Now that we’ve blown our way through the halfway mark of Stranger Things’ first season, it’s time for the dot joining to truly begin in earnest. As it stands right now, we have four separate groups of people picking away at the slimy, congealed web of mysteries that’s been lurking under the seemingly normal facade of Hawkins independently of each other and some are making more headway than others. However, as we enter the second half, things are starting to pick up as more and more light is shone on the multidimensional secrets that spewed from the lab causing all the trouble.
And yet, despite shady goverment stuff, weird science fiction shit and an honest to God monster running around, what has risen to the surface of this freakish soufflé is all the characters slowly coming together and either interacting or conflicting. The whys and the wherefores are all but almost covered, however it’s the whos that are keeping Stranger Things required viewing.
Hopper may not exactly the most stealthy guy to ever break into a shifty experimental laboratory, but his technique of simply wandering in, bullshiting for a bit and then punching people when it goes certainly gets results. OK, the result may have been him getting overpowered and drugged, but he still got as far as finding the funky, fucked up entrance to another dimension that Dr. Brenner has on the premises and when he wakes up back in his bed, he immediately discovers a bug hidden in his ceiling light.
He takes this information to Joyce, who has been having an especially bad time of it as she’s had to endure her son Will’s “funeral” and the fact that her worthless ex-husband has only gotten involved in order to nail someone with an unlawful death lawsuit for the money. However, after days of being treated like the town looney, finally getting an affirmation that the body lying into that coffin is not her son is the hopeful news the poor, traumatised woman has been hungering for since Will vanished. However, this news is yet to reach Will’s older brother Jonathan, who has teamed with Nancy in order to try and explain the disappearance of her friend Barb and as they arm up with a baseball bat and a hun stolen from Lonnie’s glovebox, they head into the woods to see what they can figure out.
Also hitting upon a breakthrough are Mike, Lucas and Dustin who discover from doe-eyed experiment, Eleven, that all the recent trouble has come from a place she calls the “Upside Down”, a neighbouring dimension that seems to be a dark duplicate of our own, but with the added disadvantage of containing goo dripping monsters like the Demogorgon. With some facts about other dimensions gleaned from their science teacher, their latest search for Will begins, but when they discover that a terrified Eleven has been throwing them off, the built up animosity Lucas has for her suddenly blows.
However, the gold medal once again goes to Nancy and Jonathan who not only locates an entry point into the Upside Down, but Nancy actually enters it – but it looks like her prize might end up being an audience with the Demogorgon itself.
I have to say, for a show that mostly now is about a bunch of people wandering around their hometown, Stranger Things is getting only more rewarding with every passing episode. It’s mostly due to the fact that the Duffer Brothers have ensured that we’ve taken the time to get to know these characters before the mystery has drawn them in and even though many of them are 80s archetypes that we’ve seen many times before, they’re layered to the point that when they get their time in the spotlight, they grow even further. Take Nancy Wheeler, for example and her gradual, yet totally organic shift from a buttoned down girl hoping to shed her uptight reputation into a full fledged horror heroine. For a start, it can’t be an accident that she shared the first name with Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare On Elm Street, but as we move and find that she’s not only a natural shot and more than willing to put herself on the line for her missing friend, but she’s quite the fearless juggernaut too as she enters the newly christened Upside Down with barely a second thought. The same thing could be said about Jonathan too, who has had rather a thankless role so far as a town oddball who has a slightly problematic habit of lurking with a camera and who looked utterly haggered even before his brother went missing. But now he’s climbed aboard Nancy’s monster hunting train, he’s become a far more palatable dude to spend time with.
However, say what you will about the duo who have already pierced the very veil of reality with barely any prep time, but it’s still Hopper whonis killing it for me and while his ill advised infiltration of Hawkins Labs was about as smart as a chocolate teapot, watching him blunder through on chutzpah alone totally fucking rocked. However, the best moment comes later as we get another seminal Joyce moment when the Chief of Police, now totally on board with all the conspiracy shit, tells Will’s long suffering mother that he knows that his “body” was faker than 2 inch long lashes. The look of relief and hope on her face is positively transcendent, even more so perhaps than the earlier episode when she realised Will was communicating with her via the Christmas lights and if it doesn’t truly move you, then I don’t know what to tell you.
The final group is, of course, the kids, but there’s trouble in paradise as Lucas is decidedly done with Eleven’s shit after they discover that she’s using her powers to halt their progress. However, before that occurs, they work overtime to help fully cement the basics once and for all and create the iconic label, “the Upside Down” after their science teacher breaks out the old Event Horizon, pencil-through-paper explanation of how travel to multiple realities would work – in theory. It’s all cleanly done and the rift between the friends feels organic even when Lucas and Mike come to blows, but thecshow is careful to establish while she’s slowing both the boys and the plot down to a crawl. Flashbacks of her in a Terry Gilliamesque diver’s suit to focus her telekinetic eavesdropping powers reveal that it resulted in her first meeting with the Demogorgon and as a result, she’s terrified of exposing her friends to the beast.
Speaking of the Demogorgon, as it stalks Nancy through the Upside Down during the climax, we finally get a good look at the creepy bastard and he certainly doesn’t disappoint. Spindly limbs and a featureless head that splits into a Lovecraftian flower of teeth, the nefarious creature is suitably fucked up enough to merit all the fuss he’s caused (especially online with his treatment of Barb). But now all the cards – especially the monstrous ones – are mostly all on the table, I predict that Stranger Things will continue to get even stranger the more people discover.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 