And just like that, everything snaps back into place…
While Stranger Things 3 has never quite reached the extremes of the notorious “The Lost Sister” episode from season 2, it’s path so far has remained frustratingly uneven as the formerly tight show suddenly seemed awfully confused about its own identity. Maybe it was growing pains and the show was mirroring the awkward transition into puberty that it’s young cast was rapidly having, maybe the two year gap meant everyone lost their momentum, or maybe the added levels of colour and humour were shift to a more “Marvel-ish” style rather sticking to the stark gloom of a Jphn Carpenter film – but whatever the issues were, the third time spent in Hawkins wasn’t exactly the charm.
Well, time finally time to breathe a sight of relief as it seems that the show has belatedly gotten it’s act together an delivered an episode that literally delivers everything you’d want from a Stranger Things episode while finding new ways to deliver classic crowd pleasing moments. Damn, I was genuinely getting worried there for a second.
While seemingly as useless as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, Will has finally gotten himself involved by alerting his friends to the fact that the Mind Flayer has returned thanks to the link the two shared. Despite the dating issues that are going on between Mike, Lucas, Eleven and Max, everyone unites to try and break down what exactly is happening and how they’re going to stop it. Surmising that the part of the Mind Flayer that was in Will couldn’t get back to the Upside-Down before Eleven closed the gate two years earlier, the gang are fairly confident that it’s now possessing local bad boy and Max’s brother Billy, but the only way they can know for sure is to test the Mind Flayer’s aversion to heat and set a trap to lock their target in a steam room at the communal pool.
Meanwhile, Hopper decides to pay forward his ass-kicking at the hands of a huge Russian henchman by visiting the corrupt Mayor Kline and forcing him to reveal that the owners of the Starcourt mall may be behind all the recent power outages that been occurring, and so he and Joyce go in a hunt through all the land Starcourt have bought up recently. However, way ahead of them is the team of Dustin, Steve and Robin who has figured out that armed Russians are taking mystery deliveries in the back of the mall, but have figured out that to get someone in to open it, they’ll need someone the correct size to fit in the vents. Enter Erica – yes, Lucas’ scary sister, Erica – who agrees to this reckless example of child endangerment for the the price of free ice cream for life. Finally Nancy, bounces back from her firing to merely dig even deeper into the strange case of Mrs. Driscoll, but all the strong, forthright, feminism in the world isn’t going to help you when you’re story suddenly lurches into gruesome body horror.
But with a showdown between Eleven and Billy on the cards, no-one has guessed how far along the Mind Flayer’s plan has already gotten.
Stranger Things fans, we are so back. While my intro spelt out the majority of the issues the season was experiencing, the fact that the episodes thus far had all been directed by veterans of the show was incredibly worrying. However, after a rather bland previous attempt, Shawn Levy’s second episode of the season finally remembers all the aspects that originally made Stranger Things so great and while you could argue that the show has only sprang back to life because we’ve gotten to the point where everyone is now running around like headless chickens in order to wrestle this year’s conspiracy into touch.
Ok, so maybe we should just admit that Stranger Things 3 strengths wasn’t in the slower moments, or the broader moments of comedy, but now that the sci-fi shit has well and truly hit the fan, once again the series has come into its own and given us probably the most Stranger Things episode in its history.
Literally everyone is on the move and all the manufacturered awkwardness between the characters has now evaporated as these young veterans of multiple attempts of armageddon manage to instantly put their differences behind them to get the job done. “The job” proves to be taking down Billy and getting proof that he’s the latest meat puppet that the Mind Flayer has been moving around and watching the kids A-Team they way to bringing down a dude who’s pretty imposing even if he wasn’t a host for a brain twisting monster.
However, while watching the gang (sans Dustin) do their thing is damn satisfying, matters get even better when Eleven is forced to pit her telekinesis against the monstrous strength of a jacked-up Billy. It’s a brutal back and forth and while Eleven has been previously used as a one-stop victory shop after vaquishing a Demogorgon and closing the gate to the Upside-Down, here she finally meets her match as she’s almost over powered by her juiced up foe. Yes, she manages to put together one final attack that puts the villainous mullet wearer through a wall, but after a battle that carries some serious heft, it’s still thrilling to see Eleven almost meet her match.
Of course, speaking of formidable and intimidating, the show has finally taken one of it’s most amusing background characters, given her a spotlight and placed her with the best grouping the show currently boasts and by that, I obviously mean that the truly terrifying Erica has joined the increasingly mismatched team of Dustin, Steve and Robin. It’s a risky gambit because Priah Ferguson’s petrifying pre-teen could have only worked in small doses, but watching this pitbull in the form of a little girl finally get her moment proves that the makers have finally gotten a grip on the comedy. I don’t want to overdo my love for this group, but if the entire season was these four solving issues and none of the other cast showed up, I’d still be happy – and even though they’ve got the most ludicrous plot line to solves (a mall secretly run by covert Russians?), one bit of banter concerning Steve never winning a fight and everything is just fine.
Even the more underachieving plot lines are now springing into life. Watching Hopper beat the shit out of Cary Elwes’ smarmy Mayor while dressed in a Magnum P.I. Hawaiian shirt gets the character back to his belligerent best while Joyce scramples to cover for him. Elsewhere we bounce from Nancy apparently splitting up with Jonathan, to a genuinely moving pep-talk from her mother, to wandering into a full blown horror show at the local hospital when old Ms. Driscoll suddenly decides to transform into something else.
While the body snatching plot of the Mind Flayer seemingly using actual flesh to build itself a physical form seems to be getting fast tracked to make way for the rapidly expanding cast, it ultimately proves to be worth it now that the show us seemingly back on the rails once again. However, whether it can stay on them now isn’t an issue I’m currently worried about anymore. Why? Because remember: you can’t spell America without Erica.
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