TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Stranger Things — a Netflix Original Series with Amblin-Styled Scares and Wonder

Go To

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#701: Jul 2nd 2022 at 8:35:44 PM

As an aside, was anyone else wondering about Jason in the epilogue? We see him get sliced in half by the big X gate that the four murders opened up. Then, in the epilogue, we find out that the official story is an unprecedented earthquake resulting in the deaths of 22 people and countless more injured.

Presumably Jason's counted as one of those 22. But. Like. Was nobody weirded out by the fact that an "earthquake" somehow cut a person in half? And he can't have been the only person who got portal sliced somewhere on their body, right? That thing was cleaving houses in half.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#702: Jul 2nd 2022 at 8:38:06 PM

Given there's apparently many gateways to Hell and some people realize this, I assume that lots of the people who would be weirded out are the ones fleeing.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Snoketrope Barb / Temporary Kylo from California Since: Oct, 2020 Relationship Status: Waiting for Prince Charming
Barb / Temporary Kylo
#703: Jul 2nd 2022 at 10:31:38 PM

I feel like they should have reconsidered Eddy's 'dies proving he is not a coward' arc / endgame when they wrote him playing guitar in the middle of a demon realm to attract a bunch of flying monsters.

Bow to the Prototype
32ndfreeze Since: Mar, 2012
#704: Jul 2nd 2022 at 10:54:54 PM

I feel like I'm only posting about complaints. Honestly, I did like 95% of the season!

But was there any reason he couldn't have ran the cord to the amplifiers from the inside of the van? And just put the speakers either on top or in the little cage they made?

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:55:24 AM

Snoketrope Barb / Temporary Kylo from California Since: Oct, 2020 Relationship Status: Waiting for Prince Charming
Barb / Temporary Kylo
#705: Jul 2nd 2022 at 11:38:47 PM

Its a little weird that the fact Brenner, as the books reveal, murdered El's real father (He pulled strings to get him sent to Vietnam where he dies) never comes up in the series? Like, did El ever find out somehow and I just missed it?

Bow to the Prototype
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#706: Jul 3rd 2022 at 12:12:09 AM

I mean that's just the icing on the fact he's every sort of monster imaginable.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#707: Jul 3rd 2022 at 4:13:44 AM

With Jason I’m pretty sure he is body was consumed whole. So there’s no body cut in half anywhere. I’m hoping that with season 5 Hopper gets reinstated and then Jason gets the blame for everything from season 4. Make the story that after murdering his girlfriend he then murdered a journalist investigator and went on a rampage, lynching his fellow player, almost lynching Max and trying to lynch both Erica and Lucas before being bravely stoped by Eddie.

Edited by Silasw on Jul 3rd 2022 at 12:14:04 PM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#708: Jul 3rd 2022 at 10:11:39 AM

God, I'm still riding the dopamine high from that finale. This is media I want. Nancy, Steve, and Robin fucking up Vecna while Running Up That Hill blares in the background is what I watch horror for, man. This whole plan is. This is exactly what I want out of the genre, and it's something I've been starving for in this era of "What if the monster just kills everyone and wins?" endings.

As a humanist, this is what I, personally want from the genre. Ordinary men and women faced with an eldritch, supernatural abomination who learn the goddamn rules, find the holes in its ruleset, make plans to exploit them, and then carry them out to overcome the insurmountable. Fight the monster and win, by way of educating yourself about the internal logic that the monster uses to function.

Eleven was something of a crutch in the first couple seasons, just solving everything for the protagonists using her superpowers, but seasons three and four have been reducing her to merely a piece of the overarching Puzzle Boss and I love it. I'm here for it. I want her to remain a part of the solution, but I like having her only be a part.

This finale was so good, it bumped the season up to my personal favorite. It's going to be a hard act to follow.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 3rd 2022 at 10:13:23 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#709: Jul 3rd 2022 at 10:15:17 AM

So at my local supermall, I saw this advertising event in one of the plazas where there's a giant featureless monster man with no face and some Doc Ock tentacles.

I haven't watched this series, despite having a Netflix sub and this kind of show being my jam.

Better fix that.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#710: Jul 3rd 2022 at 10:16:19 AM

Yes. Yes, you should.

Don't expect to see that guy too soon, though. He doesn't come around until season four.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Pseudopartition Screaming Into The Void from The Cretaeceous Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
Screaming Into The Void
#711: Jul 3rd 2022 at 10:21:32 AM

Finished the last episode this morning. I am emotionally exhausted. I loved it. Thoughts later.

lbssb The sleepiest good boi Since: Jun, 2020 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
The sleepiest good boi
#712: Jul 3rd 2022 at 11:07:28 AM

What Will actually wanted to give Mike

For real though, I thought the painting was going to be something more explicitly romantic. I also don't think El actually commissioned it.

Edited by lbssb on Jul 3rd 2022 at 11:10:10 AM

Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon
Misiael Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: Dancing with myself
#713: Jul 3rd 2022 at 11:10:11 AM

Well, that was pretty bad. I mean, no shade on people who honestly enjoy this season, but for me it's overcrowded, overbloated mess damaged damaged severely by Protection from Editors.

Not for me clearly.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#714: Jul 3rd 2022 at 11:20:38 AM

I hope season five does better by Will. Milking gay anguish over unrequited love for one half of a straight couple is something this season does to both of its LGBT characters, but it bludgeons Will with that stick so much harder than Robin. Well, both if you don't count Eddie, who's never confirmed to have been aggressively flirting with Steve but... Come on.

For Robin, it's basically just a brief moment that's undone by the end of the season. But the writers actually made Will have to talk up how great the Mike/Eleven ship is while his heart was visibly cracking in half. I know it was supposed to be a heart-wrenching moment but I honestly couldn't get into the drama because I was too mad that they put Will in this position to begin with.

Duffers, you owe Will a boyfriend after that mess.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Pseudopartition Screaming Into The Void from The Cretaeceous Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#716: Jul 3rd 2022 at 11:48:59 AM

Milking gay anguish over unrequited love for one half of a straight couple is something this season does to both of its LGBT characters, but it bludgeons Will with that stick so much harder than Robin.

That is why they waited until Pride Month ended to release it.

In all seriousness I can't gauge how far they'll go with gay Will. I strongly doubt they're going to go the Will/Mike route; I'm thinking either an indication of camp or a brief affectionate moment with a non-character at the end, Disney-style.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#717: Jul 3rd 2022 at 12:17:45 PM

They are absolutely not going the Will/Mike route. They aren't going to break up the show's #1 OTP for the sake of LGBT representation. If they were going to do that, this season would have been the time for it.

Which is why I said the Duffers owe Will a boyfriend. I know it won't be Mike, but he deserves someone. Right now, they're literally using his sexuality as a cudgel to beat him with so that Jonathan can win Big Brother points by comforting him. That's not cool.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#718: Jul 3rd 2022 at 1:07:34 PM

I think they're treating Will getting over his crush as a positive thing, especially since one half of the straight couple is his foster sister.

And yeah, they need a boyfriend for Will.

Also a confession of gayness to where everyone reacts with complete support.

:)

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 3rd 2022 at 1:08:16 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Misiael Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: Dancing with myself
#719: Jul 3rd 2022 at 2:47:44 PM

Yeah, I have some... concerns about all of that. Don't get me wrong, I hate "gay pain" kind of plot as much as every queer person out there, but softening (or just plain ignoring) real life 80s homophobia wouldn't mesh too well with somewhat realistic approach of first seasons (remember, "gay" being common slur is presented in first season).

And I don't think that pinkwashing history is the most graceful thing in this case.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#720: Jul 3rd 2022 at 2:56:39 PM

Finished the season.

It's not far from what I expected: Style over substance to the max, but it's quite a style. The "Master of the Puppets" sequence is fun (and as a metalhead I was also amused at Eddie's indignant "This IS Music!" when Robin back-hands the quality of Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind, particularly funny given Eddie is named for the band's mascot), as is the Darkest Hour and the second usage of Kate Bush and Vecna remains the strongest villain of the show by a significant distance, providing interesting challenges and confrontations. The biggest problem is length and pacing, as it ends up very self-indulgent and bloated to the point the final episode loses most of the momentum it has as everyting takes thrice the amount of time it should. Things just end up comical as they clearly have too many plates to spin (Nancy & co spend a solid 40 minutes being strangled by tentacles somehow in the climax because the script has so much other shit to catch up on before returning to them).

Eddie's death is kind of the show in a nutshell in many ways. It's a engaging, emotional sequence (helped by a very talented actor putting his all) as long as you ignore the fact it makes very little sense both internally (as Eddie essentially kills himself for no reason) and externally (Eddie's character arc makes no sense, as his cowardice was a gigantic Informed Flaw). It's even more clumsily handed after he dies, where for some bizarre reason this 2 hours and a half finale episode couldn't find time to have any main character aside from Dustin (and the uncle with whom Eddie never shared a single word of dialogue) even acknowledge (let alone mourn) the fact Eddie just sacrificed himself for the greater good (allegedly) and his name will forever be damned by the town. This is why funeral scenes exist, fellas.

In another note, Dr. Brenner getting a dignified, humanized death was fairly ridiculous. There were about a million different ways to handle that better.

Overall, it's more the same. Nostalgia and (fairly well-executed) spectacle with very little rhyme or reason (and occasionally extremely regressive political backings, but that's another story), but I really do think it works better in much smaller episodes. The more length the episodes add the clearer it becomes this show isn't high-functioning enough to carry that length and glitz will only take you so far. I hope season 5 is much shorter (granted, they could easily have wrapped up the whole thing here, but Cash-Cow Franchise gonna cash cow).

PS: Is it me or Owens and Sullivan are completely unaccounted for by the season's end?

Edited by Gaon on Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:02:41 AM

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#721: Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:09:19 PM

Yeah, I agree about Brenner's death. I did appreciate that they didn't absolve him of his actions. In his final moments, he asks El to validate him, and she expressly denies him that validation. And, like, five minutes before she directly confronted him and called him a monster.

So, he didn't get a forgiveness-based noble demon death. He got a nuanced, complex death for an ultimately flawed character. But he didn't really deserve a nuanced, complex death for an ultimately flawed character. He deserved to die angry, being put down and going out with zero sympathy as a reprehensible bastard. Because he was a reprehensible bastard, not a flawed character.

Dr. Brenner deserved to die like Light Yagami from this manga called "Death Note". Instead, Dr. Brenner died like Light Yagami from this anime called "Death Note".

So it was nowhere near as sympathetic as I feared, but still more sympathetic than I would have preferred.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:10:39 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#722: Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:16:13 PM

What threw me off is that El does call him "Papa", multiple times. That alone felt like more than he ever deserved.

Dr. Brenner's participation this season as a whole felt a bit like that plotline ran out of ideas to me. His survival already strains creduility (you could at least give him a huge scar and a limp) as is.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
jakobitis Doctor of Doctorates from Somewhere, somewhen Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Doctor of Doctorates
#723: Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:22:06 PM

Agreed. I mean, I get that Brenner genuinely did think he was doing what had to be done in a misguided "hard mannmaking hard choices" way, but 1) he was wrong and 2) his personal culpability for pretty much everything that has gone down since is second only to One-slash-Henry-slash-Vecna.

"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."
Whowho Since: May, 2012
#724: Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:30:40 PM

Seems like Will has a lot to look forward to in series 5 given that he still seems to have a connection with the Mind Flyer

The Master of Puppets moment is the kind of media I love for.

I really absoloutly love the expertly laid out plan being formatted against your horror Monster utilising all your knowlage.

The downer ending doesn't quite agree with me, simply because I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to the status quo. Though Max in a coma is a really interesting outcome, even if Eleven has good reason to think she's brain dead. It does feel like the team didn't fail for any reason other than poor luck, which isn't satisfying for me.

I'm amazed that the finale worked considering you had five plot lines taking place simaltaniously across three dimensions and three timezones. Even if it meant Steve, Nancy and Robin had to be strangled for what felt like fourty minuets.

Also I guess we finally have an explination for why the Demogorgan in series 1 sometimes had telekinetic powers. Henry Creel doing his thing remotely.

The situation between Vecna and the Mindflayer is interesting though, as it seems The Mindflayer is his route into the hive mind. Before Vecna made his first portal this season the Mindflayer "shadow" was working just fine to keep the Russian Demogorgans alive. Killing Vecna might kill the Mindflayer, or the Mindflayer might outlive him. There might even be remit for the Mindflayer to reject Vecna. We know some individuality persists even within the hive mind as Dart refused to attack Dustin in series 2.

I think the only big mystery left in the show is where Vecna originally got his powers, but I don't see how that would be elaborated on without introducing something even older in the Upside Down that reached out to him at like, birth or something.

Snoketrope Barb / Temporary Kylo from California Since: Oct, 2020 Relationship Status: Waiting for Prince Charming
Barb / Temporary Kylo
#725: Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:32:18 PM

Maybe Sullivan will continue to be the main human villain now that Brenner is dead and the Soviet counterpart to Hawkins Lab (Did they ever get a name beyond 'the Soviets'?) seems dealt with. But uh, I am unsure how they would tie him into the whole 'invasion from Hell' thing'

Edited by Snoketrope on Jul 3rd 2022 at 3:32:36 AM

Bow to the Prototype

Total posts: 990
Top