Stranger Things Season 2

Poor cat. I liked D'Artagnan until this moment.

 

am i the only one who thought protecting D'Art was one of the dumbest moves in the whole show?
given everything they'd been through.... : o p

 

Yes, it was. But I can understand Dustin, this creature looks so cool.

 

In fairness, you aren't a 13 year old boy trying to impress the cute new redhead girl

 

i dunno ~ it just didn't work for me. these are smart kids who have been to hell and back, so it just felt boneheaded.
and i get what you're saying about his particular adolescent arc, but it made me respect him less for lying to his friends and putting them, ultimately, in mortal danger.

i can shake it off. it just was a wee sour note for me that i didn't entirely buy (or want to).
maybe this, in conjunction with a few other sort of convenient plot points just made me feel like this was a little less clever than i was hoping for; but then it had such a huge season one to live up to, so i might have just set my expectations too high.

 

I did not read through this thread but over the weekend I watched Season 1 on Netflix and man I was hooked. For sure one of the best shows I've ever seen. I wasn't able to get to season 2 yet, but probably this week. I love it.

 

This season really felt more like a setup for season 3.

Spoiler: Spoilers

Not only did [he Storm Monster survive but the whole sister subplot went nowhere, unless you count Jane finding out Papa was still alive. But that's still a setup for a future season.

I also really didn't like Max, she felt so out of place and her abusive brother was just slapped on.

 

I thought this show deserved better than a bingewatch but couldn't help myself once halfway through.
The show does a great job of creating and diffusing tension. Good pacing too and I think the drama/humour balance is spot on.
My second series review in a word: S-O-L-I-D.
Favourite episode: The Mind Flayer.

Nah, but I'd give it a couple more. The series seems to really resonate with 80's kids and fans of Spielberg-esque hollywood horror/thrillers.

I agree. I'd go so far as to say superb casting and acting all round for the most part.

Spoiler

I loved the way his character hesitantly wrapped his mouth around the word "bitchin" in episode 10. I found myself smiling and wiping a tear away at the same time as El did on-screen!

BTW I thought David's voice sounded familiar when soft-spoken and realised he sometimes sounds like ol' Harrison Ford.

Nope, that was a dumb move for sure.
On the other hand the plot generally seems driven by out-of-their-depth protagonists breaking a "don't be stupid" rule.
Surely there's nothing dumber than the horror trope of entering dark and dangerous places with a flashlight and it happens all...the...time!

 

My parents are children of the 60s/70s and they honestly love it too. I'm late 80s but mostly 90s and I love it. But I'm a bit of a strange case seeing as all my [male] cousins were born at least 5 or 6 years before me so I was the recipient of plenty of 80s pop culture hand me downs lol.

You are dead on with the Spielberg thing and I think WHY it resonates so much with those kids who were basically born before 1993 is that you get the era of pre-cell phone kids.
Kids who didn't have to check in or be home until that first street light turned on.
Kids who had parents who weren't mean or belligerent or anything like that but understood kids will play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

Now kids have cell phones before they're able to do algebra or when they still call novels "chapter books" and get shocked when a book doesn't have pictures. Kids seem more tethered to cell phone battery life than the actual potential for fun.

Okay, my old man "get off the lawn" rant is over.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 4, 2017, Original Post Date: Nov 4, 2017 ---

I could seriously write an incredibly obnoxious lengthy post on why Stranger Things is so good and isn't nostalgia porn (Ghostbusters 2016) like other things that a capitalizing on the hype Stranger Things basically jump started for 80s nostalgia.

 

I can play old man too and look back in longing at some of the freedoms of the Stranger Things kids generation.
My parents had bought into the satanic panic of the time that many christian fundamentalists got caught up with and as a result there was no Dungeons and Dragons for me. Thanks a lot Jack Chick ↓ for fanning the flames of parental hysteria!



Fortunately Star Wars was ok (I still struggle to find any logic to how the standards were applied) and I could get a fantasy fix from the Fighting Fantasy pick-a-path books at school!

 

Luckily I was never given that treatment from my parents. Once I showed I could separate real/fake, training wheels were off and I couldn't enough of that stuff lol

 

Yeah I think they were lost in parental protect mode and got swayed by the group mentality. They were a bit embarrased of the extreme censorship later on - I guess we're all susceptable to a bit of group indoctrination and what Reinhold Niebuhr called "the non-thought of received ideas".

On the upside I didn't haemorrhage my paper round earnings on D & D figurines or Magic The Gathering cards like other nerdy friends!

 

Im so glad I also got into sports or else I would have sunk all money into D&D and various games haha

 

The trouble with being top dog is, you get articles like this written about you:
https://www.avclub.com/stranger-things-2-actor-was-pushed-to-do-unscripted-kis-1820161123

https://filmschoolrejects.com/stranger-things-jealousy-plot/

 

That first article sounds disturbing.

The second is odd and reads like some sort of projection journalism (is that a thing?). The author's opinion is as legitimate as anyone else's but their take on it is completely different than mine.

• "I’m talking about jealousy. Not the slow-simmering, discreet jealousy that real people feel in big and small moments for a variety of reasons, but a type of TV jealousy."

Why delegitmise impulsive jealousy? I've experienced it as a 'rational' adult and these characters are only kids - trauma survivors and dealing with all the issues and dramas that come with middle school group dynamics. I'm curious if the author feels the same way about Dustin's jealous moments and season 1 Steve's jealous moments as they do El's.

• "There’s no way to overstate the danger of introducing a role model for young girls on one of the most popular shows on TV and then playing her impulsive, unfounded violence toward another girl off as a funny, relatable moment."

Maybe it's me but if there was anything funny about that tragic scene I missed it completely. Although Mike finally warming to Max may have seemed a little clunky I thought it was due to the editing rather than the characters (their dialogue is the driver but it gets lost in the hallway reverb). The character decisions seem to make sense for them and move the story forward.

I think El is a great role model for any young girl who keeps finding themselves imprisoned by men. Impulsiveness is part of who El is and we love her for it. It plays to her honesty and is part of what makes her so endearing. The writers even highlight this by having El specifically sound out the word "impetuous" while watching a TV soap.

I also don't understand this need to demand protagonists in stories as blanket role models for the little humans in our lives. Kid's need experience to find themselves not be encouraged to mirror what's presented to them. Analyse these characters with the children in your life - admire what's admirable, criticise what isn't and discuss why. Who wants a perfect role-model protagonist anyway? Sounds like a boring story. I want characters that feel real, have inherent flaws to overcome and arcs that grow.

Rant over! Sorry, I must be losing patience with these kind of two dimensional write ups. Thanks for sharing it though. I don't doubt there's a plethora of misongynistic TV tropes that lean in a certain direction and build up to feel like an unbearable weight for some. They need to be called out but if it's located here I don't see it.

Maybe I'm missing something and someone can put me right?

 

The first is most certainly disturbing and clearly misses the good-natured ribbing that was in play when the Duffer Brothers were talking about it, because it was Millie Bobby Brown's idea for the kiss to have fun with her new best friend, Sadie Sink. There's this weird phenomenon of sexualizing the cast of Stranger Things right now, mostly Millie Bobbie Brown and Finn Wolfhard. It's disturbing and gross. They're 13.

As for the second, yeah. It makes perfect sense for El to react how she did. And I didn't mind how it was played for Mike. You are spot on.

1. El is clearly in love (or at least highly infatuated) with Mike. Why? He's the only one, other than poor Benny, who didn't treat her as a freak or weapon. His attitude and expression towards her was always in good faith and even when he felt betrayed he didn't outright kick her out or turn her in. He still protected her. So when Lucas and Mike got into it, she naturally was highly over protective of Mike.

2. Mike is clearly hurting and putting on a tough guy front because it's 1984 and boys don't cry or show emotion duh. And Max being a lighthearted goofball cracks his "I don't like anyone right now!" armor and he smiles. He's still super nice and compassionate Mike when she falls.

Those things play right into those characters and their individual stories.

Eleven has exactly one person she fully trusts. Her scope of the world is limited to the lab, her time with Mike and her time with Hopper.
She gets her social cues from the soaps you mention.
She thinks Mike is her best friend. She remembers the kiss and the Snow Ball invite. So of course her reaction to Mike seemingly holding another girl the way he held her when she was hurt would set her off. How could it not? She spent, what 357 days at that point?, in purgatory waiting to see him. She messed up Lucas for Mike. She literally killed people to protect Mike (and the others). Her knocking this new ginger girl off her skateboard is so in character, disagreeing with it makes me almost question if the author actually watched the show.

This isn't really a male/female experience. Who has never felt jealousy when a friend makes a new friend without you and you feel like Eleven, while she is literally and you likely metaphorically, are on the outside looking in.

There are no real laughs here. Max chuckles and so does Mike but it's not intended for us to laugh. It's played for us to see Max as a genuinely good person and Mike still is too, just much more hurt than we've ever seen him before. It's setting up Eleven meeting Kali and realizing that what Hopper says is true. There are consequences to your actions. She is a brat. Without accepting those consequences, she will only keep hurting people and that's not a choice she wants to make.

In conclusion, the author of that piece is doing some serious self projection onto this and really not giving the Duffers, Millie Bobbie Brown, Finn Wolfhard and Sadie Sink credit for their ability to write and portray these characters as they do.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 6, 2017, Original Post Date: Nov 6, 2017 ---

Also on your last point of misogynistic TV tropes, Stranger Things does such a great job of playing them up but subverting them all at the same time. Whether it's playing Jonathan and Steve up as Nancy's protectors but in the end they both kinda suck at it and she has to take care of herself. Or Jim Hopper being presented as the super tough 80s action hero (but with a slight beer gut which is awesome) but he's actually just a broken drunken mess who clearly has some rage issues.

 

That's how I read it too. While I disagree at the mo I'm still giving the author the benefit of the doubt. There's a part of me that's not entirely comfortable having this conversation (which is likely between two males - I may be wrong and maybe it doesn't matter) given our limited perspective if that's the case. Perhaps the authors view is just a natural reaction honed from so many sexist tropes. or we could be missing something else entirely...

Spoiler

I thought El and Max's meeting near the end of the series was a little sad (Max reaching out) yet refreshingly realistic. It made sense to me to see the happy-reunion-all-round trope subverted. El's experiences have taught her not to be free with her trust or affection and her cold reaction, while personal, shouldn't be taken personally (if that makes sense). Like Mike said to Max "how can I not like you - I don't know you."

There's mixed feelings going round about the Max character. Overall I thought her little arc worked ok. Part of me really likes this current spotlight on trying not perpetuate sexist attitudes and diminish female characters. At the same time some of the criticisms of these character focus on them being reduced to "mere plot devices" just don't sit quite right with me. Even if it is the case, is it a bad thing for a story character to exist purely to serve the purpose of telling a story? Would it be fair to place any further expectations on a fictional character? I can suspend disbelief and still understand these are not really-existing people!

Someone else at my house is watching the series so I'm getting another look at the moment. That, and the fact I'm avoiding TLJ info (trailer included), is why I'm hitting these peripheral threads so hard - thanks for the distraction!

I saw Thor at the theatre yesterday and had to shut my eyes, put my fingers in my ears and hum a tune when a TLJ teaser came on.