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

Y'know it is kind of amusing to see Tumblr tie itself into knots regarding Billy's weird attractiveness. I'm gonna go for the same kind of mullet myself.

I've been meaning to binge watch this show - has everything I like in a horror series.

Yeah, it's very reminiscent of Stephen King (hell, the 2017 IT movie shares an actor with Stranger Things, guess who).

edited 2nd Nov '17 4:24:18 PM by AHI-3000

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the Duffer Brothers have cited King as an influence.

D'art might not be THE slug we saw him throw up, but it was almost certainly one of the slugs he threw up, since it's implied that he threw up multiple. There's not really any other place all the Demodogs could've come from. Will threw all of them up.

edited 2nd Nov '17 7:09:14 PM by PushoverMediaCritic

I'm fairly certain the Duffer Brothers started pitching Stranger Things to networks after their treatment for an IT film fell through, so the show even began as a spiritual adaptation of King's work - among others.

Just finished season 2 this past weekend - I have some gripes but it improves on almost everything in season 1. My biggest complaint is the Bizarro Episode with Kali and her gang, it was a real slog to get through and I know it's probably just setup for Season 3 but I'm not really interested in a poor man's Urban X-Men subplot. Answering what happened to numbers 1 through 10 is a cool idea, but needs better execution. Eleven could've reentered the main plot sooner without that episode's extra oddball baggage imo.

I also didn't care as much for the Jonathan/Nancy resolution, or the whole "Justice for Barb" subplot in general. It seems like the showrunners took the meme too seriously and wrote a quarter of the season around it and unfortunately dragged the cool, proactive, monster-hunting Jonathan and Nancy into it, giving them one of the more boring and obligatory parts of the season. The Jancy pairing seemed rushed and out of place in the context of their subplot, contrary to how natural it felt in the first season's Slasher Film-style plot. By contrast, Steve flying solo with the kids was one of the best parts of the season and he's quickly become one of my favorite characters.

Overall Season 2's pretty great; if Season 1 is E.T. meets the Goonies I'd say Season 2 is Gremlins meets Aliens. I'm wondering what the inspirations will be for Season 3 - assuming there's gonna be one.

There's supposed to be a season 3. The Duffer brothers are supposed to already in the writing process. After season one, they said they believed they could pull five seasons worth of material.

Season 2 was good. It built off season 1 in great ways. My only complaint is that the 008 episode ground the main story to a halt right as the demodogs were attacking the facility. Other than that, pretty satisfying. I didn't like that Dart had to die, but that's more me than an actual complaint.

edited 3rd Nov '17 8:36:50 PM by Zeromaeus

Yeah, the Kali episode would probably have been better off spread out a bit, rather than bringing the plot to a halt for a whole episode.

Was the girl who asked Will to dance at the Snow Ball the same girl who the boys noticed crying at Will's funeral in season 1?

edited 4th Nov '17 1:10:16 PM by shigmiya64

@His Infernal Majesty: I share your sentiments. The episode with Kali and her gang felt more like a backdoor pilot for some weird spin-off series instead of a proper part of this show's storyline. Also, the whole Jon/Nancy subplot of visiting that conspiracy theorist to talk about Barb's death seemed like an overly long excuse for these two teens to fuck each other.

Also, I'm wondering about the ethnicity of Kali's actress (Linnea Berthelsen)? She looks Indian, but is from Denmark and has a decidedly Scandinavian name.

I enjoyed the conspiracy theorist character and the idea behind the whole subplot, but it just seemed kind of...unnecessary? Or inconsequential, rather, compared to everything else that's happening. Season 1's Conspiracy-hunting was primarily done by Hopper with the monster-hunting done by the teenagers, and they sort of reversed that this season and it didn't work as well. I still enjoyed Jonathan and Nancy's scenes and resolution but it was the weirdest possible route they could've taken to get them there in a show that usually makes everyone's decisions seem incredibly natural and not forced whatsoever. But that subplot and the Kali ep were both that - forced. Dustin grasping the Idiot Ball all season in regards to D'art bothered me too.

In regards to Kali's ethnicity - or her actress rather - it doesn't help that the child actor they used for her seemed distinctively African-American to me, and grown up Kali seems to be of some vaguely Indian descent as you said. Like it's a pretty insignificant little detail, but it seems an odd casting choice for the younger Kali.

The Kali episode is pretty clearly set-up for the next season, and since there's no other real way to set that up before they want to fire it beyond just putting it in there, it's there. it's a distraction from the main plotline, but it's there for a reason.

That said, I agree it should've been spread out among more episodes - especially since the series essentially does nothing with Eleven in the first half of the season besides check in with her so we don't forget she exists. The whole bit where she leaves home, spies on Will and needlessly gets jealous of Max could've probably been folded into the same incident as her leaving home.

edited 5th Nov '17 4:16:15 AM by KnownUnknown

Yeah, I was also baffled by Dustin's extreme idiocy during his subplot with Dart. Sure, just keep some weird, ugly-ass alien creature that you found in the trash can in your room, it's not like it'll turn out to be some dangerous monster related to the one you saw last season.

edited 5th Nov '17 10:52:05 AM by AHI-3000

To be fair it was adorable and Dustin failing to foresee its rapid growth isn't exactly unreasonable.

Even without the hindsight of it being a young Demogorgon, the fact that the kid wasn't even a little worried by the fact that this strange new animal he found is not only like nothing he's ever seen before, but his friends even tell him that it's probably not even from Earth, and he still chose to personally shelter it. Up until it ate his poor cat.

I don't really see where the confusion is, it was cute and seemed harmless. Once it started growing he really should've taken action but before it seemed understandable.

edited 5th Nov '17 11:18:39 AM by Fourthspartan56

Not to mention that their connection saved their lives.

So I haven't seen this mentionned anywhere in the character page for Billy, but I feel that it was heavily implied - if not outright stated - that he seems to harbor some pretty racist attitudes against Lucas.

The fact that he insists that Max stay away from "people like him" and the fact that he goes out of his way to specifically attack Lucas when confronting the gang seems to indicate this.

I found that it was an interesting plot element. The 80's teen movies that Stranger Things takes inspiration from often included a couple of token black characters but rarely addressed the sort of abuse that could arise when you're (seemingly) the only black kid in the area.

Wait, did other people not pick up on that? Seemed as obvious as it could possibly be without Billy using the N-word.

There's some controversy here on this site's Stranger Things page about whether or not Billy is a racist.

Maybe it's because I'm black, but I thought it was pretty heavy-handed. There was also a pretty obvious theme of bigotry going on between Billy and his father.

I don't think I'd call it heavy handed but I would say that Billy was obviously racist without constantly dropping n-words, which isn't unrealistic.

Billy was almost definitely racist. Violently so. That scene with the direct confrontation managed to be as tense as most of the monster scenes.

Yeah, which makes the apparent controversy rather ridiculous.

It has now been fixed.

Yeah, our new bully in town most assuredly is very screwed up - it seems his dad thinks he's gay or something, and has drilled in bigoted ideas.

Dacre Montgomery - Billy's actor - said we'd hardly even seen the worst of what goes in the Hargrove home in regards to the dad and his whole situation.

Also, gotta mention there were fans who cheered when Mr. Hargrove beat up his son.