Count me in stating that they have way too many characters and threads going on. I am also unhappy that they gave Eleven her powers back. For me it was very clearly shown in the beginning that her being the “superhero” is really stopping her from developing a personality and a healthy relationship. Nevermind that it is obviously damaging her (all the nosebleeds) and enables her “violence is the only solution” mindset.
But lets see how they deal with it in the followup.
Splitting seasons into two parts seems to be a thing these days to keep the carrot and stick going with viewer interest. They did it with the last season of Breaking Bad, and they’re doing it with Better Call Saul. I think in the case of Netflix it helps keep their subscriber base up, as subscribers these days often sign up for just one show and then cancel as soon as the season is over.
ETA: or, what @iamthewalrus_3 said better upthread:
ETA2: Finished watching ep7 last night. Thought it was a very enjoyable season, and they did a nice job juggling multiple plot points. Unlike some, I enjoyed the Russian subplot.
One question: I more or less understand everything, but I’m unclear on how Brenner is back. Didn’t he pretty clearly die in season 1? I know that in a sci-fi show, death isn’t always as deadly as it is in real life, but was any explanation given in this season for how he’s not dead?
They never showed Dr. Brenner’s death on screen, so they left it kind of open. They hinted in season 2 he might still be alive. He seems to have a lot of plot armor, he survived 01’s rampage of doom and the Demogorgon’s.
Oh ok, thanks. I had a general belief that his death was pretty clear-cut in S1, but I actually don’t remember exactly how he was supposed to have died-- in a car crash during a chase or something? It’s been awhile since S1.
Ha, speaking of plot armor and Demogorgons, in ep7 of this season, in the big boss battle between the prisoners and the Demogorgon, was there any doubt that Hopper and Enzo would be the only survivors?
There was a chance another prisoner might survive, but yes, those two surviving was a given.
Music by Philip Glass
So, is it going to be the maudlin “Eleven and Mike ride off into the sunset” or the en vogue “Eleven sacrifices herself so that everyone else can live, because that’s what heroes do” ending? (Bonus points if she does, and then Mike and Will ride off into the sunset together)
I like Eleven with powers. But I liked the “depowered and must find a way to navigate the teenage years without having that safety net” direction that started in California.
By the way, let’s give Joyce credit for doing what everyone says they would do, but Hollywood won’t let them, and that’s move out of this fucking town as soon as possible. Maybe it wasn’t soon enough, but it’s better than staying in that same house and city after all the shit that’s happened.
Will now looks too much like Will Forte for my money. And keeping the same haircut as in season one doesn’t help.
Honestly, if the show had any balls, it’d be Mike who sacrifices himself to save the day. That would eliminate both the narrative dead end of Mike and El’s relationship as well as the potential El-Mike-Will love triangle. Besides, they already “killed” El in season one and we have one more season to go. I think you can have Stranger Things without Mike, but you can’t have it without Eleven.
My biggest annoyance with this is that it introduces a major plot hole to probably the most iconic scene of the show: How did Will send the message to Joyce with the Christmas lights? He would’ve seen the glowing lights, but not the letters on the wall.
Also I re-watched the final scene again. Here’s my interpretation: The other world existed before, but not as the “upside-down” until El sent 1 through. When he’s thrown through the gate, instead of ending up in the Hawkins lab, he’s sent to a nightmarish hellscape. So I’m thinking 1 basically populated that world with Hawkins (which is all we’ve ever seen of the upside down. We didn’t see upside down Chicago for example). As for why time stopped when El opened a gate a second time, that remains to be seen.
If he could count 26 lights, he might have made the connection. As long as they’re not in typewriter arrangement, he’d have a good chance of getting his message through (also, he’d have to assume row-major order).
Wow, that’s a great theory, and it makes some sense, except that there’s no way all the details of Hawkins could have come from 1’s memory alone. But maybe he established a connection of some kind.
Overall, I’m enjoying the season, but I don’t think it’s nearly as good as season 3, which I apparently am unusual in enjoying. I also haven’t watched seasons 1 or 2 in long enough that I’ve forgotten a lot of what happened in them. Thoughts/questions:
(a) does anyone remember season 1 well enough to comment on whether the hawkins lab stuff we’ve now seen fits with what we saw in season 1? How old was Eleven when she escaped? Just the small size of the “other” El we see in flashbacks? Any hint at the orderly?
(b) I was pretty disappointed in all the go-to-Russia stuff. Feels like they had written themselves into a corner by leaving Hopper there last season, so had to find some way to get him back, but it was all just pretty low-grade implausible action that seemed unworthy of the show. And lots of implausibilities… for instance, why bother setting up an elaborate trace when calling someone who literally mailed something to your address? And after all that paranoia, oh, of course we’ll drink tea offered to us by an untrustworthy person who we’re literally saying we don’t trust.
(c) The idea of “El willingly returns to Papa” is interesting. And she kinda sorted did, eventually. On the other hand, “El gets fooled and trapped and hey she’s right back where she started in a featureless room with no hair” is boring and done. I wish they hadn’t bothered with her getting fooled and running away and jabbed and so forth. Give her some agency. Have her wrestle with the decision.
(d) I do think the main orderly=vecna=1=boy-from-memory twist was pretty well done. I suspected lots of bits along that chain but never came close to putting it all together. That said, one GAPING hole (so far, possible it can be resolved) is why 1 would become an orderly. His identity was clearly not secret to whoever hired him… so if you’re an evil doctor running an evil secret lab to develop superhumans, and your first experiment was powerful but too evil to be let roam free, why on earth would you put a tiny little chip in him that you assume will keep him restrained forever, then let him freely wander around and communicate with other superhumans? Truly inexplicable… at least so far.
The flashbacks happen 4 years before Season 1. So she’s 8ish in the flashbacks and 12 in the pilot. So at that point she’s the only one left in the lab and has apparently repressed all memory of it and gone mostly nonverbal.
Hubris. Which kinda fits in with what we’ve seen about Brenner.
My girlfriend and I: There is no way Murray drank that tea…
A few minutes later, when Murray and Joyce were both conscious again: Tha fuck? I guess he did.
Can’t let him go. Can’t kill him. I didn’t really buy it, either, but I don’t think that the writers could think of anything better.
He was chipped to control his powers -
The series has always been playing with 1980s tropes. I assume the “over the top US vs. russia action movie” plot is as deliberate as the rest of them.
It just appeared to be a sub-dermal chip, couldn’t he have cut it out whenever he wanted to, powers or not?
and where is the drama in that?
I loved season 3 as well. They’re all good!
This worked for me. He notes that they’re freezing and he offers them coffee from the pot and points out that they’ll be waiting a while. Obviously, he drugged the whole pot, but psychologically it seems safer to serve yourself from the public coffee and he’s planted the suggestion well.