Stranger Things (Netflix Original)

[Krutch]

Just finished.

My quick thoughts...

Spoiler:

Overall, really enjoyed it. Almost at the same level as first season, to be honest. I liked all the new characters from Max, her psychotic older brother, and of course Superhero Bob. Liked how the villain was more of a sentient threat with a real plan as opposed to last season which felt more like a mindless monster. Each cool in their own ways, but I liked how clever this threat felt.

If I had a complaint it's that I found Eleven's storyline to be very boring until the last two episodes. I think this season would have benefited alot by never revealing she was in this season in the promotional material.

Think about it.

Hopper occasionally says he needs to be somewhere, freaks out when he's late, radio calls to her in one-sided conversations. Build intrigue what he's up to. Meanwhile, you'd have that moment where Max's skateboard pulls out from under her, but Mike doesn't see anyone. Then have Eleven enter the way she did, hair slicked back and looking badass after taking care of the Demodogs. Then when Mike says "Where have you been?!" Hopper admits he's been hiding her. Then when he asks where she went, she says "I went to see Mama." you'd be like WHAT?! Leave that for season 3. It's a small edit, but I think it would have gone a long way in tightening up the seasons pacing, since I never felt the Eleven/Hopper storyline clicked with me.

Also, a little miffed Mike never appologized to Max for being a total d-bag to her all season.

Other than that though, another stellar season. Hopefully Season 3 and 4 remain the same quality going forward.

[ProphetofGanja]

Originally Posted by Shark_Blade

First episode is kinda boring aside from Kfc and the game arcade. I hope to see Barb back, I dunno.

On to 2nd Ep.

How the f#ck is KFC "exciting"?

And Barb is dead, she's not coming back. But hopefully she will receive justice for her wrongful death.

[dl316bh]

Originally Posted by ProphetofGanja

And Barb is dead, she's not coming back. But hopefully she will receive justice for her wrongful death.

It sounds like the show deals with it. I'm not going to see it for a week or so, until I can stream with friends, so I don't know how far it goes. Not too far, I hope. I'm a little worried they might try to wrench it in too much due to the reaction. It's a thing worth dealing with, but ultimately unimportant.

[Utrommaniac]

I've gotten to episode seven.

Spoiler:

Finally something Eleven/Jane-centric.

[Utrommaniac]

And now that I've finished...

Spoiler:

It's a bad week for characters I like getting eaten .
Bob was a pretty sweet character, even if he was just a little pushy on moving and giving Will advise that ended up being pretty terrible. Poor Will !

Max's step-brother can die in a ditch. I actually liked that he was depicted as a racist d*ck without outright saying it. Max finally standing her ground against him was the best. At this point, I don't care enough to even lock in his name.
(Here I am with the genocidal Krang as my favorite TMNT character, and yet it's this guy who gets under my skin and makes me cheer him getting sedated in the neck?)

I actually had trouble registering the Mind Flayer as a name too, even as "Shadow Monster". I just registered it as "the Virus" because that struck with me more. It was seemed a lot more frightening. "Shadow Monster" conjures up Lost jokes (even though it was "Smoke Monster" there...), and Mind Flayer came forward way too late in the season. So "the Virus" it was. It was ominous, it was accurate to what was going on with Will at the time. And the scariest part of all, it was a sapient "virus". Now, I'm not sure if that concept has been dabbled with in horror or science fiction before, but it's a pretty brilliant idea for a threat.

Steve was pretty awesome, right down to giving Dustin hair styling advice. Unfortunately, that advice came from the time of mullets starting to rule the Earth. I'm glad he completely ditched the "Troublesome Two", whose names I also didn't bother to register on account of how much I disliked them. He's a vastly better person without them and it shows. He even took Nancy leaving him for Jonathan pretty well. Good for him. His protection of the kids was awesome. He deserves good things.

The closure of Barb's death was good enough, but still incredibly sad.
There will never be a more serious edition of this:


The entire epilogue was extremely sweet. Especially Hopper's official adoption of Eleven, even when, as said by Krutch, that storyline was a little unexciting.

I hope there's progress on Eleven's mom in the next season. Or do we call her Jane now?

It was a pretty great season, and I have no idea how it's going to be topped for the next.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by dl316bh

It sounds like the show deals with it. I'm not going to see it for a week or so, until I can stream with friends, so I don't know how far it goes. Not too far, I hope. I'm a little worried they might try to wrench it in too much due to the reaction. It's a thing worth dealing with, but ultimately unimportant.

I had the thought that it would be kind of interesting if one day, Barb just shows back up at home with a headache. i.e., some kind of doppleganger grown by the Upside Down to some end. The people of the town embrace her but the kids are like, "No way that's Barb! We know she's dead!"

3 episodes away from the end of season 2. It's really, really good.

[Utrommaniac]

That might actually be really cool!

So then it would just be a matter of trying to figure out what sort of "thing" is posing as Barb and what to do about it. And THEN #JusticeforBarb can be a bit more of a thing. Maybe this time Nancy could be the Hero of the Day this time around after the imposter is exposed.
"Oh hell no, you do not get to pretend to be my dead best friend and get away with it. Here comes the Nail Bat, motherf*cker!"

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I don't know why everyone is complaining about the Eleven episode.

That is my favorite episode of both seasons, AND I want a spinoff of that gang. So good.

[Utrommaniac]

It was a pretty cool episode!

But it seems to be the Eleven-Hopper moments that were some of the weaker moments.

They actually did blow up the windows with practical effects in the Big Meltdown scene, though. Which was pretty cool.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I was thinking last night, IDW needs to get the rights to do a Stranger Things comic.

I can't wait another whole year for more Hawkins goodness. I just can't!!!

[ProphetofGanja]

Originally Posted by Utrommaniac

And now that I've finished...

Spoiler:

I hope there's progress on Eleven's mom in the next season. Or do we call her Jane now?

It was a pretty great season, and I have no idea how it's going to be topped for the next.

Spoiler:

I don't know how much more they could do with Terry. Maybe we get to see Jane visit her some more, but I'm pretty sure her mind is toasted beyond repair. Although if the Duffer Bros do flashbacks then we could see pre-mindwipe Terry in the middle of some LSD/mind control/truth serum experiments and that could be really interesting.

My hope is that Season 3 deals primarily with the other MKUltra children and the rest of the fallout from the experiments, and the Upside Down is put on the back-burner for most of the season, since it seems like for the time being they've successfully locked the Mind Flayer out of their plane of existence (although it is by no means giving up its mission of infesting all of Hawkins and beyond). And then at some point in the season the stakes get raised again when the Mind Flayer resorts to new, more subtle methods to try to break back into the plane where the characters reside. Maybe something like Andrew said, the Mind Flayer sends out a doppleganger of Barb or more likely one of the other people who went missing, somebody with less media attention surrounding them. Like the two guys who went missing while hunting in Season 1.

I like that Kali's powers were totally different than Jane's, it was neat to see how she used them to her and her crew of street punks' advantage. It would be cool to see what powers kids 1-7, 9, 10 and possibly those numbered past 11 have, if any others have survived.

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

I was thinking last night, IDW needs to get the rights to do a Stranger Things comic.

Count me in!

[Utrommaniac]

If Kali's age is any indication, 001 is probably very much an adult at this point and maybe a few of the others.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Utrommaniac

If Kali's age is any indication, 001 is probably very much an adult at this point and maybe a few of the others.

Are we sure there's even an 001? I tend to think at least a good % of 1-10 didn't make it, the earlier the number the less likely they survived.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Maybe the Duffer Bros would consider a spinoff show... "Stranger Things" continues to explore Hawkins and the Upside Down, and "Take A Number(ed Kid)" could explore all of the other experiments!

[ProphetofGanja]

It's also possible that each successive kid was more powerful than the last, so maybe 001 couldn't do anything more than just see what symbol was on a card being held up by an experimenter (like that scene in Ghostbusters), or something like that, so they might not have been experimented on for as long as some of the later kids.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by ProphetofGanja

It's also possible that each successive kid was more powerful than the last, so maybe 001 couldn't do anything more than just see what symbol was on a card being held up by an experimenter (like that scene in Ghostbusters), or something like that, so they might not have been experimented on for as long as some of the later kids.

I dunno, I think control over minds is more powerful than control over matter.

[ProphetofGanja]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

I dunno, I think control over minds is more powerful than control over matter.

It seemed like Kali's power had a pretty short time span though. Maybe if there's a 012 or 013, they could actually directly control somebody's thoughts, make them do whatever they wanted. Something like the Purple Man from Jessica Jones

[Coola Yagami]

So just bingewatched this bitch in 2 days.

Spoiler:

I liked Eleven's little journey to find out more about herself,
but it was killing me that so many episodes were passing by and she still didn't meet up with the gang. I was glad she at least saw everyone again in the final episodes. Max was an interesting addition, but I couldn't stand her brother, which I guess made it more satisfying when he got taken down.

While I do enjoy the series, I honestly feel bad for the characters if there is a season 3. I mean, I'm sure season 3 will deal more with Kali and possibly other kids, and who knows, she might find Eleven and follow her to Hawkins, bringing all her drama along for the ride, and the shadow monster is still out there.

All I'm saying is, how much more of this **** can the characters take? I feel so bad for the mother. After all the emotional **** she went through in the first 2 seasons, she's gonna end up at the psyche ward after season 4 or 5. It's just too much for these guys to handle.

[Andrew NDB]

Saw all of it. Really good but... does anyone else feel like it was missing something?

Spoiler:

I can't quite put my finger on it, but something just feels a bit off. The last third of the season, it didn't quiiite come together for me. What do I mean? Well, the big payoff with Dart after all that time with the kids and him just equated to him not eating them late into things, randomly (I was expecting some kind of Jurassic World-esque Raptor scene with it coming to their aid or something, anything). The whole thing with 008 herself didn't have any payoff at all. The kids didn't really have an actual confrontation with anything, just a lot of setup and then nothing, at at least a couple of points. All the hullaballoo about Steve and his bat and all he ever whacks this season is some vines in the tunnels. New character Billy eats up a lot of screentime but doesn't really have any purpose for being in this season beyond being a minor obstacle for Steve. 11's big triumphant reveal/return near the end and all she does it kill one of the "Demidogs"... and she does it off-screen. Her closing the gate was cool, but went off just as planned with no real suspense. Also, and it's just a personal thing, but the Mindflayer itself became a lot less scary to me as soon as we found out it wasn't a "The Mist"-style gigantaur monster but just a pesky non-corporeal gas cloud.

Now, I'm not saying it sucks at all, only that Stranger Things S2 just doesn't seem remotely as satisfying or self-contained as the first season to me. A lot of this season was, "Wait until next season, we'll address this and this and this" it felt like. I did kind of like how they attempted to make it the Aliens to the first season's Alien. i.e., the first one, there's basically one Demigorgon and he's big. Second one, there's many Demigorgons but they're smaller, and there's a Queen!

[ProphetofGanja]

I don't think anyone doubted it was coming, but Stranger Things is officially renewed for a third season

Stranger Things Officially Renewed for Third Season