He’s not one of the core kid cast, but they seem to be foreshadowing Hopper punching his own ticket. He had the suicide bomber vest thing earlier and when Dustin told his plan to use a bomb with a timer to blow up the bridge, the shot focused on Hopper. So maybe, it will be a Oh noes, the timer broke, someone has to stay behind to detonate the bomb! situation. Or misdirection.
And how about Mr. Clark – this guy fucks.
I also enjoyed Vickie in the Upside Down asking, “Is this shit safe to breathe?” And Robin deadpanning, “Unclear.”
They’re 1st edition players. Actually no sorcerers or warlocks in D&D then, so whatever Mike is basing it on, does not have to conform to later versions of D&D at all. Either homebrew or Dragon Mag inspired.
1st official Sorcerer wasn’t until 3rd edition, so 2000.
That “You’re a sorcerer!” line immediately pinged my nerd alert, because yeah, I don’t remember sorcerers showing up at all in 80s D&D; the switch from “magic user” to “wizard” was already jarring enough.
But as I said to my kids last night, when there was yet another plot hole/inconsistency, the Duffer brothers have decided that if there’s ever a plot hole that can be tightened up by making the story or visuals a little less awesome, they leave the plot hole and awesomeness intact. They are not going for an airtight plot, they’re going for a roller-coaster, and you’re either along for the ride or you ain’t.
We used Wizard, Mage and MU pretty interchangeably for the Magic User class. I think calling it Wizard by default was pretty common.
Wizard was the 11th level+ class title. Mage at 16th and Arch-Mage at 18th.
Gets around, too - hasn’t he been with a different paramour every time he’s been seen outside of the classroom.
I’m not trusting Eight right now - I wonder if she’s not feeding Jane all that stuff about having to off herself because she’s so mad at the world for offing her crew.
I think Murray’s not going to make it to the end. Here’s why: someone dies every season - Barb, Bob, Billy, Dr. Brenner. What’s the common factor? The letter B! The Byerses all have plot armor, so who’s left? Gotta be Murray Bauman.
I really like Vickie. I loved how she quickly went from “She’s a junkie in withdrawal,” to “Aw, fuck. She was telling the truth.” over the course of about 20 seconds. She immediately took decisive action with the phone, “Can those things understand English? Then this doesn’t need to be private!”
Maybe that’s why they repeatedly reminded us of Robin’s last name – Buckley – in episode 6.
She’s like a mash up of Molly Ringwald and Pat Benetar.
I keep having to remind myself that she is NOT Molly Ringwald because Molly is now old enough to be her grandmother. But the resemblance is uncanny.
I can’t see any Molly Ringwald resemblance. But then, I have watched Anne with an E.
My wife and I are really having fun with this season and the show as a whole. Not sure when the last time we had this much enjoyment out of television.
Yeah, I’m only hearing negativity about any of it from the internet fans, but I think a lot of that is just noise. I’m in the, I bet, quieter majority that think the final season is going just fine.
My only real criticism so far is how they handled Will coming out. It felt out of place in that moment and very contrived. I think they basically missed the boat on that moment earlier and threw it in now and the whole thing was a bit of a mishit for me.
I agree on this. Lots of it seems to be complaints that the kids didn’t grow up to look the way people wanted. I expect that no matter how the show ends it will not be satisfying to lots of people. They want something that is exactly like season 1, except also different and not just remaking season 1, and somehow manages to wrap up everything.
My complaint is something the show has always suffered from, which is a trope of a million action and horror stories: we’re running away or in a hurry, so lets stop and hold a long conversation.
As I’ve said before about Stranger Things one bit of 80s (anti-)nostalgia they left behind is using “gay” as a synonym for “stupid” (“this radio is being gay”), not to mention more hurtful slurs that were commonly used. I can empathize with Will coming out being a much bigger deal than Noah Schnapp coming out.
Still doesn’t change that the scene dragged on for me, and lost much of its emotional impact because I just wanted them to get on with it.
I kind of agree that it felt overdone in the moment, but I rationalize it that Will didn’t really have the courage to come out until he had a heart-to-heart with Robin and heard how she handled it. Her situation was somewhat different, but when he saw that she had accepted who she was and was going to be honest with her friends and live her life as it made sense to her, that inspired him to do the same.
As an 80s kid… that wasn’t my experience AT ALL. Gay=Dumb was a 90s thing. Gay was pretty rare frankly. F-slur was way more common as was using ‘queer.’
As a counter-anecdote, growing up an 80s kid in Indiana (just like our Hawkins friends), the use of gay as an equivalent to dumb or idiotic was extremely common, to the point where I cringe just thinking about how my peers and I spoke.
I was a middle-schooler in 1990-92 and gay was the main insult boys would throw at each other. I presume a lot of young boys are sensitive about sexuality in general at that time and any suggestion of not liking girls was about the best we could come up with.
I’m a teacher and have been so for 20 years. The last “Trump” years, I have heard “gay” return as an insult, but thankfully teachers are more prepared to deal with it today.
I’m not trying really to suggest Trumpism/MAGA has to do with the gay insult coming back, but I at least sort of think it might.
Besides, we are also hearing “monkey” used against Black children and I hadn’t hear that at all my first decade plus teaching.
Early-'90s, one of the kids at our grade school was playing “Under Pressure” on a walkman. One of the playground bullies said “That music is gay!”
To which my kid retorted “You have noooo idea…”
Interesting that Hopper, ostensibly the only character in the bunch who would have a problem with it, wasn’t in the room for the coming out.
I mean, look how exasperated he gets at the mere mention of a D&D reference, I can’t imagine what his reaction to something like that would be.