Stranger Things: Season 3 Review

Hello, hi.

Welcome to Stranger Things week, where all week long we look at and talk about the newest season of Stranger Things!

There are approximately 100,000 reviews of season 3 out right now, so I’ll spare you the long-winded analysis and do this in an easily digestible way that doesn’t come off like I’m trying to sound like Anton Ego from Ratatouille.

Obvious spoilers abound!

RAD

• Skycourt Mall in Hawkins, Indiana. Malls are on their way to becoming a nostalgic memory of the past, a place where our parents (as kids) sprinted to after school because the mall was where you went to be seen. It was a place to dress up, visit your friends at work, try to pick up girls, watch movies, and indulge in rebellious fantasies because it was a parent-less utopia. Stranger Things brought back the nostalgia and magic of going to the mall as a kid, while also highlighting the devastating effects a retail chain has on mom and pop businesses in small towns. Think every Wal-Mart in a small town and what it’s done to small businesses.
• The kids are older now, and the show highlighting that and being proud of it has given the series a new set of fresh legs. Usually when shows deal with kids, the second their voices crack it begins to lose its luster. But Stranger Things embraced the puberty and added new interests and challenges for our favorite Indianan’s. They added new layers of complexity for Will, who missed out on a chunk of his childhood due to the fuckery of the upside-down and may or may not be dealing with possible homosexuality, while trying to resist the obvious changes everyone around him is going through. They gave Eleven a newer and bolder personality. Instead of being nervous around El, Mike is now pining for her love and dealing with the pitfalls of trying to understand how to be a boyfriend, along with Lucas who has the profound advice you’d expect from a 13-year-old.
• Chief Hopper is still the ultimate dad energy. Specifically, his fits. They go off. His flamingo shirt and dad-bod go hand-in-hand with his hard drinking and smoking. We stan our king!

• The combat! The violence! Everything ramps up to 100 after the initial invitation into the small world of Hawkins. People are dying, there’s a Terminator-lite bounty hunter, a corrupt mayor, Hopper beating the fuck out of Russians at a Fourth of July fair, bodily invasions, a Mind Flayer, and a secret Russian lair complete with torture and hallucinogenic drugs.
• Maya Hawke is a gem. The sassy, ice cream slinging, Ethan Hawke offspring has brought a welcome addition to the Stranger Things cast. And instead of following through with the obvious setup for her and King Steve, the show boldly subverted expectations and had her come out in a sweet and intimate moment. And this isn’t the same as coming out today, this is coming out in Reagan’s America in INDIANA. She was funny, resourceful, and the person I trusted the most to get them out of the Russian lab… well, actually I trusted Dustin the most, but she was a close second!
• Joyce is funny! Joyce Byers has gone through the ringer with this show. She has given her complete sanity to the upside down and this season she reclaimed her mental well-being. She’s still grieving over Super Bob (RIP), facing the closing of her store and planning a move away from the city, but she finally gets a chance to become more than the screaming mom, she becomes an integral part to closing the gate to the Upside-Down. She shows off her detective skills with Hopper, often outclassing him with her mental strength versus his brute force. It was a very welcome change of pace to see her take the reigns from Hopper and help save the world.
• Steve! His arc from shithole boyfriend who made me root for the Demogorgon to ravage his soul, to a protective mother, to Dustin and Robin’s best friend has been one of my favorite television arcs EVER.

• Billy!!!!! Billy was one of my more favorite characters. Not because he was a good human or anything, but because he was so funny when he had to be, handsome, and completely ripped out of The Lost Boys. So, was I sad that he sacrificed himself in a heroic way, using the loving memory of himself as a child on the beach with his mother as fuel? Yes. Billy had a hard life, he didn’t know how to handle his rage and aggression and sense of abandonment. But, he saved Eleven and sacrificed himself for the greater good. Shout out Billy for life.
• Cary Elwes is always welcome in every form of media.
• Eleven’s powers aren’t really working anymore. And I love it. Not that I love seeing El struggle, but I love that it gives our cast the chance to stop these monsters together. The stakes were high this time around, and it was fun to see our favorite Hawkins residents have to rely on their individual skills rather than El’s Neo-like powers. The kids were trying to stop a monster with fireworks! Hopper had to murder Russians! Joyce had to tie a belt to one nuclear key and stretch Armstrong her body to reach the other key while killing Hopper in the process. Murray had to climb through air ducts and impersonate Russian officers. Steve and Robin had to wreck into Billy’s car going 100 MPH to save their friends. And Dustin had to have a musical number with his girlfriend over an impressive radio tower he built at summer camp to get the codes to unlock the safe at the Russian base. This was a lot more fun than El just fucking everybody up.
• Stranger Things finally truly leaned into horror. It’s always been a Spielberg style of horror for the show, but this season they decided to go fucking dark with the Russian bounty hunter and Nancy and Jonathan spending an episode escaping two murderous zombies in a desolate hospital.
• Hopper’s death. Yes, Hopper is technically dead and there’s no reason to truly believe he isn’t, but there’s a slim chance he might not be. He died a hero, another notch in Joyce’s depressing belt, and left behind a beautiful and touching note that was meant for Eleven and Mike… and himself. We see Hopper dealing with El growing up, no longer wanting to fall asleep watching Westerns with him, but transforming into a woman with interests he can’t relate to. It’s a growth process that he never experienced with his first daughter. Hopper has always had trouble opening his heart up, but he did to El, and he was prepared to go down that road of womanhood with her, supporting her every step of the way. Things change, and we can’t stop it, but we can do the best we can to enjoy the ride.

• The season finale was crushing. When Eleven realizes Hopper is dead outside of the burning Starcourt Mall, you feel that shit in your soul. Fast forward three months later, and El is moving away with Joyce, Jonathan, and Will. Watching her and Mike say their goodbyes and try to plan alternate holidays with each other is sure to burn deep inside of anyone who has ever had to be long distance before. But, not all hope is lost for our characters. Dustin’s girlfriend is real, Steve and Robin are getting a job at Family Video (which is a storyline I’m so fucking ready for, for next season), Lucas and Max are still in love despite a popular theory going around that Max may be in the closet, and Jonathan and Nancy are going to remain together despite the distance. This season was a huge Empire Strikes Back-esque separation for our characters, but we’re heading full throttle into Lord of the Rings territory in terms of our characters being completely separated from one another.
• The post-credits scene suggests there’s a secret American prisoner inside of a Russian base that is holding the Demogorgon. Yes, that sentence is a real thing and that prisoner is, in my opinion, Hopper. It might not be, but I truly in my heart believe he made it out of there somehow. Season 4 is going to be fucking great.

BAD

• Literally, nothing