we haven’t seen. Like El and Mike being makeout machines. We skipped over how they went from extreme awkwardness to that, but it’s so eminently relatable, you just say, oh, they’re there now.
When people complain about Stranger Things being an easy nostalgia cash-in, I get it. For the most part, it’s too integral to the show’s identity not to be true. And you either have no interest in this, or you accept it and are in for the ride. Coming into the third season, I was feeling a bit of fatigue. For as large as the narrative stakes have been in the past, the emotional weight hasn’t always been there as much as it should’ve been.And yet, this season sidesteps upping the spectacle—although, this season is absolutely beautiful to watch, and has some phenomenal set pieces—and doubles down on its one genuinely substantive strength: Its cast and characters. This season doesn’t always do right by its characters—I mean, the fact that Will, who has one of the more vital internal conflicts, is fairly sidelined after episode three, is kinda bullshit—but when it does, it absolutely nails it. I’m a grown adult, but I shamelessly wept at that epilogue, and particularly Hopper’s speech that never was. What is great about season three of Stranger Things is that, while it might not be the most exciting run of episodes, it’s maybe the show’s most important. Because it finally moves away from texture and into depth in a meaningful way. And yeah, it’s handling tried and true feelings. But it does it with such grace and deceptive simplicity that, going into season four, I’m not just looking forward to more pop culture pastiche; I’m invested in what happens to these characters on a human level more than ever before.Anyway, great finale. Great season.
yes! I agree, when this episode took like 15 minutes just to establish what all the characters have lost, how it affected each of them individually, and how things will have to change for them from now on was what sold me. it reminds me of how S1 actually had a genuine sense of these characters’ inner lives (just think of Joyce and Jonathan hugging while Mike hugs his mum) that seemed to get lost along the way. thank god the writers remembered what their biggest strength is – these characters and these actors
I actually found this season to be more exciting, or at least more propulsive and energetic, than the prior two. Where I agree with you entirely though is how the show deals tried and true, basically predictable emotional arcs, yet nearly always nails the landing because the cast is so good. It’s also been great at upending those expectations that have been built up by the nostalgia it mimics. I thought the Nancy/Steve/Jonathan love triangle arc from season 1 beautifully upset the expected trope in how it played out. Nobody was entirely right or wrong or the caricature they started out as. This season, the scene of Robin basically coming out to Steve could’ve been a cringeworthy mess, but it was candid and endearing and actually felt earned. All credit to Keery and Hawke for that. In the course of their scenes together you could buy that they reached that level of friendship and respect for each other.I also thought Mike finally really talking to El was dragged out too long but when it finally happened it was cute in a non-saccharin way. Dustin, no matter which character the show seems to separate him out with, is always an all star, though his interactions with Steve are, by far, the best. The show seems to have no idea what to do with Will though, aside from being a Mind Flayer compass. Max and Lucas pretty much existed this season to be the angels/devils on Mike and El’s shoulders without much to do themselves. Hopper and Joyce’s interactions reached levels of tiring annoyance at times but it was saved by their easy and impeccable comic timing with each other. I’m glad they got Ryder out of “worried mom” mode and let her stretch her wings more, because she was often downright hilarious.
I agree that Will got lost in the shuffle, unfortunately. It’s not unreasonable for his character to be less a part of the gang in light of how the others paired off, but I wish he had been more active in finding his own role, instead of just sort of being there.
Likewise, his mom and brother seemed really disconnected from him, which makes less sense than the growing distance from his friends.
Joyce’s Hopper impression was my favorite moment of the season. Give Winona more comedy, she can handle it!
I watched it several times and laughed so hard.
My theory is that Noah Schnapp is just not as strong an actor/does not have the same chemistry with the ensemble as the rest of the child actors so they keep putting him in narrative arcs that double as excuses for him being largely absent and/or a whiny, one-note character. I’m similarly suspicious that Gaten Matarazzo had some sort of conflict during the timeframe that worked best for all the other original child actors and that was why he was written into the Russian subplot instead of being a part of the Mind Flayer stuff with everyone else (sort of like what happened with Netflix’s first stab at Arrested Development, only with better results).
The nostalgia thing might be what gets viewers in the door, but if the show weren’t actually GOOD, they wouldn’t keep watching. I’m kind of at the point where I find the art direction super impressive, but the more on-the-nose nostalgia moments feel pretty meh. I’m here for the characters and the stories, which continue to be impressive.
Agreed. I actually like Ready Player One (both book and film) but I know that if you tried to stretch that into a series, the references would get a bit wearying (and I do understand people who think it got wearying 50 pages into the book). But in Stranger Things I think it works fine.
The Red Letter Media guys made a case that Stranger Things is more of a period piece that’s nostalgic for movies of that era than a naked nostalgia fest. I think that’s mostly right. It’s not just a bunch of “’member x?”.
I would list it as more akin (but certainly different from) to movies like Scream or the Cornetto Trilogy films, which are homages while also slightly parodying the source material while still being capable examples of those inspirations. Maybe “homage” is the word I’m looking for, but it doesn’t feel like it fully does it justice.Stranger Things, in contrast to the above examples, is more of a period piece homage than satirical homage. The above are also super meta, whereas ST tends to make its references more like easter eggs.
I was hoping Will would be a bit more important this time around. Overall his “spidey sense” never really helped anything.
He was important for different reasons this time. Like Lucas being the sceptic in season 1, this time Will was the kid who was just growing up a little bit slower than his friends.
Agreed. He was more important for the theme than the plot this time around.
I really felt for him when destroyed the fort in a rage.
Yeah, I was waiting for a payoff where his connection to the Flayer could be used against it, but largely he was a little more than a barometer in terms of plot-value.
I found it very exciting and fast paced as far as seasons go. I felt that the first season dragged, and we frequently knew more than the characters did about what was going on. This season, everyone was up to speed. “Mind Flayer again?” “Yup.” And off we go. It was brisk, and over too soon. RIP Fat Rambo.
Best comment ever. Well done, Holden!
doubles down on its one genuinely substantive strength: Its cast and characters. The strength is how they juggle so many complex characters. The Duffer Brothers have now proven for a third time that they are capable of adding new characters that don’t feel “tacked on”, but actually add to the fun. If you’re old enough to remember the Simpsons “Poochie” episode you’ll know what I mean. Some took longer to develop (Max, Murray Bauman), while others were stealing scenes right out of the gate (Bob Newby, Billy, Robin, Erica) – none of them feel like filler.
While I get the complaints, I don’t agree with them. I think it takes a lot of skill to distill out the nostalgia elements and then synthesize them into something new and interesting, and this show does that. It’s easy to be derivative and just make references, but I think Stranger Things does more than that. It gets at the essence of what we enjoyed about these tropes, and I think that has a different effect from just making references. The emotional impact of this season on me felt familiar—very similar to the emotional impact stuff like The Goonies and The Monster Squad and Night of The Creeps and The Lost Boys and It and Ghostbusters and all the other source material the show uses as inspiration had on me. They managed to tap into this stuff on an emotional level and it really worked for me.
I too was pleasantly surprised by the third season. I was expecting an inevitable increase in monster strength countered by Eleven going super saiyan in the finale. The show did a good job subverting my expectations. It also did a good job making the changing relationships of the characters interesting.
Did we ever find out what that green stuff is? Food for the Mind Flayer? A chemical weapon extracted from the Upside Down (in which case it’s going the wrong direction)? A way to break down the wall between worlds?Also please can Murray Bauman come back in Season 4?
The last one. The Soviets were using it to power their machine. There’s a shot where you can see the cannisters plugged into it.
Thank you! I missed that. Things were moving FAST.
Agree energy source- I just figured that it was a way to work a gratuitous nod to the plutonium from Back to the Future, since it open the same way and made the same exact sound when opened. And that was also for energy.
Manhattan Project had a similar green goo, I’d say it was even more a nod to that than BTTF.
Yeah, I liked that they basically worked Back to the Future, The Manhattan Project, and Alien in with one simple canister reference…
Between this and Fleabag, I’m kinda loving the Gelmanaissance.
I absolutely hated the Never-ending Story song scene. If it wasn’t so close to the end it would have jumped the shark.
Why do you hate joy?
From a narrative perspective, Hopper had to go offstage at the end of the season for all sorts of reasons beyond cheapening the ending.Two that I can think off off the top of my head: if Joyce and he had happily shacked up it would have created problems for both characters, and a long distance relationship for El and Mike saves the plot from moving into some really awkward territory as they get older.Is he dead, though? Doubt it, but either way it’s a marvelous way to keep interest up.Also, I give the Duffers credit for making the episode action packed enough so that I’d outright forgotten about Satan’s Baby when I was trying to figure out how El would get out of her predicament.Last, props to them for the Paul Reiser cameo, but bringing Keith back was outright brilliant. Everyone needs to have someone in your life that rolls their eyes at you when you recommend the one with the teddy bears, Steve won’t have to deal with headwear interfering with The Hair, and after all, who wouldn’t want to work alongside cardboard Phoebe Cates?
I suppose if I have one gripe about this season, it’s the fate of all those poor townsfolk who were taken over by the Mind Flayer. I guess chalk it up to my similar feelings about Barb in season 1, but I just kind of hate when characters are used and victimized and never get a chance to be saved. The show really didn’t seem to care about their fates, like that little boy who walked away from the fireworks when he was “activated.” I couldn’t help but imagine that that boy was a part of his own group of friends, just not the “right’ group with the superpowered colleague, and so there was no one to help him. He just became sludge. I know I’m overthinking things, but one of the things I enjoy about this show is that there is of course danger and some death, but there is always a feeling of at least some safety, the people will pull through, and this season just felt a lot more apocalyptic and dark and willing to wreak more collateral damage.
I absolutely agree with you. I suppose some deaths of unnamed characters are “necessary” to establish the stakes, but explicitly making it a couple dozen townspeople including a kid was I think unnecessarily cruel.
I don’t think it was cruel. I think it was very realistic in a lot of ways. Children die all the time. We don’t like to see it because it makes us uncomfortable – well, that’s what the show does best. Bear in mind Barb was still a child when she was killed in season one. Was it okay for her to die because she was nearly an adult? Yes, it’s shocking, but hey, that’s what happens. Stephen King got some amount of flak when he wrote Salem’s Lot because the primary victim of the vampire infestation wasn’t an adult – but a young boy.
People have different tastes and I can accept that, but “realistic” is not something I look for in my genre fiction. I want bad guys to be defeated and innocents to be saved. I didn’t love Barb’s death either.
I would agree to this. Like, I had hope they would somehow get the lifeguard girl out of this, but then when the newspaper dudes started turning into sludge, it became clear that wasn’t gonna happen.
Given how they treated the death of Barb in Season 2, I don’t think what happened with the Meat Mind Flayer this season is going to be forgotten. I expect Hawkins to be a very sad, very haunted place next time around.
Among the newspaper headlines was one about “30 people dead” so they are publicly acknowledged to be victims, even if the form of their deaths were probably covered up. Mayor Cary Elwes looks to be the scapegoat for everything, so I think they’ll get some justice (as he was indirectly responsible, having allowed the Russians to do what they did).
My guess is he’ll weasel out of consequences beyond possibly a tough reelection fight and return for Season 4.
Literally no one would ever live there again.
People still live in Columbine, Newtown and San Bernardino. As unthinkable as it might be to outsiders after a major tragedy, those events also bond you to your friends and neighbors.
Right now, people are digging into Ridgecrest and Trona, even as many outsiders think the residents should get the hell out of there.
You’re so right. A mass shooting is exactly the same – and would have an identical social impact – to a literal fucking monster coming up from the ground to disintegrate people on the streets.Thanks for pointing that out!
People still live in Paradise CA, even though almost all the houses were destroyed, the environment is toxic, and much of the water won’t be safe to even shower in for years to come (my sister lived there and lost her house, though they left). They even still had their annual chocolate festival there this year. A lot of people just don’t have anywhere else to go. And a lot of people are very attached to their home. Is it the EXACT SAME as a monster coming out of the ground? No because that hasn’t happened. But it’s the closest thing we have really.
But the monster attack wasn’t public knowledge, was it?
The fuck you talking about. People live in cities where dozens of people die all the time.
You’re right. Tons of cities have literal monster attacks where dozens of people are killed all the time! We had three just last week.
Barb is in Kamchatka.
I actually had the had the opposite reaction. I was actually ready to be pissed off thinking that they were going to kill the flesh flayer then all the people were somehow going to reincorporate out of the sludge. I’m glad they stuck to the dark tone. It was in keeping with the influences of films like The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and those of early Cronenberg. At a certain point, if we’re to buy that the threat is supposed to be as apocalyptic as the Mind Flayer supposedly is, we have to see some of that.
Agreed. I felt certain that was going to happen and quite glad it didn’t.
I agree with you here. Queazy feelings aside, another hallmark of 80’s movies was the indiscriminate killing. Hopper machine-gunned 4 Russian soldiers. I wonder if the whole newspaper senior staff was wiped out. Nancy could get her old job back and be right in there running the show.
A 19 year old is gonna run the newspaper?
You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few dozen eggs.
Maybe this is me just showing my age, but I have trouble when kids get hurt/killed/sludged in fiction. Doesn’t sit well with me. Anonymous townspeople aren’t much better.Yes, it definitely ups the stakes, but I’m still made sad. I think I’d have to see some sort of cathartic nod in the next season.
Unless I missed it, I’m also sad they didn’t give a nod to Barb like they did with Bob.
It’s one of the criticisms that people have of Doctor Who, believe it or not – that those who are seen to be the victim of the episode-of-the-week’s Big Bad are forever lost. Good example of this was all of the people cyberconverted during the Battle of Canary Wharf – there was some fair amount of complaining/whinging, to the point where we had the ludicrous notion that cyberconversion could be overwritten with a child’s cry.Sometimes, people are just victims and there’s nothing that can be done. Not everyone can be saved (from the moment Heather sashayed on-screen it was obvious she was going to die) and sometimes death is necessary in fiction to lend realism, even gravitas to the story. In written fiction, the best example I can think of is Cedric Diggory. His death was and is shocking – JK Rowling wrote him in such a way that a lot of fans believed he would later become an important ally to Harry Potter and instead he became Voldiepoo’s victim. Death is necessary, but in fiction, senseless death is essential.
“and instead he became Voldiepoo’s victim.”
haha you coward, type his name. Go on. Type it.
I think of the Holloway family, Heather, Tom and Janet. Completely wiped out, but I gotta feel sad that Billy is dead?
That’s one thing I had a problem with — I didn’t buy that Max would be sad about Billy’s death. If anything, she would be relived. He was incredibly cruel and menacing to her last season, and I got a definite vibe that he either was, or shortly would be, sexually abusing her. He was a vicious, abusive stepbrother who was foisted on her along with his abusive dad, and if anything she’d be glad he’s gone. Regretful in an abstract way that he had to die, but glad he’s no longer a threat to her.
Sexually abusing her? Thats a biiiiiiig fucking stretch.
There is zero evidence that Billy was sexually abusing Max or had any plans to. And while they did show her being sad, they also showed her goofing around with Lucas and making fun of Dustin, so it’s not like it crushed her soul. But you can still be sad about your family dying even if they were terrible to you. Most people would be, especially seeing the way he went.
No explicit evidence but that is the vibe I got. I can’t be the only person who thought that. Or hurt her at least anyway. And you can be sad, but also relieved.
I don’t think abusive relationships necessarily work that way. I think she’s grieving for the brother she had sometimes, and could have had at other times.
Maybe. If he had ever been any kind of a real brother to her. But he seems to have only been introduced into her life about four years ago, and with bad circumstances from the start.
I think most in her situation would have mixed feelings. It is common that even if abused people can still feel sad when someone close dies.
Some people have more complex feelings than that.
Okay, but that was not born out by what was actually on the screen. From what we’ve seen, Max hates and fears Billy.
She was also concerned that he’d get hurt when they planned the sauna test. It’s possible to particularly like a specific family member, but still not want any harm to come to that family member.
That’s what I’m saying, I didn’t believe that she would suddenly be concerned about Billy’s wellbeing after the last season.
I suppose the major gripe I have with modern movie criticism is that people constantly confuse the things that make the uncomfortable with viable movie criticism.
Walking Dead is still on the air, right?
Zombie movies and alien hive mind movies still exist in your dimension, right?
The creators of this show simply left the boring hand-wringing to people like you. They gave you the old lady who turned out to be nice, then ate fertilizer, then turned to goo. Ya can’t claim they were flippant about the procedure unless you were flippant with the results.
Which, in your own way, ya kinda were.
It’s a horror series though. You never save everyone. Otherwise the villains are rendered toothless.
This isn’t a Disney movie. It’s realistic. And life isn’t a fairy tale. Every time movies or TV books pull that fairy tale everything it’s dumb as hell.
It’s realistic?
You might want to read that with the proper context.
High on LSD? In what sense or context can you ever say that Stranger Things is realistic?
Jesus Fucking Christ on a stick. Nobody’s talking about the monsters and shit being real. I’m talking about life doesn’t end in like a watered down Disney fucking fairy tale. People die, bad shit happens. It’s not wrapped up neatly in a little bow with sparkly wrapper.
I can’t believe people are deliberating misunderstanding you because you used the word realistic.
And I don’t understand how you see this as way more realistic than a watered down Disney fairy tale. Stranger Things is not realistic at all: it is trope after trope of what the idealisation of the 80s is about, and very much about what you could find in horror books of the 80s as well (mostly the first season). It is not more realistic, at all. It is not a grownup version. And it is super fun for it. Unless you mean “it’s realistic” because you mean that you want to feel like an adult guy or something. It has a giant monster, it has kids saving the world, it has super powers, it is a f-ing comic book, not realistic at all. Tropes. Tropes. More tropes. Trope food for the target audience.I don’t know how else I can put it.
Jesus Christ. Substitute monsters for any realistic disaster. There’s always casualties. Not everybody lives. That’s realistic.
Rambo is a fantasy, a 100% fantasy, though people die. Power fantasies are fantasies. But this is already a very dumb war we are both in, in which my point is “both are fantasies” and yours is “one is more fantasy than the other”. I owe you a beer.
oh what like nobody in your hometown ever turned into sentient goo?
Yes.
Q: “It’s realistic?”
A: “we all die, my strange little child friend. It’s all a matter of how, and when.”
Realistic?
Honestly, a couple dozen dead townies is totally in line with the narrow avoidance of a world ending event. It would be weirder if everyone could just go about their daily business without a feeling of loss and confusion.
I agree, but as it was unfolding, I hoped at least if they were going to bring everyone back, there would be 30 naked people running around a blown-up mall with amnesia.
I agree, that bothered me too. The show is all about the idyllic quality of small town life — to have thirty-odd people just die or disappear or whatever isn’t going to just be glossed over in a small town like that. They just hand-waved it away. But that’s the kind of thing a town like that would never get over.
IMO, that’s what makes the Mind Flayer so horrifying. You can see what it did to the Upside Down Hawkins, so imagine the horror of that without an Eleven and our group of plucky heroes to fight it.
Not an 80’s kid I take it?Cause seriously there was no “safe group” but the leads in the 80’s, and even the fucking horse was expendable. Its a far cry from GoT we beat the main bad guy schlock modern storytelling has become.
I assumed that once you were Flayed, you were already dead. Possessed — still in there, in a way, just hypnotized — but that a normal human wouldn’t be able to extricate themselves. They were far more Flayed than Will ever was, it seemed, so I had no hope for them. That made it easier to accept, as a viewer, when they sludged. But from an in-story perspective, I wish I knew just how the government made up that all of those people were killed in whatever vague ‘tragedy’ happened at the Starcourt Mall. What were the families told about why they were all there when it was supposedly closed? What story do they get, even if it’s a fake one? Who mourns them? I wish it had been expounded on more to respect their loss.
There’s a not-terrific-but-okay splattery horror movie from a few years back called “Slither” (with Nathan Fillion) with parasitic alien slugs that crawl up people’s noses or other orifices, latch onto their brains, and turn them into part of a zombie hive mind. Like I said, not a very memorable movie in most ways, except for the ending: the heroes kill the central controlling alien intelligence and you assume (as we’ve been trained to think by lower-stakes turns on this premise) that all the slugs will fall out of people’s heads and they’ll be saved. Instead, in the movie’s one real coup, everyone in the entire town simply keels over dead. Which, taking a certain approach to realism, is pretty much what would happen if a parasitic creature ate part of your brain, took control of your central nervous system, and then died. I mean, look: all this stuff about characters “deserving” or “not deserving” what happens to them is kind of silly, as well as making some pretty asinine assumptions about what it means to create fiction. This stuff is only ever “realistic” by the standards of its own world-building. Having a couple dozen people turn into sludge was awful, but felt truer to that world than having them somehow rematerialize out of the sludge, particularly when one of the horrifying (yet surprisingly never outright stated) implications of all the poison consumption is that the Mind Flayer learned its lesson when it was kicked out of Will—these people are destroying their physical bodies to the point where the only thing holding them together materially is the will of the force that’s possessed them.
that’s the best thing about it. Stakes!!!! somebody has to die. It would be a cop out if they lived just like if Barb lived.
I was also surprised by the show’s “boldness” in the basement scene, when the Mind flayer started to grow. It reminded me of those pg18 horror films about mind controlling aliens that took over entire towns, and that would include children – a process that the audience knew was irreversible and ended with the entire town getting nuked. This season had the highest body count for sure.
I’m glad they didn’t save everyone who was in peril. That would have made the big bad ultimately toothless in a way that undermines the story. Part of me is glad that Hopper is probably alive, but another part of me thinks that’s too easy.
My 13 year old thought I had lost my mind when I jumped up and down screaming “OH MY FUCKING GOD DUSTIN’S SINGING THE NEVERENDING STORY!!!!” about 3 sec in.
Fuck. Yes. Inject that straight into my heart.
My wife & son gave me some serious side eye when I reached to the song. It’s going to be awkward if they actually ask me about it.
“Structurally, I understand why the Neverending Story
scene couldn’t be a post-credits scene, but it broke the tension with
merciless speed. Maybe that’s a feature, not a bug, for the series’ most
sensitive viewers?”Don’t care, it was goddamn hilarious and I was laughing my ass off through the whole song…and again when Max and Lucas were singing it at Dustin too!
I agree completely. The whole season was hysterical but that song took the cake.
‘whole season was hysterical’I rewatched the first two seasons last week, 3 had more comedy by far than the first two.
And Ryder was a big part of that. It was nice to see her get a chance to get out of worried mother mode and show some comedy chops that I didn’t know she had.
For sure!
Which is a great thing I think. It was still scary enough but the comedy made it feel more alive and fun.
This season felt like a weird joke compared to the first 2.
the Neverending Story scene I died, got resurrected and then died again, I was laughing so hard from that scene.Mostly because there was no internet, Youtube or easily accessible bootleg copies back when The Neverending Story came out in 1984, which means that both Dustin & Suzie had to have independently gone to see the film multiple times in the theater, in order to learn the entire theme song by heart. ⊙_ʘ
To be fair…it was also released as a single. They could have both bought it. I would have!
They could have bought the record and learnt it that way, or possibly rented it.
Mostly because there was no internet, Youtube or easily accessible bootleg copies back when The Neverending Story came out in 1984, which means that both Dustin & Suzie had to have independently gone to see the film multiple times in the theater, in order to learn the entire theme song by heart.Good God, they had records in 1984 – you could just BUY the song. I had a copy myself.
The cassingle??
The cassingle??
Or you could tape it off the radio, and get the lyrics in a pop magazine! (Source: I had a poster of Limahl with the lyrics on it on my bedroom wall back in 1985)
they had records in 1984 True that; the single got no airplay where I lived, though. In 1985, that song was EVERYWHERE! There was no avoiding that song at all during most of 1985, even if you tried. Guess I was just luckier than some of y’alls growing up; in my demographic, all we had to deal with being inundated with was the Last Dragon soundtrack. And I still prefer my mind cannon of Suzie and Dustin each going to see that movie multiple times, regardless if they each owned copies on or cassette; it suits each character arc.
The single made it to no. 17 on the Hot 100. I’m old enough to remember significant radio play. It’s not some 80’s obscurity the Duffer unearthed from digging through the crates.
That song played incessantly on FM radio. And maybe they bought the cassingle!
They didn’t. In 1985, that song was EVERYWHERE! There was no avoiding that song at all during most of 1985, even if you tried. I listened almost only to AOR (That’s Album Oriented Rock) radio stations or cassettes on my Panasonic Walkman knockoff, and I remember hearing it at least twice a day. There is little doubt that Suzie, and probably a bunch of other kids at the camp, had a copy of the soundtrack with her. Even less of a doubt that during the camp’s first dance (yes, even nerd camp’s would have them), that they played the song which Dustin & Suzie probably danced to.
Side 1 Track 4 of my vinyl Now That’s What I call Music Volume 4. I got heartily sick of it very quickly.
Or just listened to the cassette single.
The video got some decent enough rotation on MTV. Probably other video shows like Nick Rocks.
Nick Rocks.Never heard of it.
I know it’s probably shocking to some folks to learn that different areas of the country got different levels of exposure to certain programming back in the day, probably based on the sales & marketing stats of each different demographic region… nevertheless, it’s true.
From pretty much 1982 through 1988, I was practically glued to my tv set, sitting through countless milquetoast ‘new wave’ music videos on Mtv, just hoping they’d eventually play a Michael Jackson or a Prince vid.
Once more, I can you that I don’t ever recall seeing that song by Limahl in the rotation where I lived. But then again, my area didn’t even get the station BET (back when it still was made by Black people) until 1988, by which point it had already been on the air for 10 years in other states and cities.O_o
Nickelodeon had a music video show. Since there were finite episodes, you knew what would be playing every time it came on.In the early 80s, Nick and BET shared a cable station on my system. They switched to BET at 8pm.
The scene also gave a character moment to every other character, as we saw all of their reaction shots
Jesus, those reaction shots of all the characters during Dusty Bun’s and Suzie Poo’s duet killed me dead.Dope harmonies on the song too.
Yeah, I could tell that bit was going to be controversial, but I think it was a nice bit of comic relief that kept things from getting TOO dire. (But then, I’ve always had a weakness for the OMG-They’re-STILL-doing-it style of comedy.
But the delay she caused by singing the song (and so much of the song) directly resulted in Hopper’s death (or sure, maybe, Russian capture maybe), right?*(I too, loved the scene)
Definitely.
I thought it was amusing, but yes, if they don’t sing the song, Hop and Joyce are able to turn the machine off before Russian Terminator gets there.The more I think about it, Russian Terminator’s body breaks the machine, trapping Hop, so, all of that could’ve been avoided by cutting that song short.
Russian Terminator: “I must break you.”Hopper: “Go for it.”
I
thought it was amusing, but yes, if they don’t sing the song, Hop and
Joyce are able to turn the machine off before Russian Terminator gets
there. The more I think about it, Russian Terminator’s body breaks
the machine, trapping Hop, so, all of that could’ve been avoided by
cutting that song short.Right? fuck Suzie, she is the worst piece of shit. Even if she didn’t believe Dustin was saving the world, what a horrible person she is.
I laughed for the first 20 seconds of the song. Then as they kept singing, it made me feel uncomfortable. By the end of it, I was just angry. It did not fit in at all during that final encounter with the mind flayer and shouldn’t have been used there.
Eh, to each their own.
it was corny as hell
While I know people keep complaining that certain scenes and/or crosscutting are ~ruining~ the tension of the show in various places, those are the parts I live for. Honestly while the mind flayer stuff is what propels the plot, that’s not what I watch the show for. If the mind flayer stuff wasn’t cut into so often by the tension diffusing jokes and character driven moments I’d be bored as fuck. It’s not like any of the scenes are long enough to make me forget the world is about to end.
The Neverending Story bit started out cringey, but when it cut to Steve and the gang in the car listening to the song like, “WTF?” and the Meat Mind Flayer is still pursuing them in the background, that was hilarious.
Murray gets a great little wtf look himself lol
At first I was a little annoyed that they showed us a scene at Suzie’s house – hearing her voice on the radio would’ve been evocative (and funny) enough. But then she starts pressuring Dustin to sing, and there’s this tension about what he’s going to sing (my money was on “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” mainly because they’d already referenced it as a terrible sing-along song). When he started singing Neverending Story, and then they cut away to all the other characters on the same channel (I think at one point Winona is literally banging her head against the wall), it justified everything. I take some issue with this show’s logic and aggressive lack of subtext, but it’s a goldmine of acting and directing talent. That whole sequence is just perfect.
Hopper just standing there slack jawed fucking killed me.
At first I was annoyed. There’s an emergency going on, cut this shit out. But then it just kept going and with all the reactions shots I couldn’t help but laugh.
Except that two people on radios who are both pressing the transmit button would not be able to hear each other.
I felt this season overall was on par with Season 2. Meaning not as good as one, but still a lot of fun. They leaned on the comedy too much at times, occasionally to the detriment of suspense.
Couldn’t “The American” also be Brenner, who we know from season 2 is alive and would explain how the Russians even knew about Hawkins?
I saw this on twitter so not my original thought but what someone said is that every time the Russians referred to him (like after talking to the mayor and chasing him toward Illinois ) they always called Hopper “the American”
Brenner is dead and good riddance to him. The best thing in season 3 was moving on from him and all the silly child experiment stuff.
In season 2 Carroll said Brenner was still alive. It doesn’t make much sense as to how either Brenner or Hopper could end up in a Russian gulag but both are a possibility. Brenner gives the writers an excuse as to how the Russians even knew about any of this stuff to begin with and it’s been said he’s alive. For Hopper it gives an excuse for Hopper to, well, not be dead. How either could possibly end up in Kamchatka doesn’t make much sense from what we’ve seen.
Brenner could have easily just went to the Russians when things went south for him. It would be a pretty clean-cut case of furthering the science regardless of who he’s working with. Assuming he was willingly working with the Russians though, you’d expect him to be present in Hawkins to oversee.As for Hopper, it’s possible he was found by the Russians during their (improbably fast) evacuation. The other option is that something unusual happened due to the explosion that threw him to one of the previous key sights.
I’m 47 years old and must be one of the “series most sensitive viewers”, because I was super thankful for that Neverending Story song scene to break the momentum, the tension, the pain. For me, it didn’t make the ending have less of an impact emotionally. My daughter and I were still weeping at the end. But it made the characters stand out against the backdrop of the action, which I love. This show is for anyone any kind of audience, but that includes kids. The Duffers seem to know that you don’t have to kick the audience in the gut repeatedly to make a good, tense and tender story.
Plus it’s kind of a great, albeit corny, song.
It answered the “is Dustin lying about his girlfriend” question in the most hilarious, adorable, dorky, and satisfying way possible.
Agree 100%. I’m only 31 and I wouldn’t consider myself a “sensitive viewer” but I get more enjoyment from the breaks in tension than from an hour of constant tension.
Because I’m older that movie wasn’t a part of my childhood – but having stated that, I have to agree that it *totally* killed any and all tension of that scene. Not only that, but did they have to sing multiple verses? I think just the first verse would have done the job – it just seemed to go on interminably long. It also kind of followed their pattern of trying to cram in as many 80’s references as possible, which is nice but becomes counterproductive at some point.
Thoughts:1) The mall is indeed spot on for the 1980s malls I remember. So, it is mostly a real mall redecorated to 1980s theming, a studio set, or a CGI creation?2) What exactly was the point of the broadcast code? What were they communicating? That the shipments were coming by Lynx shipping? Wouldn’t they already know that? Lynx was openly the deliverer for the whole mall.3) The green flasks appeared to resemble (at least the movie version) of plutonium, and seemed to be used as an energy source. So what about the shattered one? Is cancer in the future for our heroes?
It’s a real mall in Georgia dressed for the show.
They were varying the routes. A later code had things go in a different way. Apparently, they were worried about being spotted. That said, these were dumb Soviets. You don’t wear Soviet uniforms in your secret base on/in American soil, comrades.
That mall is scheduled to become a cricket stadium, which strikes me as incredibly nonsensical. I doubt most people around here even know cricket is a sport.
I live about 15 minutes from Gwinnett Place Mall, and even when it was busy and bustling, it was… a shitty mall. All that neon in the food court was actually in the food court. Management seems to have thought it would have a certain kind of appeal, but it never did. There was little remodeling done over the years, and so it remained stuck in the 80s (which is when it was built).
Gwinnett Place was the only major mall nearby for Gwinnett County and parts north of I-85, until around 1999 the same development company built Discover Mills (now Sugarloaf Mills), an indoor outlet mall, and the Mall of Georgia, both about 5 and 15 minutes away from Gwinnett Place. This pretty much killed Gwinnett Place, and it retrospect it was a mercy killing.The cricket stadium is now doubtful, since the mall now has five owners, not everyone’s co-operating, and the company that announced the cricket stadium – plus six others around the nation – is not talking much. So now it’s nothing but a depreciating eyesore, taking down the rest of the prime real estate with it.Great place to shoot an ‘80s TV series, however.
Thanks for sharing
Perhaps not near you, but my apartments here in Smyrna have a lot of recent immigrants from India, and they have nightly cricket practice on the tennis court. I’ve heard friends from other parts of town say the same. Maybe not enough cricket fans for a whole “stadium”, but it’s not completely unknown.
Hell, you mention India in this town and most people will think you mean Chief Noc-A-Homa.
Yeah, I’m not in Georgia, but yes, places with Indian/Pakistani and Caribbean immigrants are into cricket. They are more into it than the British themselves these days.
Darts?
Cricket is barely a sport. Source: Am Australian.
I think they take your citizenship away for talking that kind of shit.
You would say that now.
Someone’s developing a 12 field complex on the outer edges of the Houston Metro Area. I guess there’s a market for it from tourism/business visitors/international transplants.
To point 2, I think it’s sending a signal to the workers on the surface that the shipment is coming in so that they know to divert it to the elevator. You don’t want some 17 year old at the food court opening up a package of what they think is fried rice only to find some green acid shit.
“The green flasks appeared to resemble (at least the movie version) of plutonium…”I thought it looked like the ooze.
The plutonium from “The Manhattan Project” (the movie, not the real project).
I didn’t have many gripes with the season; I was invested and damn I loved everything involving Steve and Robin.If I had anything to complain about:-Erica. I don’t mind a “precocious/wise beyond their years” type, but she was also such an ass to everyone, even after she came to terms with being a nerd all along.-I’m not sure what the Russians were supposed to be doing. Getting into the Upside-Down for…what, exactly? I guess we’ll hear more about it next season then.
Considering Erica mentions seeing the cage when she’s in the lab and the stinger at the end, I believe the Russians are doing what bad guys try to do with any otherworldly force in sci-fi: weaponize it.
Exactly this. Remeber the Demogorgan at the end. The Soviets probably want a trained army of them.
Considering their economy was utterly in the shitter by then and their military resources petty depleted by 5 years of war in Afghanistan, I think by 1985 the Soviets were more concerned with trying to figure out how to get GMO wheat going than anything else.Source: The Americans
What were the Americans doing with the upside down? Why does anyone want to punch holes into another dimension filled with hellish uncontrollable monsters?
If I remember season 1 correctly, didn’t all happen by accident? Like whatever experiments they were doing with El somehow got them in contact with the Demogorgon and El accidentally created the gate in angst, then the government just kept trying to open ‘er up for science.
All the while I was watching this season, I kept wondering when are they going to wheel out their own ‘El’. Like their own Russian El that was maybe needed to have some sort of a psychic connection with the upside down… and which would lead to the inevitable battle/confrontation with the American El (sorta like Dreamscape). But no.
Ooh, maybe Season 4.
I keep waiting for them to reveal “one”, but I’m glad they kept things in Hawkins and didn’t take as big a detour as last season.
I think that was Gregori, in a way. Btw, any Thomas Pynchon fans here know what I mean by Octopus Gregori?
Yup, El came into accidental contact with the Demogorgan and got so freaked out her powers ripped open the original gate.
Yes, the Americans were merely trying to use supernatural means to spy on people (including Russians). El accidentally opened the gate in the process. After it was open, they were merely trying to contain it since they didn’t really know how to close it. And while it was open, I think they did what all scientists do, which is take advantage of the opportunity to study it, too. But I do think the Americans recognized the risk it posed once it was open and weren’t doing something so stupid like trying to weaponize it.
That happened by accident. The government was trying to use El’s remote viewing to spy on Russia. They had no idea she was going into another dimension. While she’s spying she tells Brennan she sees something else in there (a Demogorgan) and he tells he to approach it. When she gets up to it it touches her and that somehow opens the gate and allows it into our dimension.
El was terrified by its appearance and in her panic, her powers tore a rift which became the gate.
i often say the same about all the scientists in the jurassic park series.
i often say the same about all the scientists in the jurassic park series.
Google “Military Industrial Complex”
Agree about Erica. She certainly becomes more believable, but not enough, as the season goes on but she always stuck out as sore thumb of incredulousness. She’s supposed to be 10 in this season. For starters, who lets 10 year olds go to a mall unattended by an adult? Also, her child endangerment joke is played for laughs but she’s right, and the fact that both Robin and Steve are okay with sending a 10 year old into air ducts to hopefully reach a room protected by armed guards is wildly irresponsible and out of character.As to the Russians? Not sure. We don’t even know how they found out about the Upside Down in the first place. As far as we know it was discovered for the first time when El accidentally opened a gate in Hawkins. How that info reached Russian intelligence is unknown. How they could so quickly devise a device to open gate is equally unknown. I guess there’s the implication they might’ve stumbled upon it on their own through remote viewing experiments like El’s. They had cages to imprison Demogorgons which implies they knew what might come out of the gate. I’ve seen some suggestions that maybe the Demogorgon seen in the post credit scene is the Demogorgon from season 1. When El destroyed it she was able to find her way through the small “wounds” it could make. Maybe the Demogorgon could do the same and came out somewhere in Russia, leading to the Russian knowledge of the Upside Down. Now, the Russians, being 80s style Russian villains, want more Demogorgons. Like you said, hopefully season 4 will make more sense of the Russian involvement.
“For starters, who lets 10 year olds go to a mall unattended by an adult?” My mother and a lot of mothers I knew did. I walked to the mall with friends without supervision at the age of 10 in 1974. My guess mothers in the 1980s would do that too.
That this is an incredulous idea to people makes me feel really old. Russians and mindflayers aside, there’s not a lot that could actually go wrong for kids in a mall.
Absolutely. I grew up in the 1980’s and me and my friends would go everywhere at age eight. My mom gave me some coins so I could use a public phone if I couldn’t find the way home.
I miss when $5 was enough for a movie, two video games, and a phone call for a ride home.
As someone who grew up in the 80s, a wide berth of child autonomy was fairly common. Unattended children could pretty much roam around as much as they liked until the street lights turned on, which was the usual sign to get your ass home.
A lotof parents do that.
I was coming here to answer your first question but others beat me to it. Those of us who were born in the 80s, and particularly the beginning of the decade, were the last group of children to have an unstructured childhood. We were definitely free-range, and given a wide berth to do pretty much whatever we wanted, so long as we got home by the time the street lamps went on. It was…marvelous. By contrast, a couple of years ago I went to my firm’s summer party at this sprawling resort and passed by a bunch of kids belonging to co-workers. They were all sitting in a circle, furiously typing on their phones and not even interacting with each other, and I thought to myself, damn, if my cousins and I had the run of this place when we were kids, what mischief we’d have gotten up to. Everywhere I go, I see kids on phones and tablets, and I actually feel bad for them – not only are they missing out on a ton of fun, but they are not being allowed to learn, grow, develop communication skills (beyond proficiency in texting and emails) and fall on their faces once in a while. It’s sad.
I’m a millennial who grew up in the 90s and I went tons of places alone at a young age. Not as many as the kids in this show (they’re a decade ahead of me), but I definitely was getting dropped off at the movies with friends by age 9 and would roam the neighborhood alone on my little mermaid roller skates at 6 or 7. Watching my niece and nephew grow up now is a whole different experience. My niece is almost 10 and she still can’t rollerblade out of my sister’s sight. A lot has changed very quickly in terms of what’s acceptable parenting. (That said I do still see some young kids cruising my moms neighborhood on their bikes alone which makes me happy).
My main problem with Erica is that she’s annoying and needlessly hostile. They give her all these lines which I guess are supposed to be sassy and precocious and cute but half of them are just so nasty they aren’t funny. And no matter what happens her relationship with the other characters doesn’t seem to progress or change at all.As for a 10 year old going to the mall by herself in 1985 I could see it happening though this was just about the beginning of the time when such things were starting to fall out of favor
And no matter what happens her relationship with the other characters doesn’t seem to progress or change at all.They made a point of showing her accept her nerdiness via a box of DnD shit.
It was normal for 10 year olds to go to the mall with their friends when I was 10 in the early ‘90s.I think that would have changed around the same time all the fun playgrounds were replaced with the plastic super safe but no fun playgrounds.
The actress who played Erica managed to pull it off, in my opinion, which I think is a testament to how well the child actors were cast. It’s a minor miracle how they managed to get all of them.
1. Open portal to unfathomable hell dimension.2.?3. ProfitGiven that they’re Soviets, I guess step 4 is ‘Use profits for the good of the state.
I would find Erica more trope-ish if I didn’t know exactly such a 9-year-old.
Honestly I didn’t mind the Neverending Story bit and it didn’t really impact the tension for me or pacing for me (not that I ever really get much tension with this show in the first place so mileage may vary).This is a big ‘ol game of D&D and sometimes you just have to complete that silly side quest if you want the key you need.
Really enjoyed the season, and thought much of this finale was great, but a big chunk of the heartstring pulling was undercut for me by the fact I never for a second thought Hopper was actually dead. Just as I don’t at all think that the Byers’+1 are forever gone from Hawkins.
I have to agree. Don’t get me wrong, Hopper’s voice over speech was great, but there’s a 0.00% chance Hopper is dead. It even forced some really wonky editing during the scene where the key blows up. He’s standing right next to it, with seemingly no place to go, but we don’t see anything, and they toss in a shot of other random people, who weren’t in any prior shot, getting melted. It was a cheap cop out, and in the moment I was like, c’mon, really? Luckily the shift to everyone saying goodbye for the next 15 minutes made me forgive how cheap that was.
“random people, who weren’t in any prior shot, getting melted” — they actually were in the shot just before the explosion. there’s a scene of them coming in and witnessing the machine flare up right before it explodes and kills them.
Will says they already plan on taking trips back for holidays. So they might well be moved for good, until maybe the series finale.
“A Very Stranger Christnas”….coming to Netflix, December 2021.
My hope is that if the Byers/Eleven group are elsewhere, we get an episode or two to get Karen Wheeler into the action in Hawkins. I think we have two groups noticing things: Eleven and Will having an episode where they realized they need to get back to Hawkins, and the Hawkins group reacting to something, but pulling Karen into the mix.
S4 will cold open with Hopper realizing the coast is finally clear and coming out from underneath a dumpster.
I’ve really enjoyed the more body and cosmic horror turns this season.
So kids, the morale of the story is, whenever you’re doing a “3,2,1″ countdown, DO IT QUICKLY for fuck sake!Also, singing the Never Ending Story song when you’re pressed for time could cost your loved ones their lives …
I confess, I got a little teary eyed when El was reading Hopper’s speech.What? WHAT?!
Even though is saw it coming, and I’m 100% sure Hopper isn’t dead, it still worked and made me, unsuccessfully, fight back a couple tears.
I was not able to fight them back and loved it
I agree. It worked because we knew that El was grieving and we could sympathize with that really well. Whatever the audience knows/suspects, the characters’ emotional response is still genuine.
It doesn’t matter if we know he isn’t dead, Eleven doesn’t and we reacted to her. It’s a fair play
Does Brad have vision-based superpowers?
Jesus, Emily. EPIC TASK… WELL DONE!
I really enjoyed that all the relationships on the show were having some issues.
There was so much I loved in season 3. Aside from the Steve and Robin union (long may they reign!) I particularly loved how that infamous season 2 episode about Eleven and the punks was totally ignored.Is Dr Brenner back? Who cares!? Eleven has a secret sister? Who cares!? More telekinesis children? Who cares?!!!!Season 3 put the focus on the previous characters and the great actors, not the silly mythology.
I can guarantee you that stuff will be the focus of next season. They are going to need to find more telekinisis children if they ever want to beat the Mind Flayer. On top of that with elevens powers not working who do you think shes going to turn to for help fixing them? Someone who has no idea how they work or a certain punk rebel? Bitchin.
I Remember people saying that exact same thing at the end of season 2. “Oh sure, it seems silly now, but just wait until season 3 when that stupid episode pays off!”But instead it was ignored and in return we got a whole great cast of regulars doing their best work and newcomers kicking butt and the show became a lot more fun. I’d argue the mythology is the weakest part of the show, and when the show keeps that as window dressing and focuses on the characters, it becomes so much better. You know, the exact thing they did this season.
The punks were horrible, but the base idea: “Other telepaths with different powers” isn’t inherently bad, that’s where it seemed like S2 was going for its solution rather than El does everything again.Thankfully this season sidestepped the core strategic issue all the finales had thus-far which is always asking: “Where is Eleven?” “Why isn’t everyone just staying near Eleven where it’s safe?”
Where’s Poochie?
I borderline hated Season 2 but I really loved Season 3. I think they hit the sweet spot between the goofy references and the character interactions that made the first season a surprise hit. Much more than season 2, everyone behaved in the ballpark of how humans actually might in the face of ludicrous circumstances and that made all the difference for me. There was some forehead slappers for sure, but it stayed mostly on the charming side of the fence.Or Riverdale has numbed me to characters acting like magnificent idiots. Probably a bit of both.
I would be happy with a reveal that the first half dozen died, as it would eliminate them from the mythology and show up Brenner’s organisation as even more evil than we already know. Then I would have 7 and 9 working for them, and 10 as a teenager now living in their new city.
Ok here’s my theory. Hop IS alive, but he’s NOT in the gulag. The initial explosion from the key blasted Hop backwards through the open gate. He’s stuck in the UpsideDown just like Will was in Season 1.
It was laid out in season 1 that you couldn’t survive in the upside down very long. That said, this is a fictional universe where children successfully fight off demons and commies so they can do anything they want. That said, I think if they wanted to put Hop on the upside down, the tease would have been to flash the lights when they closed the door to the house. That’s what I was waiting for the whole time. I was actually surprised not to see it before the credits rolled.My theory is that Hop jumped into the upside down to escape the explosion, but then crawled out in the USSR.
That was my initial thought too, especially when the snow/ash started flying about in the credits. That was an interesting fake out.Also why the hell didn’t he just go back up through the door he came in from?
“why the hell didn’t he just go back up through the door he came in from?”Hopper was stuck on that portion of the catwalk. After he threw the main Russian into the machine, it was sending out electrical blasts that were blocking the catwalk back to the control room. There was no place for him to go except the other direction – towards the gate.
If they want Hop’s survival to be the biggest plottwist of the next season, they wouldn’t even tease it. They tease an American in the gulag, which gets people thinking it’s Hop. By the end of episode one, we learn it’s not, and it’s a gut punch. 2 episodes later, where the plot is allowing 11’s powers to start coming back, she sees Hop in her void space, and he’s still alive, cut to credits.
“But please, if you don’t mind, for the sake of your poor old Dad, keep the door open three inches.”
Oh godDAMMIT.
Um – Bowie wrote “Heroes” and Gabriel covered it . . . Thanks for the review though. It was a great read.
Yeah, and the version in the show is in fact Peter Gabriel’s.
You mean it wasn’t the Wallflowers?! GASP!
It’s almost as if the reviewer assumed this astoundingly common knowledge and didn’t make a number out of pointing this out.
*Pushes up music nerd glasses*Actually, “Heroes” was co-written by David Bowie and Brian Eno.
Overall, I liked this season much better than season two, in part because it took the leap to try something different. I’m still not sure how exactly El lost her powers, but finding a way around having her save the day once again was a good decision on the showrunners’ part. And the acting was terrific all around. Give Millie Bobby Brown that Emmy.Even with the tragic flashbacks, Billy never felt like a full-fledged character to me, just more of a plot device. Granted, there was something devastating about Max crying over his dead body. I wish they had interacted more this season in order to really drive that home.Arguably the most devastating thing to happen this season was when the Byers left Hawkins, taking El with them. The goodbyes were heart-wrenching, and that house was the setting for so many pivotal scenes over the course of the first two seasons. (I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that whoever bought the house is going to have a role to play next season, and that we’ll find our characters back in that living room at one point or another). I hope the showrunners take this opportunity to develop the foursome as a family next season, especially after the way family dynamics were sidelined for most of season three. At the same time, we know that these characters are going to have to converge again next season, so splitting them up almost felt a little. . . manipulative, in a way? I’m probably overthinking it.I’m guessing that Nancy shooting at a car was supposed to be a “badass” moment, but instead it just made her look like a fool for standing there while a car was about to ram into her. We also never saw her journalism story go anywhere, despite spending half the season on it. This season focused heavily on the Cold War rivalry with Russia, and they did name-drop the Satanic Panic towards the very end. Perhaps they’ll finally mention the AIDS crisis next season.And like many other people out there, I don’t think Hopper is dead. If they really wanted us to believe that he was gone, there would have been a dead body and a funeral.
Oh, and one more thing: when they announced Robin’s casting shortly after season two ended, the press release described her as “alternative,” and a few people noted how back in the 80s, alternative was often a euphemism for lesbian. I don’t remember if that was on this site or not, but good job to whoever caught that. You guessed one of the big twists a year-and-a-half before the season aired.
I look forward to Eleven bonding platonically with Will.
Went into the boss fight with no spell slots, RP’d her way out.
Structurally, I understand why the Neverending Story scene couldn’t be a post-credits scene, but it broke the tension with merciless speed. Maybe that’s a feature, not a bug, for the series’ most sensitive viewers?I think it was perfect. A true musical moment.
So any idea why they used Peter Gabriel’s cover of Heroes (which was recorded in 2010) as opposed to Bowie’s original, (which was recorded in 1977)? Is Bowie an anathema now?
It’s a bleaker and (ironically) less heroic take, that reflected better the sense of loss at the end of the episode.
It was significantly cheaper.
I’m calling it now, season four will be Christmas ‘86 and the kids are going to lose their shit over the NES!
Man I didnt know i could tear up so big when El read Hoppers letter in the end…
Good season, but doesn’t have the magic of season one. Were the Soviets experimenting with the creature? It’s bipedal now. Maybe some genetic engineering? Anyways, good season and it was nice to see Lucas stand up for New Coke, even though it’s terrible. I give the season solid B and don’t want to wait another year and a half for the next season.
It was bipedal in the first season, too. It basically goes through 5 or 6 metamorpheses, molting out of its skin into its new form each time. The demodogs from last season were the penultimate form. The bipedal form is the final form.
Me neither, but I don’t want to put pressure on the teen sextet to overfill their lives with film shoots just for my entertainment. April next year would be nice. Maybe a Chernobyl connection.
Feeling a bit manipulated to be honest. Welling up over the ending only for them to tease Hop’s survival. And the Never Ending Story dragged (as never ending things tend to). But overall a very enjoyable season that I wish had been released week by week. It’s a long time to wait for 2 days worth of entertainment.(Ryder in that Russian uniform was adorable BTW.)
Ryder in that Russian uniform was adorable BTW.Well duh!I did like El’s proto-grunge look at the beginning & end of the season.
There’s something about a Russian military uniform. Cf Tina Fey in Muppets Most Wanted.
I had a strong feeling the first time we saw the two man switch they were going to Superman 3 it, although Superman 3 used a yo-yo rather than a belt.
I really hope we get some Will/El interactions in season 4. I think they’re the strongest kid actors on the show and I’m slightly annoyed that we’ve yet to really see them bond over their traumas because out of all the kids, they would most likely understand each other the most. Plus I think the actors are the closest in real life too so the friendship chemistry is already there.
My husband and I are legit confused why people liked this season, especially the ending. It started out well, but then you had three separate stories the whole time, and when they finally unified they split right back up again. There were long drawn out scenes that rambled, and the finale had so much hokey stuff- Dustin and suzie singing, Joyce twisting both keys, Billy’s memories. We rated the finale an F. We really enjoyed S1 and S2 was solid except when El went to the city. This seemed like a joke.
The tone got much broader this season. I think people were willing to enjoy it as a take on ‘80s movies that were also broad in tone.But it was a shift, and it took me a few episodes to get into it (I got on board with episode 4, but then episode 5 was kind of a stinker. I liked the final three a lot.)
That monster was next level gross.
I guess I must have missed something, because I thought season 3 was the end of the Hawkins storyline and characters, and that they said Stranger Things was going to continue as more of an anthology in further seasons.
Surprised no one has mentioned yet the likelihood of Hopper being in the Upside Down. My guess is he was close enough to the machine to have been transferred somehow instead of vaporized. Not the best writing, but it would make sense with the weird editing in his final scene, and it would make for an interesting contrast to season 1’s Will being hopeless and on the run in the Upside Down versus Hopper’s survival instincts and figuring out a way to get back and end the Mind Flayer for good, etc. Besides, they’re going to need a reason to open the damn portal again for next season anyway just so they can once again get it off their damn lawn.
Also, was I the only one hoping for a last scene of El leaving a pack of Eggos for him in the woods? 🙁
“But please, if you don’t mind, for the sake of your poor old Dad, keep the door open three inches.”
You know this is the actual clue right?
He isn’t in a prison in Russia. He is trapped in the upside down.
Forgive me if my understanding of Cold War politics is lacking, but wouldn’t the discovery of a secret Soviet military base built on American soil be cause for some serious diplomatic problems between the two countries? Even though the Soviet Army had cleared out by the time the cavalry arrived, it is undeniably a Soviet Army installation. I’m not saying that it would necessarily bring about war, but when the U2 spy plane incident happened in the 60s, relations between the USA and USSR deteriorated significantly.
Yeah – but imagine the bad publicity the US Government would have to deal with if the back story came out.
Overall I liked it more than season 2. Sure there were a few things that I personally wanted to see, and I agree it sucks about the townsfolk. My biggest gripe was Hopper, season 1 showed him as damaged yet capable, and this season continued the trend of playing off his abusiveness as funny. I would have loved to see him team up with one of the kids, like Mike, but that’s just one perso’s opinion.
Finale already? Wow, do people still binge-watch an entire season of TV in a couple of days? What is this, 2016?
I thought this was the best season, by far. 1 felt cheap and chintzy at times, leaning too heavy into “remember that!?” 2 was ok, but misfired in several episodes. This all worked for me.Except, Steve has saved the world 3 times, and now fought, and been tortured by, Russians in a secret base on US soil. Couldn’t the government pull some strings and get him into college, if even to give him something in his life to talk about while drunk other than either Animal House or government conspiracies?
Steve seems like a good candidate for a Captain America style super soldier programme. He even has the same first name. Perhaps Robin could do translation for him to get him past guards at the Berlin Wall so he can tear bits of it down with a baseball bat.
Is it just me or were there an awful lot of super close up face shots of Hopper and Joyce yelling at each other?
I’ll be interested to see if the next season sticks to the yearly time jumps that have been the norm so far (Season 1 was 1983, Season 3 was 1985) or if they take more time, since the longer lags between production cycles as it becomes more elaborate has started to cause the teen actors to age faster than their characters.
Just to say it, the show certainly seemed to tease out the idea of a Christmas / New Year’s season…
Oooh… With a Christmas season, they could fill it full of Gremlins references!
HOLY SHIT YES
I caught a little bit of a Gremlins vibe this season too, and I swear at one point the music even sounded like the theme.
I think a year would be good, because that’s a year of Will being a normal kid and maybe getting to catch up to the others, so he has a substantial story next season.
A Projectionist’s Review of Stranger Things Season 3: None of the movies
they show being projected are scope, yet there’s clearly a scope lens
on the projector. For the wide shot, they show the film being run on
6000 foot reels but when they pull in for the close-up, it’s now on 2000
foot reels. They could have gotten away with this if they had chosen a
movie that was over 2 hours long but they didn’t. Also, a brand new
multiplex in the mid-80s running a changeover system and not platters is
pretty unlikely. Finally, the Feature Presentation
bumper that they used was something that Tarantino pulled out of the
dustbin of history and it was about a decade too old. Please remember that, despite all of this insufferable
nitpicking, I am a lot of fun at parties.
“They could have gotten away with this if…” uhhh I think they got away with it. Just maybe not with you. 🙂
If not for those meddling kids…
Speaking about movies, I don’t get what the purpose of showing Back to the Future for such a long time was. Just to get a nostalgia kick? Or that the few viewers who forgot BttF (like that’s even possible) could get the reference that the scene took place in the parking lot an next episode there there’s a scene in the parking lot. (Wow, that’s a reaching reference if there was one.)When El threw that car at the Russians an there was a sound of something spinning, I was hoping it would be a license plate, like the OUTATIME plate in BttF, but no, it was just a wheel cover.Or did Bobby reach 88 mph when driving towards our heroes? A mystery if there ever was one.
I had always wanted Joyce to adopt El because Winona Ryder & Millie Brown worked so well together. But not like that. Not like that!!!My favorite pairings on the show all time:1) Steve-Dustin2) Steve-Robin3) Joyce-Hopper4) Joyce-Bob5) Eleven-Hopper6) Eleven-Max7) Joyce-Eleven8) Jonathan-Will9) Nancy-Jonathan1o) Eleven-Dustin
At least Mike and Lucas have experience commiserating with each other, given they both failed to make the list.
Mike and Lucas were so annoying this season I could not take it
Mike, to quote Steve’s future son Jean Ralphio was the wooooooorst. He was never my favorite but at the end of episode 1 I was ready for him to be eaten by the mind flayed and then when he says the whole girls thing to Wil. Done with him. (Sorry don’t know how to properly add gifs – my age is showing :))https://images.app.goo.gl/dw9rgWqqp2oiWMY7A
I don’t get the issue with Mike. Will and him were being jerks to each other and then they realized it and moved past it. And I was so relieved that Mike called out how they all use and manipulate El to be their weapon with no regard for her safety.
You don’t have to agree – people have different opinions. It’s basically the whole idea that he is the same trope that would be all over the place if it was a girl that was ignoring/dropping all of her friends because she got a new boyfriend, but for a year. Also, his almost “outing” of Will and his and El’s treatment of Hopper before the threats from Hopper— when they are sitting on the bed whispering about him and laughing. The Mike from seasons 1 & 2 would not have done that — and it is just him growing up, but I don’t have to like that personality trait in a character. It’s normal for El do it that to Hopper, that is her “dad.” Lucas didn’t annoy me, but he got barely any screen time this series – I felt like Erica had more time than he did.
He’s 13. He’s enjoying having a girlfriend while his friend is throwing a fit because he’s being left out. This is normal kid tensions. Will didn’t need to belittle Mile’s feelings (El’s a “stupid girl”) and Mike didn’t need to belittle Will’s hurt. And Hopper was ridiculously in the wrong. His reaction to minor teasing by a 13 year old was to explode with rage and isolate and manipulate his daughter.
I had no issue with Mike and Lucas. Hopper was so grating though that I was ready for him to die heroically.
I thought they were fine. I don’t know why everyone’s being so hard on them
‘You have teeth’ was a cute moment.
I loved this whole season, but what a downer of an ending. Hopper is “dead,” El lost her powers and half the cast just moved away. Why doncha rip my heart out and stomp on it, show? At least it wasn’t as bleak as the Jessica Jones ending….How many more seasons do you want….one, or two? I think we can get two out of it — the kids will just keep growing and having new experiences, enhanced by the presence of monsters. At the least, this ending proved I’m not ready to say goodbye to these characters yet.Also: you can’t spell America without Erica.
Best Erica line: “Keep saying my name and see what happens.”
Spoilers, dude. Still on episode 6 there. Give it till the last week of July, OK? As though it were a film that’s still in cinemas.
*scratches head*What are you doing in a talkback for the last episode?
Spoilers for Jessica Jones, not for Stranger Things.
Jessica Jones spoiler, ah ha, did not even notice that until you pointed it out 🙂
Calling it now, after all the horrible things that’s happened in Hawkins, the people will try to escape from all the bad press by changing the town’s name to “Pawnee.”
No, they’ll be some sort of renewal and economic revival to the town after it is renamed Eagleton.
Is it me or was Hopper a lot more erratic and short-tempered this season? In season 1 he was a drunk, but he was at least competent. In season 2 he flew off the handle, but that was from the new experience of handling a quick tempered surrogate daughter with telekinesis powers. For a good part of this season he felt more like a pastiche of his own self.
Don’t forget, this season he was experiencing the worst thing imaginable: a daughter with a boyfriend!
Women, can’t live with ‘em eh? Ehh?
Women…can’t live with ‘em…can’t shoot ‘em…– Steven Wright
Hopper’s character seemed to regress this season. He spent way too many scenes screaming at people. It took me from thinking Joyce and Hopper were charming together (while sharing unique experiences) to thinking Joyce needed to stay as far away from her obnoxious, possessive bully as possible.
100%. It felt a bit out of character.
Agree – the show had a natural, grown-up progression it could have followed with Hopper and Joyce, but instead, it decided to regress them into some kind of bad Moonlighting trope. I genuinely think they were going for “banter” between the two, but it just fell flat and felt out-of-character for both.
Yeah. They seemed to think they wrote it as screwball banter. But I think the issue was that Hopper’s yelling didn’t strike me as hilarious banter, so much as belittling and aggressive yelling. And his jealousy combined with angry shouting made his behavior even more ugly.
Moonlighting, Cheers, Romancing the Stone, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Who’s The Boss… was there a show/film in the 80s that didn’t have the main romantic love interests constantly bickering because they loved each other but didn’t realize it yet?
Also isn’t it wild how many people Hopper unambiguously murdered this season? Maybe I spent too much time on the Marvel shows that were hemming and hawing about morality for and endless amount of time, but damn. He sprayed bullets and exploded a man without a moment of hesitation.
I mean, didn’t everyone in the 80s? heh.
It was going around. Nancy and Jonathan full on killed some people. Flayed people, mind you, so imo not really ‘people’ by that time anymore, but it’s still an escalation from shooting at dog-sized monsters to people-shaped ones.
I wouldn’t expect Fat Rambo to kill hesitantly.
My biggest complaint for the season…he was incredibly boorish most of the time.
To be fair to Hopper, he was often without a cold beer in his hand in this season towards the end and that could be rough.
I didn’t care about him this season until the epilogue. YES, an 80s cop-dad would have some toxic masculinity especially about someone in El’s case. But it was written very one-note (through no discredit to Harbour.) He was nasty to all of the adults, too, and kept treating Joyce like crap. I didn’t mind it for the first 2 eps.
What, she’s not allowed to mourn her boyfriend? I knew about the deaths because apparently don’t go on Twitter when a binge-worthy show has been on Netflix (my own fault), but the only one I cared about was Alexei. Billy was an empty husk of meanness and trauma with no real personality.
Oh, call Murray Bauman’s number which is called out back in episode 6: (618) 625-8313
Thank me later
So bizarre that he’d have a rural Southern Illinois area code
Gotta keep The Man guessing
If this was really in Indiana in the 1980s they would have been fighting the mind flayer with sparklers and poppers because Indiana had shitty fireworks in then. When I was a kid my parents would take a trip to Tennessee every couple of years and stock up on good fireworks.
The Dusters have definitely read their Chekov. 1. Chekov’s fireworks2. Chekov’s radio tower3. Chekov’s cute and smart girlfriend in Utah
HOW HAS NO ONE MENTIONED THE FACT THE RUSSIANS BUILT THAT ENTIRE UNDERGROUND COMPLEX IN LESS THAN A YEAR??I get the show is about other dimensions. It’s made up shit. But it doesn’t sit well with me when an entire part of the plot is a huge plot hole.
Guess I’ll be the lone voice disagreeing with the length of that Neverending Story sequence; that and Eleven nearly having a Martha Kent moment with Billy made me strain as much as the gore. As redemptive moments go, though, I don’t know if the scene with Hopper’s speech refutes a lot of the critiques I see online regarding his behavior this year but it felt more earned than Billy’s sacrifice. In an odd way, so did Mike’s bumbling final conversation (for now) with Eleven. Overall, Winona Ryder gets my vote for MVP of the season. Really glad she got to show more stuff with Joyce this season. Not sure how I feel about yet another go-round, though.
I feel like I’m the only one who hated the Neverending Story bit. It felt like a producer shoehorning it in to further his daughter’s singing career.
I hated it too!
I loved this season and am totally ready for the Steve and Robin show. When Nancy- who is also still amazing- was facing off against Billy and the cars got smashed and for a second I had no idea what happened until the camera switched to a bird’s eye view and we saw the TODFATHR Caddy, I literally yelled “STEVE!” and threw my arms in the air. It’s been a while since I’ve watched seasons 1 and 2, but I think this may have been the best season, at least in some ways. It was the most fun, for sure. I’ll make some time to re-watch season 1 again, but 3 was definitely better than 2. I loved Robin and how quickly she assimilated into the group and the action, as opposed to how long they kept Max at arm’s length in S2, which kept her character from mattering. Max was also much better this season, I loved her and Lucas singing Never Ending Story to rag on Dustin. Suzie is a Mormon living in Utah, but I hope she can be part of the hijinks next season.The review for Episode 7 criticized the Billy flashbacks, but at least they served some purpose in the finale. After his brief breakdown in the Sauna Test, not even sure if it was real or a ploy by the Mindflayer, I was hoping for some of the real Billy to break through. Shame about Heather, and I really wish Alexei survived. With Hopper gone, he would have made a great addition to the next season. His scientific expertise made for an entertaining contrast with his wide-eyed innocence when he got a taste of western culture, though sadly not a literal taste as he never even got a bite of that corndog.I see a lot of criticism that the show is nothing but nostalgia, but that’s not fair at all. The show uses a ton of 80s set dressing, but the same story would be just as good in any time period, except that cell phones would probably ruin a lot of the tension.As for Hopper, I won’t be too surprised if he is alive somehow, but I will be annoyed. There was no room for him to survive, even if he tried to run into the portal before it closed and hoping for Eleven to find him. He looked at Joyce as she turned the keys, and I don’t think he had time to get to the portal, and even if he did, it would mean running through the active beam. I’d prefer the American in the Russian facility be a DoE scientist, which would explain how they knew about the Upside Down and the rift in Hawkins.
Can we talk about the TODFATHR license plate? I was unreasonably annoyed that the caddy had a front license plate. Indiana still doesn’t require a front plate and definitely didn’t require one in 1985. /rant
If you get a sweet plate like that, you want it on both ends!
You’ve got a good point. My new head canon is that Todd paid for a second one and put it on there voluntarily.
Not required, but you see plenty of vanity plates with one on both ends. I’ll allow it.
To prep for the release, I rewatched episodes 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 from Season 1, and episodes 2 and 5 of Season 2, plus the last 5 minutes of episode 8, and the first 5 and last 20 of episode 9.
RIP Alexei. He did get a literal taste of Western culture though, at least – cherry strawberry slushee.
Great characters. Some great pairings. Some great acting. The story and writing however…..How is everyone falling over themselves to give this season an “A” when they are almost uniformly critical of the entire plot? Not to mention plot armor and absolutely gaping plot holes everywhere?And the editing was a mess, which is probably mostly the fault of the writers.
Entertaining, yes, but an “A”? No way. Simply addressing even some of the many questions people are raising on this thread would have helped it earn an “A”, but they were pretty lazy in the long run. Like so many of these shows, they write scenes and spectacle and the story and dialogue get the short shrift.
A-. Better than the B- S2, about the same as S1.
I thought Season Two was the best by a pretty wide margin but no one seems to agree with me
I don’t know if by a wide margin but while it couldn’t be as fresh feeling as the first season, I thought it deepened the characters a lot, and outside that one episode had the strongest writing of the series so far.
Yeah, no.
Care to elaborate? Automatic gainsaying rarely leads to progress.
I really struggle with the new perspective that 2 wasn’t that good and 3 was better. There was better character development, worldbuilding and gripping action and horror in 2.That said, I’m curious why you have these grades and how your opinions differ. You’re right I should’ve been less blunt in my response.
Primarily it’s because I’m heavily emotionally invested in the characters’ relationships to each other, and Season 2 kept a lot of them apart for a lot of the time. Whereas 3, like 1, had several tight-knit groups who went on a protracted adventure together. If straight horror is your thing, I can see why you would prefer 2 to 3. But for me the driving attraction of Stranger Things is who it is that’s fighting the monsters, more than the monsters themselves. I don’t dislike 2 as much as some. I love The Lost Sister and consider it essential to Eleven’s character development. But I just don’t feel as much in 2 as I do in 1 or 3 that this is a heroic band of impromptu family members putting their backs against the wall together to defend their own little corner of sanity in a crazy universe. It feels more like a series of events.
So this is a criticism I struggle with. Not that it isn’t fine to have it, but I never hear say Empire Strikes Back being held to the same standard.To me, the relationships between the characters specifically came through due to the pain of them being apart.But agree to disagree I guess.
I couldn’t comment on ESB. I only saw each of what I refer to as the original six Star Wars films once, and I found all of them forgettable. But I suppose I could compare Season 2 with The Two Towers, against the establishment of Fellowship and climax of Return. In that context, I think separation worked, because the story took place against the backdrop of an unfolding wide and wholly relevant universe. But with the condensed, contained nature of Hawkins, I was disappointed that the same did not apply to their Season 2 relationships.
“In that case the separation worked, because the story took place against the backdrop of an unfolding wide and wholly relevant universe”You wouldn’t say that applied to ST2? As much as it is hated, Lost Sister is about expanding the world, with the revelation of more subjects and Brenner’s survival that also are relevant to El’s character arc. Back in Hawkins, there was also the revelation of the Mind Flayer, giving us more hints about the UD and its potential effects on our entire world.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I like The Lost Sister.
If everyone else is saying one thing and you’re saying something else, maybe it’s not everyone else who got it wrong.
People were often critical of the writing and the plot holes, hence my post. You highly offended fanboy types are so annoying. You can’t discuss anything. You just want to fawn over shit to feel superior.
No, you just want to crap over something that, despite minor flaws which others commented on throughout this review series, the majority of commenters like and enjoyed.“You just want to fawn over shit to feel superior.” Yes, that’s exactly who I am. That’s why I watched a season of a show 1 year after everyone else and went online to read reviews and old comments. You summed me up exactly.Congratulations – you’re an anti-fanboy that found something everyone else liked and crapped all over it just to feel superior about themselves. If only there was a word for that type of person …
Go fucking cry somewhere else. I commented about the cast and acting being good. The story is a mess. There were editing mistakes. Grow the hell up.
“Look at me, I have a minority opinion but I’m awesome so I’m right and everyone else is wrong. And if anyone points out how most people don’t agree with me, I’ll attack them without defending my point because that’s how I respond to things.” Well done.“The story is a mess. There were editing mistakes.” Thanks, I needed a good laugh.
You are one delicate little bitch aren’t you?
So says that person that lashed out and attacked someone who dared to suggest that you may be wrong since the majority don’t agree with you. How fragile is your ego that your first response is to attack someone who didn’t even say that you were wrong but just suggested it?
But people do agree with me, you insecure little twit, so we discuss those things because we’re not triggered little fanboys like you. We can discuss writing, plot, acting, direction, and not have to think everything is perfect. Now go obsess on someone else’s post. This is from a year ago. What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t answer, I don’t fucking care.
“But people do agree with me” Let’s check … wow, 5 people agree with your original comment. Obviously you are locked in with what the majority of viewers think about this show.Oh wait, let me scroll back a bit more – wow, the other comments that praise this season/show got dozens of likes and lots of replies that agreed with them. Hmm, that kind of shoots your argument in the foot. How can you be the voice of the majority when the majority thinks different than you?“Now go obsess on someone else’s post. This is from a year ago. What the hell is wrong with you?” Well, I just watched the show so that’s why I’m only reading these reviews and comments now. As for being obsessed, you’re the one attacking someone who dared to say that your opinion was a minority opinion, and that the majority of commenters loved this season. Maybe get some help with that obsessive personality of yours? When you post something online, not everyone is going to agree with you, and when you’re wrong people are going to point it out. If you can accept that and not obsess over it and attack people, you might end up happier. Or just be a crybaby, whatever works for you.
So there, you admit five people there agreed with me and thumbed it up. Other people read things and move on, but you are an obsessive whiny fanboy. I’m not even reading the rest of your post you freak. You can’t write anything that anyone else ever gives a shit about so you latch on to other people’s posts. Fuck off.
Wow, you got 5 whole people to agree with you. Congratulations, that’s obviously the majority of people that commented on this episode.Oh wait, there are 429 comments for this episode. And other comments that praise this episode/season have dozens of likes. Hmm, that means that comments that like the show got many more likes than your comment which didn’t like it. How can this be?Oh wait, I understand. You got a small tiny percentage of people to agree with you, while the majority of commenters didn’t agree with you.“I’m not even reading the rest of your post you freak.” Come on, we both know that isn’t true. You’re obsessed over people reading and responding to your comments. Kind of sad, actually.
Obsessive freak.
Aw, is the little baby going to cry? Did I hurt your feelings? Do you want a tissue?You said something wrong, you got corrected. Now you can’t get over it.Grow up.
Jesus Christ you are pathetic. Six days later and he still has nothing interesting to say to anyone so he comes back to this.
Nice avatar from your sexual predator mugshot though, you lame-ass whiny incel. Your mom just called you up for dinner. Go.
You know what’s pathetic? Taking a response someone makes that doesn’t say that you’re wrong, and twisting it into an attack that never existed and going off like a lunatic. That’s you – you’re pathetic.Listen, you made a comment that asked if your opinion was a minority opinion, and it only got a few likes, proving that you were right about being in the minority. I never said you were right or wrong, just that the majority of other commenters didn’t agree with you. How shallow are you that you took that as an attack?You don’t recognize Jeff Hornacek? Wow, if you ever make any friends you could ask them about sports, or life, or how to interact with other people.Please, keep on attacking me for nothing, it’s funny how sad you are.
Look you freak, you have an obsessive disorder. I had a simple post commenting that that show was generally fine, great cast, but the story and editing had problems. That’s what people do on this site. We discuss and critique things. So find a fucking therapist and get some help. I’m done with you. The show is ancient news and you’re still posting shit about it. Fuck off.
LOL at you saying that *I* have an obsessive disorder while your comments have been so obsessive.Your original post mentioned complaints you had and you asked why everyone else was raving about this season. Apparently you don’t realize that when you ask a question in a comment you are asking for other people to respond to answer your question. It’s ridiculous how you’re angry with me for answering your question you wanted an answer to.All my original response said was that the majority of commenters here didn’t agree with you, and that when the majority of people say “yes” and you (in the minority) say “no”, maybe you might be wrong. Notice that I didn’t say that you were wrong – I said that you may be wrong.But you, the obsessive freak, took that way out of context and went berserk, attacking me for daring to say that you were wrong (even though I never did).“So find a fucking therapist and get some help. I’m done with you.” Take your own advice. You’re so full of hate and rage, you need some help. It’s hilarious for me because you’re so ridiculous, so feel free to continue to argue about the wrong things.
For some reason, people seem really hesitant to criticize Stranger Things 3 and people get really defensive about it. As evidenced by me being brought to this comment by the guy getting snippy at everyone criticizing it over a year after its release.
Alright, I’m rewatching the finale, and after the scene with Elle and Billy, I honestly think they’re going to turn Eleven into an Empath.
I have to admit I hated The Neverending Story when it came out, even though it made some of my contemporaries cry during the end credits over its sugary happy ending. Falcor is a cute Muppet and all, but I hated the movie. (Krull was so much better!) The song melody is pretty good, but the lyrics are awful. I wonder now if it holds up & I was just being a smug contrarian back in the 80’s, or was I right – and it’s nigh unwatchable?
I grew up on the book and never liked the movie.
I would LOVE for Robin’s parents to be played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpny. We get the realty bites and Before trilogy reunions in one shot. Also would explain her knack for languages. 😀
All the while I really thought they were going to go back to the properties close to the powerline and blow them up one-by-one. Alexei did mention that that’s the reason why the russians are buying properties in Hawkins because the machine needed extra-power to function. SO why not just cut the power down?
Assuming spoilers are safe….If it turns out our favorite copper is dead, then Suzie is ultimately to blame. I loved that moment and it was great, but for real, if Hopper is gone then I’ll never forgive Suzie.However, I very much doubt he’s gone. I’m assuming he either got warped to Russia or traveled to Russia through the upside down, as the only other open gate was in Kamchatka. Who else could be the american? I’d say 2nd place is the journalist whose name I always forget, and in a very distant 3rd place, ‘Papa’.
I’d say 2nd place is the journalist whose name I always forgetIf you mean Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman), he was shown with US soldiers being escorted from the mall along with Joyce to meet up with the kids, so I don’t think it’s him.
I do mean Murray Bauman, and point taken. Scratch him off the list!
Can somebody please explain to me why the Russians were trying to open the gate in the first place?
For me, Season 3 was a stunning return to form. The only thing preventing me from calling it the best season of Stranger Things is, of course, the freshness factor. The show will never be able to recapture what the first season accomplished, which was to create a mood and sense of a specific place/time that nobody even realized they wanted to revisit until it was served up by the Duffers.What truly makes this show great is how the writers continue to develop their ensemble cast without betraying any of the characters – the GoT writers could definitely learn something here. This season is bigger, prettier, obviously more expensive, but the characters have remained true to who they are.My only gripe is the treatment of poor Steve. The man cannot get a fucking break. After having Nance break his heart in favor of Jonathan in S2, we now learn that Steve sells ice cream to mean children at a shopping mall because he is not smart enough to go to college (fucking brutal). We then see him get his ass kicked by some Rusky jackholes before professing his love to someone he connects with only to find out she cannot return that for obviously genuine reasons. Also, the scene between Robin and Steve in the bathroom is, to my mind, the single greatest moment thus far in this show’s history. I really hope that in S4, the writers finally cut the guy some slack. Hell, as a stupid fan, I also would love to see a Nance / Steve ‘ship part 2 understanding that will likely never occur.
Did anyone notice when the US forces are taking the Russian base there are no Russians around? What happened to all of them between Hopper & Crew infiltrating the base and the Key exploding? I know Hop didn’t kill all of them so I think there are some teleporting hijinx we discover in season 4.
If im not mistaken i think this was the ep where Hopper quotes “Die Hard”, right? After the speak to the Guard and whats-his-name is squeezing into the vents.(the “he was a nice guard,” line) then Jim says something like, “Well invite him over, have few laughs, some drinks.” something like that.I would double check but im at work.
Yeah that can be the end, I hope, bringing back Wile E. Flayer for another tremendous failure in which many innocent people are brutally killed makes for quite a spectacle, and I like the actors a lot, but I’ve heard this song before. Time to move on, this season wasn’t necessary but it did the job, close it out, I don’t want the show to regurgitate a fourth outing to a genuinely bad final season.
Was I the only one who was not a fan of this season and thought it was quite a bit worse than 1 or 2? I really disliked that the showrunners seemed to cheapen the world they were building for short-term narrative.First of all, it completely changed the relationship between this world, Eleven and the Upside Down. Before, there were two separate sci-fi/supernatural strains that happened to intersect. Experiments gave Eleven and others like her psychic powers, and Eleven’s just happened to include communication psychically over long distances. This just happened to allow her to communicate with a being from another dimension, and this psychic link was enough to open the gate. It was all about her power, not the government’s. They were just an incidental contributor.But now we know anyone with the right tech, and a location somewhat near Hawkins can open the gate. Another government, a corporation, some wacky scientist, anyone. As well, anyone with the right tech can close it. This takes away the weight of 2’s finale and just makes the whole narrative around El feel cheapened in general. This also caused a lot of potential problems with the plot that it seemed the show had to further cheapen things to solve.Which is to say, the Mind Flayer and his plan sucked, a big disappointment after it was teased as this awesome big bad in 2. At first, I thought the Mind Flayer had just been around our world since the 2 finale and was slowly building, but depowered all this time, which Will seemed to hint at, but then, in the finale, they say it’s only able to do so because of the Russians opening the gate. But if so, why is the plan so different from 2? Maybe I could accept it wants a better plan, but this was certainly not it. Mind control a bunch of people/ animals… just to explode them into goop and make you bigger? Why not keep assimilating and make yourself bigger than what you are now if you’re going to do that? But also weird that it didn’t see a potential in an army of humans like the army of demodogs. I was sure that was where they were going with the paralells between the two mid-season but for whatever reason no. Then in the finale, the big thing just lumbers around before getting easily powned, not even using some of the cool abilities we’ve seen it has. And despite it needing the gate open, same as last time, it provides no defense to keep it open. Remember they had to have that whole elaborate distraction in 2 to get anywhere near it, then still faced resistance? But instead, the MF is content to let the Soviet dumbasses be the only defense this time. Which brings me to my last point.The protagonists, especially the non-El ones are way overpowered now. Think back to Season 1. Every time Hopper tried to get to the gate, he was thwarted by the government. He only got there because he made a deal and Brenner didn’t care what he did in there. In 2, the entire government force had been decimated when they went to close the gate. Yet in 3, they just easily get by a government that had a much larger force because they’ve instantly become action heroes for no other reason than the plot demands it. Took me right out of the show. Now I feel like there are no stakes.It’s going to be really hard for the show to recover in my eyes, because literally every element seems to no longer be sacred and the Duffers are fine doing whatever, whether it makes any sense or not.
“Narratively disjointed” are the words I’d use to describe this season. Whether it was Will saying the Mind Flayer had “never left” before us finding out it was only brought back when the Russians came to town, us being told two separate times no one could make it through the Russian base before people did, or even Murray spouting redbaiting propaganda before jovially talking to the guy he called an “enemy of the state” five minutes before about the excesses of American capitalism, I was left way too many times thinking “Huh” instead of “Aaah, I see what you did there”. I felt it was a strak dropoff from the tight, cohesive arcs from 1 and 2.
“Was I the only one who was not a fan of this season and thought it was quite a bit worse than 1 or 2?”
Apparently so.
Well yeah, except for the people who liked my comment (unlike yours which no one liked), the others you responded to with my opinion and the people who liked their comments, as well as the fact that this season had the lowest RT critic and audience score of any season of the show.But sure, instead of interrogating the points we brought up, just get defensive about people bringing up differing opinions about something you liked, over a year after the fact.
First, your original post only has 3 likes. And I’m pretty sure it only had 2 likes when I read your post yesterday, so either (a) some random person also just happened to read it and like it, or (b) you liked your own comment to increase its number of likes for this argument. Which one seems more likely?“unlike yours which no one liked” Wow, the comment that I wrote just yesterday has no likes. This obviously is proof that you’re right and I’m wrong. It couldn’t possibly be because these reviews are a year old and I only just watched this season now, could it?If you want to go by likes, other comments here that praise this episode/season have dozens of likes. So by your own logic, only 3 people (and one of them is you, come on) liked your comment, putting you at only 2 likes more than my comment, which was written yesterday. Which means your original comment has as much standing as mine. So you kind of shot your argument in the foot here.
You seem to not understand logical argument. Your argument was that no one agreed with me. I pointed out some do. That has nothing to do with how many people share either opinion. It’s just pointing out that you are clearly wrong.And it’s just rich that you argue it’s implausible someone happened to come across and like a comment as a person going through this comments section and writing unsubstantial argumentative responses to people who had differing opinions from you over a year after the season’s release.My god, as a person in a lot of Internet pop culture circles, holy shit does no one get as salty as fans of Stranger Things 3. You guys always take everything personally and bring no relevant points to the discussion. You changing your argument when both your arguments are completely meaningless says more about you and fans of 3 than it does about me.
“Your argument was that no one agreed with me. I pointed out some do.” I love your revised definition of “some”. There are plenty of previous comments praising this season and episode with dozens of likes. Your comment disparaging it has only 3 likes, one of which was added after my response and is obviously from you. So what you’re saying is that 3% of people agree with you. This is not something to be proud of.“That has nothing to do with how many people share either opinion.” Hey, you’re the one that pulled out the “my comment has likes so it’s obvious that other people agree” argument. It’s not my fault that you only got 2 other people (plus yourself) to agree.“And it’s just rich that you argue it’s implausible someone happened to come across and like a comment as a person going through this comments section and writing unsubstantial argumentative responses to people who had differing opinions from you over a year after the season’s release.” Implausible? No. My whole point is that I watched this season a year after its original release and read these reviews and left comments. This will happen again with other people in the future. What is implausible is that in the day between me posting a response and you responding, some other random person found this review, read your comment, and liked it. That’s a pretty narrow window for that to happen. What is more likely to have happened is that to bolster your argument, you liked your own comment. I get it, it’s embarrassing to be caught doing that and you don’t want to admit. But you know it, and I know it.“You guys always take everything personally and bring no relevant points to the discussion. You changing your argument when both your arguments are completely meaningless says more about you and fans of 3 than it does about me.” You do realize that you’re describing yourself, don’t you? Your original comment was in the minority, had no relevant points except “I don’t like it and you all are wrong!”, and was pretty meaningless. We get it – you hate things most people like. Just don’t think we’re all going to change our minds because you spoke up, especially when what you say is pretty bland and antagonistic when challenged.
This was not a “revised definition” Here was your first reply to my comment:hornacekBanestar8/16/20 4:08pm
“Was I the only one who was not a fan of this season and thought it was quite a bit worse than 1 or 2?”
Apparently so.As I have shown, that is incorrect. But good job moving the goalposts:https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Moving-the-GoalpostsWhy would people like my comment if not to agree with it? Is that not what liking is meant to show?So you watched a show now and went to this review, but it is implausible anyone else did? You have addressed none of the points I made originally, and are just saying they are meaningless. You certainly are a continual producer of logical fallacies:https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_by_assertionI honestly feel bad for you and others like you. I can clearly see you’re not just a straight troll, you can have some degree of rational argument. But instead, you have gotten so in your feelings, you have just gone around making illogical responses attacking the multiple comments critical of this season on here over a year out from its release. If you were truly secure, you’d stick to your opinion and not try to invalidate others with an ad populum fallacy:https://www.logicalfallacies.org/argumentum-ad-populum.htmlHave fun! Believe what you want to believe! But immaturely making wild accusations, pretending you didn’t change your argument when the argument you made just days ago is in front of you and not engaging with any of the points I made is just sad.If you want to have a discussion about the season, go ahead. If you want to throw a temper tantrum about other people having different opinions than you like a toddler, then I don’t think a public forum is the place for you. The adults are talking here.
OMG I must have really gotten to you! You actually did research on word definitions and logic! Wow!“As I have shown, that is incorrect.” Again, you didn’t show that at all. But please, keep on declaring victory when you haven’t proven anything. It’s really quite amusing.“You have addressed none of the points I made originally” Maybe if you spent less time building up your fragile ego and actually reading responses you’d see that I did do that. You posted a negative comment about the season, I pointed out how only 2 people (3 including you) liked your comment, when other positive comments about the season got dozens of comments, proving that the majority of commenters here agreed with those positive-posts instead of your negative-post. Again, you’re in the minority with your opinion about this season. Deal with it.“I honestly feel bad for you and others like you.” I can always tell when I’ve won an argument when instead of defending their point, the other person declares victory with no evidence and then tries to express sympathy, which goes against their previous comments. Nice try.
“The adults are talking here.” Um, just because you learned how to look up words on a website doesn’t make you an adult. Be careful – your parents might catch you using their computer.I tried reading the rest of your comment but I kept losing my place from laughing so hard, it was so inane and nonsensical. You can’t seriously think like this, can you? Wow, this is hilarious. Please keep responding with comments as ridiculous as this – it’ll give me even more laughs.
No you didn’t point out how few people liked it. You responded to my original point, about if anyone agreed, by saying no one did, which you have continually been admitting now is not true. I have said repeatedly I never disputed the claim I had the minority opinion.You continue to not engage with your points. I will do what I already should’ve and treated you as the troll you are being.
“No you didn’t point out how few people liked it. You responded to my original point, about if anyone agreed, by saying no one did, which you have continually been admitting now is not true.” Wrong again. Wow, you’re really bad at this.Your original comment said “Was I the only one who was not a fan of this season and thought it was quite a bit worse than 1 or 2?” No one else had responded to it, and only 2 people liked your comment (3, now that you have liked it yourself) so I responded saying “Apparently so.”I didn’t say that you were right. I didn’t say that you were wrong. You asked a question which no one else had responded to when this season was originally released. All I said was that based on nobody else responding to your comment, and all of the many other positive comments with tons of likes, you had a minority opinion.But apparently your ego is so fragile that you interpreted that as me saying “YOU’RE WRONG!” so your response was to attack me. Well done!Please point out to me how my original comment said that your original comment was wrong in any way. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Ok, I guess this is going to be a tough one to explain.You see, as you yourself admit, when it comes to comments with your opinion, likes are meant as positive affirmations of the comment being made. Someone liking a comment is endorsing their opinion. Ergo, others agreed with me. You can assume this based on the same assumption tha makes you think the more people who liked comments with your opinion agreed with that opinion.You also completely left out all other evidence I provided, such as the 13% of negative audience reviews on RT, but I guess you can stick to the fact that people liked my comment instead of replying to it and take some kind of victory.
This is going to be tough to explain to you (i.e. it requires understanding of basic logic).My original comment said that apparently not a lot of people agreed with your statement saying that you were not a fan of this season, since that comment only had three likes. That’s 3 people. Considering the many other comments praising this season got many more likes than that (high double digits in some cases), my statement that you were right in being in the minority of not liking this season was factually true.But you decided to take that as an insult to you instead of what it actually was, which was a true statement based on the evidence, and lashed out. I’m guessing that you went back and read my original comment and realized how ridiculous your subsequent attacking comments are, but you’re too afraid to admit that you were wrong so you’re just grasping at any evidence that you can find, like “13% of negative audience reviews on RT”. Wow, 13% negative reviews – you do realize that means 87% of the reviews are positive? You’re trying to provide evidence saying that some people agree with you, but what you’re actually doing is proving my original point – that your opinion is the minority opinion and the overwhelming majority liked this season – based upon likes to comments here, and based on RT reviews (thanks for providing me more evidence that supports my claim).Please, keep providing more evidence that you think backs up your claim but which actually supports my claim and proves you wrong. Easiest argument I’ve ever won.
Current American Atrocity?Is this something like the North Korean or Chinese Atrocities?Please enlighten me on what horrible things the US has done lately that you need to slip digs in.
I’m not crying, you’re crying, shut up!
Oh my. These last two eps were more satisfying than Avengerd Endgane. And I needed this so much today.Nce observation Emily about the “American”. I didnt even think of that!
Is it possible that Ryder, Millie and the rest that moved out of town, won’t be part of season 4? Making room for Erica, Max and the other new members?
Better season than S2, that’s for sure. Hopefully S4 can reduce the amount of Erica, make (extremely alive) Hopper a bit softer, give Will more to do than be sPOoKeD, and hopefully conclude the series while it’s still good.Also, I’m a bit confused as to what in particular made El’s powers gas out. I get that she’s been burning the candle at both ends — the damage she did to the MF at the cottage, then throwing the car, then ripping the parasite from her leg — but I feel like she did more in a shorter time during the S1 climax and she was up and at ‘em way sooner than three months later.
I think it was The Bite last episode that did it. She used all she had to throw the car, and the invasive critter poisoned her enough she couldn’t recharge.
El’s powers are a result of ‘expanding the boundaries of the mind’. Perhaps they’re not working because subconsciously she wants a break from the stress of needing to use them and of not having a normal life. I’d like Season 4 to establish that they’re still sporadic a year later, then for them to randomly come back in a big way either while she’s having fun or while she’s saving Will from a sudden mundane threat.
Like deadbeat-dad-Superman’s kid suddenly chucking a piano?
See I thought Season 2 was better (and yes I even liked that one Season 2 episode everyone else hated). Season 2 I thought was more consistently good I found the ending of Season 2, with the school dance, to be even more emotionally affecting than the end of Season 3. This season started well and ended well but a lot of it was just so broad and cheesy and they ruined the character of Hopper as well as giving us a lot of annoying Erica. This season was a much broader, cheesier but also R rated version of Stranger Things with references to body horror and dumb R rated action flicks as opposed to Spielberg homages. The show is still good but I think it’s a small step down in quality from what it’s been in the past
As an old guy who graduated high school in 1985 (oh Duffer Bros, you nailed it) I think a lot of people are missing some things about this episode and this season. YES I’M GOING TO OLDSPLAIN YOU RIGHT ABOUT NOW.This show is a cartoon. It’s an exaggeration. It’s a very well done show that regurgitates (in a very good way, not condemning at all) 80’s movies with all of their “flaws”, in which, plot lines didn’t make much sense, were far removed from “realism” and were fun for fun’s sake. I wouldn’t say the whole series has been this way, but in a way, it has been. Season 1 was much more serious and I think people wanted to find some sort of meaning in it but it’s a syfy monster movie. Season 2, was just not very good imho or at the very least, a retread of ST1. Season 3 was great…yes, very subjective of course. But it was great because it finally owned itself. It was so on the nose that it elevated above those tropes. Reading through these comments, I’m surprised at how many people are concerned with the things that don’t make “sense” and I can’t speak for the Duffer Bros., but I think they knew exactly what they were doing.
They absolutely nailed it to the wall with this season. I almost wish this was it but knowing that another season is coming, I can’t wait but this would’ve been such a good one to go out on minus Hopper “dying”.
Well that was a really great finale and a great season. It wasn’t perfect and it did hand wave a number of “unrealistic” scenarios but that was also very much the fabric of many 80s genre movies this show so expertly emulates.I loved the Jurassic Park homages in this one. From the Flayer chasing the kids in the car like the famous T-Rex scene, to the tentacles of the monster giving us a remake of the Raptors looking for the kids in the kitchen, but this time a Gap. Hopper’s fight with “Ahnold Russian” gave me Terminator 2 end movie vibes, with the laser cannon in the background subbing for the glowing red molten steel we saw with the T-1000 battle.What more can be said about the Dustin and Suzie, The Neverending Story musical duet. It could have landed with a thud, but I was so enthralled and also impressed at the ballsy confidence the Duffers had to even try it, that by the end I was just giggling like a 8 year old.I’m glad that Billy was instrumental in saving El and the gang. Yeah he was a complete a-hole for most of his time, but there was a sweet little boy that was abused in there… somewhere. If for no other reason, I liked that it gave Dacre Montgomery the send off he deserved after some spectacular acting these last two seasons. I have a feeling he might be headed for a lot of success.I’m hoping we see Hopper again, and that he got warped somewhere since we never saw him disintegrate. Hell, we know there’s an American in a Kamchatka prison after all.
Was it worth it to bring Paul Reiser for 3 seconds and no lines?Also, no way Hopper is dead, but that’s not him in the Russian cell. Mark this random comment from a stranger on the internet down for future reference: Hopper is in the Upside Down.
Past me was wrong about Hopper
I really enjoyed this season so, so much–better than the last season. It was one very solid season of TV—not a page of wasted screenplay, most of the plotlines were nicely tied up, all of the references and homages were cute without being overly pandering (at least IMO) and the performances were solid across the board. Not only that, but I loved the colors and composition—it looked amazing. Well done, Stranger Things, you continue to impress and delight me.
Of course it’s Jim in that Russian prison. He’s the most not dead dead guy since Jon Snow. No subtitles for any Russian speaking for a reason. If you speak Russian great! I don’t but come on! All season they’ve shown him shirtless and flabby even Alexei called him Fat Rambo. He lost a bunch of weight for Hellboy so they’ll employ it into the show next year to explaining he lost it in prison. Some people saying it’s Dr. Brenner, it isn’t. The only reason they showed that that scene was to leave an opening for Jim to come back. No body, no death. Eleven’s power will come back when Jim tries to reach out to her telepathically creating a rescue mission next season. BTW favorite scene of the season, Steve’s reaction to Dustin and Suzie singing The Neverending Story. Him holding the radio like, “I-I don’t know what’s happening now.” Mind Flayer right behind him, oh man!
Jon Snow actually was dead, though. Briefly. Perhaps when Hopper comes back he will not be the same.
Okay then, Glenn on The Walking Dead they made it look like he was torn apart and eaten by zombies when he really just slipped under a dumpster.
Hopefully he’ll attend anger management class and be someone I can root for again?
Eleven’s self surgery was a standout moment.
Can we think for a second that Dusting singing never ending story caused Hopper to bite the dust? His girlfriend is the worst.
Or maybe had he had 30 more seconds he would’ve ended up ten feet away and turned to dust rather than sucked into the Upside Down? In which case she’s the best!(I liked the singing bit but felt it went on way too long. He could’ve sang a minute of it and then told her it was an emergency.)
Whatever issues I might’ve had with the season as a whole, “The Battle of Starcourt” was nearly perfect. It was chock full of monster mayhem! Dustin’s & Suzie’s “The NeverEnding Story” duet was amazing! Billy dies because his name begins with “B” like Barb & Bob. Like the previous season, this one neatly ties up its plot threads in bows. So once again, I’m wondering if it should just quit while it’s ahead. This one wasn’t superlative, but it’s a mighty feat that a continuous horror series is still this good three seasons in.
They need to graduate from high school before the show ends, and the 80s need to end. I’d say Season 4 set in 86 (Chernobyl), released 2020, Season 5 in 89 (fall of the Wall), released 2022, wherein they graduate; maybe a school-reunion postscript season set during the fall of the USSR at Christmas 91.
I’m with you. I always think shows should go out while they’re on top but it seems like most people just like to keep them around for as long as possible
While Peter Gabriele was singing “Heroes”, my wife asked, “Is that Neil Diamond? Barry Manillow?”“Just wait till I see Peter and tell him what you said.”
I was a little lukewarm on Stranger Things’ future prospects after the second season, which was basically season 1 with the furniture reararanged. But I’m pleased to say that season 3 makes me feel more optimistic for the show going forward.First of all, the addition of the (timely) Russian villains helped ease potential fatigue with the Upside-Down monsters. And the welcome addition of new ensemble members, Robin and Erika (and Murray?) resulted in some interesting interactions. Winona Ryder and David Harbour found some good comic energy. And the action scenes popped like never before.I look forward to seeing El develop some new shades now that she is power-free. I’d also like to see them doing something worthwhile with Jonathan, given their conception of Nancy has gotten so strong. And maybe, give us more on Max and Lucas’ relationship Why do they like each other? But, for God’s sake, I’m almost ready for a Steve/Robin/Dustin/Erika spin-off.
Can’t believe I’m the first to mention probably my favorite line from the whole season:“The Todfather?”“Screw Tod, Steve’s her daddy now!”
Decent finale, the action scenes were pretty dope. The less said about that Never Ending Story scene the better though. Although “Dusty Bun” absolutely wrecked me.The season was bigger and brighter than the previous ones but for me this was to its detriment. I’d grade it maybe a B-
It was pretty convenient those air ducts suddenly got big enough for an adult to fit.
The air ducts underground are different from the ones in Scoops Ahoy.
I’m pretty sure only the air ducts in the actual mall were too small for adults… They needed Erica to get to the loading dock door. I assumed the Russian base air ducts were bigger because Dustin got through them before, I think.
I wonder if the subject of Hawkins will come up at the next Reagan/Gorbachev summit
If Hopper is still alive, that really undercuts the emotional letter reading at the end – which frankly, I found a little too much to begin with, the way they jammed it in the middle of two non-chronological, heavily emotional scenes of El and the Byers family leaving town.I was also confused why Jonathan had to go with them – were their jobs supposed to be summer jobs or are they out of high school now? Nancy’s desire to be a big time reporter didn’t really seem like a summer job kind of dream. If they’re out of high school, is he helping support his family? I don’t get why they thought their only options were either Jonathan hides in tent in their basement or they break up and he moves away. Also, are we just alternating the menacing creature of the season between mindflaying monsters and demogorgons? I generally love this show but I thought the ending was kinda lame. Oh well, Season 4, anyone?
“I was also confused why Jonathan had to go with them – were their jobs supposed to be summer jobs or are they out of high school now?”Pretty sure Jonathan and Nancy were both 17 and still in high school this season. There was no discussion from either of them being done with high school and ready to go to college or get a full-time job.They were both (unpaid?) interns at the paper, trying to get some experience in journalism during the summer.So, Jonathan being 17 and still in high school explains why he has to go with his family when they move.
“You could read this as a metaphor for almost any current American atrocity.”Only uber privileged Americans can write this kind of thing without irony.
So the mayor just let the Soviets bribe him into invading his town? And he figured he would just never get caught?
“Dustin and Lucas’ courtly presentation to Erica of Will’s old D&D manuals promises she’ll be more integral to any future outings, I hope.”I fucking hope not.
More Erica!
It’s gonna be a long wait until S4, and lately I’ve been endeavoring to try to do creative stuff when I get bored… so I made some ‘snapshots’ of the best reactions to Dusty-Bun and Suzie-Poo’s impromptu duet:
Thank you for a great review of a beautiful finale. I look forward to season 4 indeed. PS. My brother and I enjoyed (both) NeverEnding Story homages immensely. Just the cherry on top of this engrossing season x
If there’s a Season 4, El will eventually have to go to school. Would be interesting how she deals with a clique of mean girls.
Im so surprised that viewers (and these side notes) would want to see more of this Erica character. She is so bratty and unlikeable and just down right mean! The other characters, even more aggitated this season, showed signs of likeability at some points. I can’t believe there was no mention of how she cut in when Hopper and Murray were conjuring and plan and she interjects and literally is just cruel and condesending to him for NO reason. It was uncomfortable to watch. There was no time she showed us her softer, more human side. I hope she doesn’t come back to the new season. :/
I am concerned that Max has to go back to that house that as far as we know is still inhabited by that monster that abused Billy and Billy’s mom! Abusers don’t just stop.
Super late to the party, but am I the only one who made the ‘touch down’ call with my hands while yelling “Steve!!!” when he t-boned Billy’s car? Scared the bejeesus out of my cats.
Todfather no more!Go Steve!