Stranger Things

[PN 801]

Okay so I am three episodes in.

Too much relationship drama and there wasn’t much urgency. It picked up a bit at the end of episode 3 so hopefully it gets better.

I skipped bunch of fillers like that.

Anyway I am on episode three and the cashier pos is out of the timeline and pretty sure it's from current era.

 

[Jerri's Kid]

I've seen all of season three and it's stronger than the second one but it has a much more comedic tone than the first, which is still the best. Whether you like this one largely depends on how much you enjoy the relationship building and the new characters.

It reminds me a bit of how American Horror Story diverged from straight horror to pure camp, so if you hated that trajectory you won't like how this series has changed. Then again, perhaps the creators are treating each season as a different "type" of 80s horror film so this is the gooey monster one.

Spoiler

The "Soviets build a secret research base under a shopping mall" plot is hilarious and dumb, but since I grew up watching all of those Soviet scare movies I enjoyed it. I'm still not sure how they managed to smuggle so many Russians into America unnoticed, but I suspect that Dr. Brenner might be involved since season 2 hints that he is still alive.

The Mind Flayer's flesh golem is not scary at all but more like what you would see in a schlocky 80s monster film like The Blob remake and Night of the Creeps, and the mechanics behind the thing remind me a lot of Slither, a film I love that was also designed to appeal to 80s nostalgia.

Some of the new characters are great like Robin and Alexei, while Lucas' sister Erica would have been better in small doses. I guess they were trying to capture the "kid vs. monster" theme with her like The Monster Squad and The Lost Boys. She came on too strong.

Steve and Robin, however, were adorable and I love how much they've developed Steve as a character even though he continues to be unlucky. I hope things get better for him before the series ends. As for Robin being a lesbian, it did come as a surprise to me because it seemed like she had feelings for him, but then I'm not sure how you portray a teenage lesbian friendship with guys on film since it's not like you see this very often. I can say from experience that sometimes guys think being nice and liking them as a friend = flirty so I don't have any suggestions on how to lessen the ambiguity without making her gruff.

As for Will being gay, well who knows? He has been traumatized for two seasons now, so it would make sense that he fears change. He could be a late bloomer or simply a child trying to deal with all the horrible shit that has happened to him. They've kept it ambiguous so far, and I don't know if him coming out would develop his character. After all, it's a small town in the 80s so coming out is a risky business for him.

They did a better job with Max this season. She was one-dimensional and a fifth wheel in the second season, so I like how she became friends with Eleven. Her advice wasn't the best, but then neither was Mike's smothering behavior, so having Eleven make her own choices in the end worked out well because it ultimately strengthened all the relationships involved.


I wish they had developed Billy more. They could have made him a more complicated character, but since he quickly becomes part of the Mind Flayer I didn't think there would be much hope for him. It's sad that he didn't get any character development with Max even though they were somewhat related. The sauna fight between him and the kids was pretty great, however.

Is Hopper dead? Probably not. He's most likely "The American" in the cell but who knows. He seems to have nine lives so it would make sense that he's the Bruce Willis from Die Hard character.

 

[TungstenCarbide]

It's what happens when you are cast as a "fresh faced young'n". I wonder what they've seen.

Ver archivo adjunto 830004

Charlie Heaton looks 25 going 40. I find his eyebags very distracting, when I watch the show I can't help to focus on them everytime he is in the shot. I thought it was the make-up for the show that made him look like that, but apparently he looks like he's not slept for 72 hours even in real life. He is probably the less aestetically pleasing member of the cast.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Charlie Heaton looks 25 going 40. I find his eyebags very distracting, when I watch the show I can't help to focus on them everytime he is in the shot. I thought it was the make-up for the show that made him look like that, but apparently he looks like he's not slept for 72 hours even in real life. He is probably the less aestetically pleasing member of the cast.

I don't understand why or how hes playing good ol Kentucky boy Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball in New Mutants. Why cast this British meth addict? Its not that hard to hold casting calls in the bible belt.

Another interesting fact about him. He has a kid named Archie with a Japanese musician who was born in 1985, so she is 32. But yeah, they met when he was 16-17 and she was pregnant with Archie when he was 19. Yikes.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I'm only 5 episodes in and I'm really hoping the little black girl dies. I don't even mind the black kid who is part of the group even though he never does anything. But this character is way too annoying.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Spoiler

As for Robin being a lesbian, it did come as a surprise to me because it seemed like she had feelings for him, but then I'm not sure how you portray a teenage lesbian friendship with guys on film since it's not like you see this very often. I can say from experience that sometimes guys think being nice and liking them as a friend = flirty so I don't have any suggestions on how to lessen the ambiguity without making her gruff.

Here's an idea:
Don't have her confess her love in all but an "I love you"-line just to pull the rug under the audience's feet by throwing a "Nah I'm into licking carpet". I'm fine with her role (if they had toned it down a little. She ends up translating the russian somehow. She breaks the code somehow. Dustin and Steve were pretty much irrelevant to all this, which sucks). I'm fine with her not ending up as Steve's gf. I'm fine with her being a lesbian. But the execution was a total failure. As I said earlier, there was absolutely no ambiguity when she told Steve how she looked at him for an entire year in school and all that jazz. It was a confession of affection. Then she does a 180 and declares she only looked at him cause she was jealous? Doesn't match.

At least Steve got to beat up a Russian soldier.
Also, kinda OT, but when Hopper threw out the Alexei with the car keys, going "He'll not run away, he has nowhere to go and he's afraid of them, not of us", if that whole scene had ended with Alexei running away and Hopper being left looking like a fool, I would have ended watching the show then and there. I am absolutely grateful that the male characters get to do something right from time to time.
But I'm really annoyed by how often the show throws any important discovery or action into a woman's lap.

 

[TungstenCarbide]

I don't understand why or how hes playing good ol Kentucky boy Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball in New Mutants. Why cast this British meth addict? Its not that hard to hold casting calls in the bible belt.

Another interesting fact about him. He has a kid named Archie with a Japanese musician who was born in 1985, so she is 32. But yeah, they met when he was 16-17 and she was pregnant with Archie when he was 19. Yikes.

Yikes. And same about him being cast in "New Mutants".

 

[KO 864]

Spoiler

The thing is, "Schlock" isn't what I associate Stranger Things with, tbh. Season 1 was pretty neatly based on stuff like MKUltra, now we have "secret russians under our mall - it's more likely than you think". Might as well throw moon nazis into the mix next season. It sucks and is way too dumb to fit into a show like this. There's a difference between actual conspiracies that actually happened and tinfoil-hat-bullshit conspiritard junk. This is the latter to me.
In any other show, I would love this, in Stranger Things, it's a major step down and simply contemplating the logistics of just building this underground lab without anyone noticing makes my head spin. And that's not even touching upon the problem of manning that whole thing with people wearing russian uniforms and AKs.
It's like the US Army set up all their Manhattan Project facilities in Kansai, right under the Japanese emperor's nose - and getting away with it until they blow up a major city.
Everything about this subplot is stupid, down to the secret code. I guess this was one of the Goonies-inspired things, to have a secret code that leads Dustin and his gang to the base. Why would these russkies use a code that is this easily decipherable?

Russian spies that poke around the Hawkin area to look for Ell would have been great. Throw in Numbers Stations (y'know, something that actually exists. To this day!), the point is: they went with an utterly nonsensical plot element and treated it in the most asinine way and that saddens me.

I also disliked how Joyce went into Paranoia overdrive over a few magnets. I mean, sure, there has been stuff going on that warrants paranoia, but something about this felt forced. It felt like the Duffers said "Joyce acts weird and crazy. Why? Doesn't matter, even when they perfectly know what the fuck is going on, she should act cooky and crazy."
Also the moment she realizes that she was right, she doesn't spare a single line of dialogue in relation to her kids' safety. She just goes along with Hopper and Smirnoff to that crazy dude. Just when that's over does she go "Oh wait, yeah, my kids are in the same town as the evil russian scientists, who want to crack open the dimension-hole again."


Is he though? In the translation it wasn't that clear whether Will isn't yet into girls or if he's not into girls at all. Or if it's just Mike running his mouth and insulting his friend out of frustration.


My problem with this is that the previous scene was a clear implication that Robin was into Steve and then they pull the rug under the viewers feet by going "Lolno dum dum, I was disgusted by you, I'm in love with this chick that was in love with you." it came out of nowhere. There was no ambiguity in the previous scene. None. Might as well have Robin start throwing around Russkies with her telecinetic skills and she reveals "Oh yeah, I just so happen to be from the same project as Ell."
It was -like is chic in Hollywood nowadays- a subversion just for subversions sake. I assumed that by the end of the show, Robin would end up Steve's GF, so I would have welcomed a clever twist to avoid this (since it would have been too obvious), but this clearly wasn't it.
It felt lame, out of nowhere and forced.
I really like Robin's character (if they had toned down her ridiculous degree of language skills a little, at least), so it's a shame this happened.

Spoiler: Response

I get what you're saying about scholck not really meshing with the feeling of Stranger Things, but I dunno, I just feel it goes with the mid-80s vibe of this season (It's straight up some Rocky 4 tier shit, which also came out '85) , with Season 1 having more of an early 80s horror vibe. Mall Soviets is also just so legendary that I can't bring myself to dislike it. I also agree that they probably should have continued to lean on real historical conspiracy stuff, as MKUltra really worked to the benefit of Season 1, and the numbers stations could have easily made for a better code breaking.

On the other hand, I almost feel that the code being "easily" breakable was more or less the point. Not that they wanted people to crack it, but that they wouldn't expect anyone to try and crack it, so why not have it be something their agents could crack easily? Besides, it was only crackable when they realised it was broadcast from the mall, which wouldn't have been easy to work out if Steve didn't recognise the music (something that would have made somewhat more sense for Robin, due to Daisy Bell both prominently featuring in 2001 (given her film-buffery) and it being associated with county fairs as far as I can tell, which would fit as it'd be the kind of thing a school band would play. ), and if from there they didn't realise that the silver cat revers to the shipping company, which someone wouldn't guess unless they worked at the mall, or were running detail on the mall. The logistics of building the mall base were completely ridiculous for the time span of roughly a year, and honestly it is kind of annoying.

In relation to Robin being able to translate Russian, it was a little ridiculous, considering the languages she could speak, but the logistics of learning to read cryllic in a day, which would made the translation via book actually possible, is kinda doable, though a bit exaggerated, as (minor powerlevel) I learnt katakana in a week so I could continue doing Japanese in high school without having to wait until the following year. It helped that she had the board to work with, (and Dustin, and hours of a boring job), although the way that it was kind of made out she did it mostly by her self is a major symptom of the current state of entertainment. It can hardly be held as a point against the show due to the ubiquity of it, but I can see why it could be seen as so.

I do agree that Robin being a lesbian was a major ass pull, and was probably the result of a last minute rewrite (for god knows why) but honestly, I'm just kind of glad that a male-female relationship doesn't end in romance for once. It's just kind of nice to have them be friends. It really could have been handled so much better though.

On further reflection, Will potentially being gay was likely just me reading too much into things, his avoision of girls and stuff potentially being a result of him seeking the "good times" before things went shit with the Upside Down. A way for him to try escape his trauma if you will. Your reading of Mike being momentarily nasty also holds possible.

Unrelated, but I really like your profile pic being a visual pun on Jotaro. Can't say I'm a big fan of Hamtaro (the dub is nails on a chalkboard), but the character is pretty cute.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I reflected on the tension thing, and while the jokes certainly didn't help, I think the bigger fault was that there were so many people coming out of nowhere to save the day that it began to feel like nothing would have a meaningful effect on the characters. I guess that could have helped to make Hopper's death more impactful, in some kind of double fake out, but I'm not sure the Duffers are that smart

I've seen all of season three and it's stronger than the second one but it has a much more comedic tone than the first, which is still the best. Whether you like this one largely depends on how much you enjoy the relationship building and the new characters.

It reminds me a bit of how American Horror Story diverged from straight horror to pure camp, so if you hated that trajectory you won't like how this series has changed. Then again, perhaps the creators are treating each season as a different "type" of 80s horror film so this is the gooey monster one.

Spoiler

The "Soviets build a secret research base under a shopping mall" plot is hilarious and dumb, but since I grew up watching all of those Soviet scare movies I enjoyed it. I'm still not sure how they managed to smuggle so many Russians into America unnoticed, but I suspect that Dr. Brenner might be involved since season 2 hints that he is still alive.

The Mind Flayer's flesh golem is not scary at all but more like what you would see in a schlocky 80s monster film like The Blob remake and Night of the Creeps, and the mechanics behind the thing remind me a lot of Slither, a film I love that was also designed to appeal to 80s nostalgia.

Some of the new characters are great like Robin and Alexei, while Lucas' sister Erica would have been better in small doses. I guess they were trying to capture the "kid vs. monster" theme with her like The Monster Squad and The Lost Boys. She came on too strong.

Steve and Robin, however, were adorable and I love how much they've developed Steve as a character even though he continues to be unlucky. I hope things get better for him before the series ends. As for Robin being a lesbian, it did come as a surprise to me because it seemed like she had feelings for him, but then I'm not sure how you portray a teenage lesbian friendship with guys on film since it's not like you see this very often. I can say from experience that sometimes guys think being nice and liking them as a friend = flirty so I don't have any suggestions on how to lessen the ambiguity without making her gruff.

As for Will being gay, well who knows? He has been traumatized for two seasons now, so it would make sense that he fears change. He could be a late bloomer or simply a child trying to deal with all the horrible shit that has happened to him. They've kept it ambiguous so far, and I don't know if him coming out would develop his character. After all, it's a small town in the 80s so coming out is a risky business for him.

They did a better job with Max this season. She was one-dimensional and a fifth wheel in the second season, so I like how she became friends with Eleven. Her advice wasn't the best, but then neither was Mike's smothering behavior, so having Eleven make her own choices in the end worked out well because it ultimately strengthened all the relationships involved.


I wish they had developed Billy more. They could have made him a more complicated character, but since he quickly becomes part of the Mind Flayer I didn't think there would be much hope for him. It's sad that he didn't get any character development with Max even though they were somewhat related. The sauna fight between him and the kids was pretty great, however.

Is Hopper dead? Probably not. He's most likely "The American" in the cell but who knows. He seems to have nine lives so it would make sense that he's the Bruce Willis from Die Hard character.

Spoiler: :optimistic:

Not a 80s movie, but the stuff with the mindflayer was giving me a mixture of serious Body-snatchers vibes, and Animorphs, with the hole Yeerk invasion, and only using you when they wanted to, and the whole being trapped inside yourself that was going on as evidenced by Billy's eyeball acting. Speeking of which, I also agree that Billy really could have used some good character development, although what he got was probably as good as he deserved. Wonder what he could have been like if he lived and got to stick around the party.

Steve remains my favourite character and I'm looking forward to what happens in the next season. I really really hope he doesn't pull a Hopper and die. He's too perfect a mum for that.

Do you think there's any chance that the "American" could actually be Aleksi? They don't have any reason to keep Hopper alive, and Brenner would be too useful to them to be demogorgon chow. He did show a fondness towards the American way of life towards the end, and as we never saw what happened to him after the gang left, would it be possible that the Russians found him and are keeping him captive? He would be useful if they could get him to cooperate, more so than Hopper.

Really though, I just want my boy to be alive. He was so happy.

 

[RG 448]

Third seaon put me off at first, then won me over. Overall, it was fine. I didn’t like how so much of the attempted humor revolved around the characters being obnoxious dicks to each other, even in life or death situations. And it also weirded me out how they just sort of gloss over the hundreds of dead innocent people to focus on our main characters’ interpersonal relationships at the end. But yeah, still above-average tv, minimal stupid.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

Finished watching it last night.

I wasn't too high on Season 2 as I felt like it was a retread of Season 1 in many ways (and the El episode was flipping terrible) so this one at least felt different enough to stand on its own. But it was maybe two steps forward, maybe a step and a half back as well as there was some stuff that dragged it down.

What I Didn't Like:

Spoiler: SPOILERS

The relationship tension got OBNOXIOUS. I felt like most of the show was just couples arguing with each other. Just sniping back and forth and back and forth. Hell, I still don't know why Max was so mad at Lucas. It just kept going and going to the point that I just wanted every couple to just split up and go into different groups because I just couldn't stand it. Admittedly, I never like John and Nancy (either as individuals or as a couple) so any focus on them takes away for me, but almost every couple on this show just became obnoxious.

And sadly, the only potential couple I kinda liked was Robin and Steve. I thought they had a fun chemistry together and I kind of liked their interactions as they became increasingly friendly with each other. And even in the early stages, their snipes back and forth felt more like good natured ribbing than anything else. But alas, Robin is revealed to be gay. Congrats show. You made me like one ship on the whole damn thing and now it can't happen. Thanks alot.

Speaking of obnoxious, I couldn't stand Max this season. She was fine in Season 2, but here she was just insufferable. It felt like she was written just to be antagonistic towards everyone and every time she piped up, I just wanted to staple her mouth shut. Her hanging out with El was kind of cute, but it felt like Max was motivated just to stick it to the guys and that got very old very quick. Again, why was she mad at Lucas for most of the season? Why did she shoot down the fireworks idea when they were in a position where any idea is better than nothing? Why was she so insistent in just using El to do everything when A) Using her powers clearly hurts her and B) Having a single point of failure is ALWAYS a bad idea.

And then there was Hopper who felt like he was completely unhinged this season. I know he's supposed to be the bad ass and all, but here he felt almost certifiably insane. He kind of reminded me of Gordon on Gotham where he just does wild and crazy shit that gets him in trouble later and I'm all like "Dude...calm down". And Mrs. Byers motivation seemed lacking. I mean her magnets stop working so she has to go play super sleuth again? In Season 1 it made sense because she was trying to find out what happened to her kid, but it felt a bit weird that she would go all in on this with such small provocation. Also, how is she the only one that noticed magnets stopped working? Hell, that would have made a nice story for Nancy to investigate, no?

This season also had a noticeable lean towards comedy. Sometimes it worked, and other times it really really REALLY didn't. I guess it comes down to personal tastes here, but

And then there were other odds and ends that just felt like pointless filler. Like teasing an affair between Billy and Will's mom. It didn't really add anything, and it didn't really play into future events, so what was the point? I mean what if Billy disappeared and Will's mom was interviewed about it or something? Then it would have at least had some dramatic intrigue for the overall story. That's just a small example, but there were a few instances of it. You'd think in an 8 episode season, there wouldn't be much room for filler, but hey.

The Stuff I Liked

Spoiler: SPOILERS

I actually really liked how it ended. It felt like there were actual consequences to everything that happened. Unlike Season 2 which didn't feel like it changed that much, Season 3 actually had long term implications. Hopper is dead, the Byers have moved (taking El with them), and El has lost her powers. It actually could have worked as a bittersweet series finale.

And actually the last episode inside the Starcourt was a great climax to everything that connected all the characters and had some tension to it with El getting hurt and losing her powers and everything. Good fun stuff.

Alot of the horror elements were cool too. Nice gore and creepy moments sprinkled throughout, and I liked the design of the big bad monster this time around as it looked like Carpenter's The Thing mixed with a giant spider.

Also, thank God poor Will didn't get captured or possessed this season and got to hang out with the kids and take part in the adventure rather than being the motivation for it. I also liked that he was kind of the last one holding onto their childhood hangouts, which makes sense given how much time he lost in the last two seasons. Like, look guys, I almost died twice, can we just relax and play D&D, lol.

In Empire Strikes Back like fashion, they divided the cast up (which keeps getting larger and larger by the way. This group is getting huge!). I actually liked having Dustin separated from the main kids for most of the season, and I actually generally enjoyed the grouping with him, Robin, Steve, and Lucas' little sister. Okay, the little sister was there just to be funny and sassy, but to that end, she was fine. The story of the Soviets opening up a portal that allowed the Mind Flayer to reform was also a nice way to have everything connected by could also take the story in separate directions.

El showing some more growth and personality this season was fun to see, and even though Max annoyed the hell out of me, the two of them palling around was kind of cute and helped El grow at least a little bit more.

Overall, I didn't hate it, and parts of it I really liked, but they still haven't been able to recapture the magic of Season 1.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Spoiler

Speaking of obnoxious, I couldn't stand Max this season. She was fine in Season 2, but here she was just insufferable. It felt like she was written just to be antagonistic towards everyone and every time she piped up, I just wanted to staple her mouth shut.

What I think happened was that the writers thought that Max is the frank and direct character that speaks her mind, but in order to do that, they figured, she'd have to be antagonistic, otherwise, she'd have no way of portraying her attitude.
This makes her very 1-dimensional, since she's pretty much nothing but a know-all disagreement-dispenser.

I, too, did not understand why Max was mad at Lucas. I honestly think they forgot to give her a reason. I mean, he drinks all the water without offering her some and when Dustin describes his gf, Lucas goes "There's no woman that perfect!" and awkwardly fumbles around, trying to salvage that line when Max teases him, but y'know... still felt out of nowhere. Similarly, I found it really dumb that Eleven is mad at Mike over not meeting other people herself. If she's annoyed that she doesn't meet other people, why and how is that Mike's fault?
Again, it feels likethe season forgot to portray Mike as being over-protective and sheltering Eleven.

And then there was Hopper who felt like he was completely unhinged this season. I know he's supposed to be the bad ass and all, but here he felt almost certifiably insane.

Similar to Max, they wanted him to be the powerful, strongheaded badass, but their idea of writing that was making him a sociopathic dick.

Also, how is she the only one that noticed magnets stopped working? Hell, that would have made a nice story for Nancy to investigate, no?

If suddenly all magnetic things stop working, there'd be a shitton of stuff affected, even in '85.
Nancy really should have been dragged into that subplot instead, along a numbers station subplot. Instead of that horrendeously stupid "Silvercat" code, they should have somehow triangulated the position of a numbers station.
The thing about the code is that the only reason why it should be able to be decyphered is so the characters can decypher it. A numbers station would have made more sense, but even if it's a code with words, you'd use a code that has nothing to do with the actual content.
The time of the delivery seems to be fixed, so why add a passage that refers to the time? Why have anything in the code reference anything that is relevant to the content anyway? If you want to have a message that means "Today, we'll have a delivery at the usual time", you might encode that in the term "Butterfly". Why have it in Russian, if all that does is drawing attention to the station? Might as well be just a Morse code of a number.

You'd think in an 8 episode season, there wouldn't be much room for filler, but hey.

I think that's one of the things that annoy me about the Steve and Robin subplot. It takes up a shitton of time but it just fizzles out. In a show with such a short runtime, they could have used that time much better.
I had hoped for the possessed/enslaved to do a bit of a zombie-apocalypse thing. Or that the question of who's possessed and who can be trusted would become a focal point (kind of like The Thing). I feel that whole aspect was utterly underused. As it stands, a bunch of people just turn to goo and that's it.

 

[Pumpkin Girl IRL]

Ugggggh, this romance shit isn't going to slow down is it.

 

[BrunoMattei]

It was pretty good. I think people have to accept it will never be as good as season 1 again. Some filler/drama moments but it was fun. I hated that obnoxious black girl and was praying for her to die.

 

[mr.moon1488]

Ugggggh, this romance shit isn't going to slow down is it.

It pretty much keeps up all the way to the last episode, and I think it was my biggest knock against this season.

 

[Sīn the Moon Daddy]

It's what happens when you are cast as a "fresh faced young'n". I wonder what they've seen.

Millie Bobbie Brown spends the entire season barefoot. Doesn't Drake have a foot fetish

Dirty Drake

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Millie Bobbie Brown spends the entire season barefoot. Doesn't Drake have a foot fetish

Dirty Drake

Honestly, every time I saw her I was like "Wow she looks kind of grown up in her face" and then "Oh god what the fuck are those hollywood creeps doing to this poor girl?" It actually made the show a bit less enjoyable for me...

Max was utterly and completely pointless this season. She was there to be an 80s sitcom wife in a child's body, but that doesn't really work in a fucking tense horror type environment. I know teen romances are really stupid in real life too, but jesus she was painful every step of the way. And all she did was make 11 act more stupid, and endangered her. Where was the "I told you so" from Mike that was so sorely needed?

Billy... why? OK the dumb thing with him and Mrs. Wheeler was kinda funny for 1 scene, last season. Now I think Mrs. Wheeler is a huge awful bitch. Great, Mike's mom was about to cheat on her husband with a racist child murderer wannabe. Cool...

So now this racist child murderer wannabe is a lifeguard, and mysteriously not in prison or dead for trying to murder children, but in fact hugely popular. Then you think he's gonna get killed off and it's like "Oh god, finally". But no. That's ok, he's been transformed into an unambiguous villian, that's workable.

But NO. The racist child murderer wannabe possessed by an interdimensional monster has a sad and tragic past guys. Don't you feel bad for him? His dad is mean. MEAN! Oh max's mom? I'm sure she's fine or whatever, don't worry about it...

So we get this extended weird subplot of eleven redeeming captain dipshit who's only gotten more evil from last season. And good thing! Because her powers inconveniently run out after spending the first half of the season posing and shaking her hands around with blood under her nose! Oh and Max really cares about Billy now for some reason, even though last season he attacked the child she is now dating and was going to run them over or some shit.

Oh, also, somehow, the public didn't really notice the giant meat spider monster being assaulted with improvised explosives at the mall. Speaking of improvised explosives... oh hi Max, I see you've turned up to be useless and stupid again. No apology, or even slight acknowledgement that the plan you shit all over for no reason saved the world? Nah, she's a totally tough girl who don't need no man, even when she's wrong she's right...

Hopper's thing with Mike doesn't really work, because they never established Mike being such a little asshole. You'd think he would have pulled him aside and put the fear of god into him a little earlier since that's literally all it takes, instead of a weird convoluted "Lie to my child or else, this will never backfire I'm sure" plan...

Also, can we circle back to the thing with Max and Eleven and her powers? Eleven has previously passed out from using her powers, she is constantly bleeding from the nose, she's having headaches, yeah, fucking obviously it's not good for her. Again, this was weirdly turned into some "you go girl" moment, except oops, actually Mike was right. Also they failed to show why Eleven would have felt smothered by him at all.


All that said, as a whole in some ways it worked better than season 2, even though the characters had to take stupid pills on occasion to make the story work. The underground russian superbase somehow made possible by a corrupt mayor is... a thing. It sorta works for me due to the whole "red scare" stuff in the 80s, I mean the kids call out "Red Dawn" by name.

So what, next season hopper's got to escape from russia? I guess Eleven will have to call in her dumb superfriends.

 

[Rumpled Foreskin]

I actually really enjoyed this season.

Spoiler: Theory

im under the impression that the American in the post credit scene is actually Dr. Brennan. That’s how the Russians know about the rift/gate in Hawkins, and might be able to explain how they have a demogorgan (maybe when Brenner was attacked, he was impregnated with a larva.)

As for Hopper, I think he probably escaped the blast by jumping through the rift, and into the upside down. There, he will probably be corrupted, only to return season 4 as the primary antagonist.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I actually really enjoyed this season.

Spoiler: Theory

im under the impression that the American in the post credit scene is actually Dr. Brennan. That’s how the Russians know about the rift/gate in Hawkins, and might be able to explain how they have a demogorgan (maybe when Brenner was attacked, he was impregnated with a larva.)

As for Hopper, I think he probably escaped the blast by jumping through the rift, and into the upside down. There, he will probably be corrupted, only to return season 4 as the primary antagonist.

Only to be redeemed with the power of love... again? Shit I hope not, that is played out.

 

[Schmeckel]

Dustin is supposed to 13 or 14 and still has no front teeth

That's kinda explained in the first season as well as the actual actor having cleidocranial dysplasia (kid doesn't have collar bones and probably will never get all of his actual teeth without implants/dentures).

Spoiler

The 3rd season was OK. Not as good as the 1st season, definitely. One of the more disappointing aspects of season 3 was something introduced in the 2nd season. Namely that of the other kids that were experimented on. I know that the "Eleven finds a sister" episode from season 2 was, in a vacuum, dumber than pig shit. But, the prospect of other "special" people with a connection to the upside down would have been fun to see join the final battle instead of just juiced up fireworks (which was admittedly pretty cool).

The fact they wasted that episode on introducing another character with "powers" just makes that episode look even dumber, since Eleven could have had the same edgy attitude development by watching Rocky Horror Picture Show and listening to punk rock as the B plot of some other episode.

The worst aspect of the season was the way that the first half was "men is dumb, the women be smart and figure everything out," and then when shit gets real "men throw caution to the wind and lay down their lives and honor because milady." I'm good with a smart female protagonist that can take care of shit, but the complete Flanderization of the male characters for a large portion of the season rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[kadoink]

Millie Bobbie Brown spends the entire season barefoot. Doesn't Drake have a foot fetish

Dirty Drake

He also seems to be interested in the under 15 crowd too.