Revisiting Stranger Things - Part 1 - Plot

 Greeting everyone! As per usual it's been a while (I say that in every post because I am sooo inconsistent), but I'm back, writing this at about 1 AM - probably shouldn't be doing this, but I'm in summer break so why not. 

In the past weeks, I've had a lot of time on my hands and decided to rewatch Stranger Things, as to refresh my memory for season 5 which airs in November this year. I've been as well watching too much ST content for my own sake and nostalgia hit me, so now I realize in what wild times we are living - this beloved show, that, if I'm not wrong, initially started as a niche miniseries on Netflix, then turned into a global phenomenon and gained a massive fanbase essentially overnight, is finally coming to an end...

And here I am voicing my opinions about the show. But firstly only about the plot, because I will do a part two talking about characters and cinematography as I don't want to turn this whole blog review in a 100 pages manifesto about why I love/hate Stranger Things (I got a lot of things to say) One, nobody will read that, two, I will eventually get bored anyways.  

So without further ado, let's begin with my thoughts on the plot points of this series throughout the years. 

Like everyone else before me, I am a firm believer that the first season of Stranger Things is one of the best pieces of television and could have easily stood on its own feet without following seasons. It's iconic, yes, but it also has a very powerful story. I really like how the plot is really easy to follow going from point A - the disappearance of Will Byers to point B - finding Will Byers, without overcomplicating stuff. This event grounds the story in reality and offers a compelling introduction both for, us, the viewers, and the characters into the other wordily things happening in an otherwise calm town like Hawkins. Then as the story progresses we try to figure out what is happening, along the characters, which creates an extremely well crafted feeling of mystery. Until the end, we aren't offered a lot of info about the monsters, the Upside Down and the lab, but the characters know just enough to complete their mission to find Will - which is precisely the whole point. I also really appreciate how character driven the first season is and how humane it feels, compared to its other somewhat over Hollywoodized successors. It just nailed this sentiment of an intimate weird story with inexplicable events, yet also realistic and relatable. 

One could say this feeling persists also throughout season 2, which is a pretty good sequel in my opinion. It copies a lot of concepts from the first season, yes, but also adds new things, while staying mostly true to it's initial tone and atmosphere. The mystery is even now prevailing, because we still don't know a lot about the Upside Down and the lab. However, some cracks start to show around this time.... 

Obviously the more you progress a story the less easy it is to keep things simple and straightforward, so it's natural for the storylines to get more complex, especially as you introduce new characters. The problem appears when you have to sacrifice certain storylines in favor of others and balance them out, which the writers seem to have a bit of a though time with. Although in season 2 I can't say it's such a big problem, as the new groupings of characters further develop each of their arcs and the pacing is still very good, it was definitely a warning for one of the series' future biggest issues: too many characters, too many subplots and not enough time. Also the Lost Sister episode is still one of the most thematically and atmospherically confusing episodes, probably added to further elongate the season since if El was in Hawkins the entire time, the conflict would have been resolved too fast.            

But anyway, let's not poison our memory of the show with that and get to season 3... which is quite an anomaly in the Stranger Things universe, because here the show had a genre makeover all of the sudden. As the mystery was thrown out the window, it started leaning more into raw horror, mixed with more action, comedy and had a more prevalent coming of age storyline. Don't get me wrong, I loved the energy and teenage drama, but I have to say the Russians opening another gate under the Starcourt mall as a major plot point is kind of weird (not in a good way) and the Mind Flayer embodied by the Meat puppet, even though terrifying, was starting to grow old as a villain. Hopper, Joyce and Murray's storyline felt in some parts a bit like a Marvel movie with too many 80s movie references, whereas the Scoops Ahoy group was so unserious, it was baffling. This very much contrasted with the other characters' plot points, like Jonathan and Nancy and the teens' group, that felt a bit more reminiscent to the previous seasons.

Even though flawed, it still felt fun - kind of like a summer vacation... Maybe that was actually the point, a transitional more light hearted season to change the mood, but still lay down the ground work before diving in darker things in the future season. If that was its desired role, they did a good job I guess.

Lastly, we got to the penultimate season which was released after a three year hiatus, season 4. This one is quite conflicting for me as it manages to be one of the best and worst seasons at the same time... Weirdly the show's problems become way more visible, but so do its strengths... 

Starting with the latter, introducing Vecna as a main villain is actually quite brilliant. Essentially they have humanized a monster in a way that feels more sinister and simultaneously ties together the show's themes of trauma, acceptance and breaking patterns, into a physical plot and character development device. That is a very good way to revive the plot, make an interesting premise for the audience and also offer salvation for characters pushed aside. Plus, it reinstitutes the mysterious and terrifying atmosphere... or at least that was what they were trying to do in the first episodes. The thing is, because we are offered Eleven's backstory we inevitably get Vecna's one, obviously, but this cancels out the writers' intention to go back to season 1's roots and make it a mystery show again. Instead, by doing this they not only ruin the whole mystery, but also highlight their weird habit of scaling up the show with every season, and turning it from an intimate SF story into an epic overexplained one. I mean it's still fine, this depends on your taste, but in a world of epic stories all over Hollywood, this change is kind of a downgrade. And not to mention how this season feels overcrowded and overwhelming. We follow about 5 to 6 plots lines across about 14 main characters in four different locations!!! That's waaayy to many people split up, no matter how much screen time they get and how you try and balance things out. Stranger Things in season 4 suffers from a terminal case of multitasking. I'm sorry, but it's extremely distracting and does the season a massive disservice. 

But nevertheless, even with what we've got, I still had a lot of fun watching and seeing the story unfold and evolve after each season. I don't know if the writers will fix their issues, but I sure hope we at least get some good completed character arcs in the next season... some of which I will talk about in the next post:) So stay tuned for that if you want to see me go crazy analyzing a bunch of fictional characters! (Let's hope I will actually stick to this.)

PS: This was entirely written by me, no AI was involved and will never be involved in my posts (I feel like nowadays I have to specify that.)