Stranger Things (season 5)

In the shadowed fall of 1987, as the anniversary of a long-buried trauma looms over a fractured Hawkins, old friends reunite amid whispers of encroaching otherworldly chaos. Familiar faces grapple with hidden strengths and unresolved scars, drawing in echoes from forgotten experiments and distant allies, all while a relentless ancient evil weaves its tendrils deeper into their world.

Stranger Things Review (S5: E1-4)

If you’re like me, you enjoyed the first season of Stranger Things for its delightful nostalgia, but even more for its uncompromising tension and wonderfully unfolding mystery. Then, after snoozing through a couple of episodes of the second season, you gave up the whole thing and moved on with your life. If so, then season five, at least so far, doesn’t give you any reason to interrupt your 100th rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

                   

The first four episodes of the final season of Stranger Things are bloated with a cast of unlikable characters and suffer from a plot that in no way justifies these initial 4 feature-length episodes, let alone 8. That said, if you’ve stuck it out this long, it’s not so bad that you’ll definitely want to skip it.

The lovable misfits from the first season have been shoved to the back of the bus to make room for one off-putting character after another, and any mystery left feels stale and often as awkward as a Millie Bobby Bongiovi action scene, while revelations feel unearned and underwhelming.

However, what truly has deadened any thrills the series might have once offered is its plodding storytelling, swelled to bursting with sawdust stuffing. The villain, meant to be a menacing presence eclipsing all hope from the shadows, feels more like an afterthought that the effects budget couldn’t sustain—limiting his screentime to flashbacks and one rather tepid action set piece. The main story, when it’s given any time to breathe, is a lifeless rehash, often of itself.

Perhaps, if you’ve been following along these many years, you’ll care about the fate of Eleven et al, but on its own, season 5 of Stranger Things is repetitive, flat, and boring, and gives no real reason to connect with anyone on screen, let alone care about what happens to them.

WOKE REPORT

I Want the World to Know. I Got to Let It Show

• Did you forget that Robin was a lesbian? Well, don’t worry, they’re going to remind you…often. More than that, they’re going to make it sound as if her coming out was a spiritual rebirth as profound as baptism.
  • Not so subtly, Robin’s lesbian arc from season 3+ is being used to grease the wheels of Will’s coming-out narrative for this season. He hasn’t explicitly indicated that he will do so, but the dialogue between the two is incredibly unnatural and clearly points to him trying to muster up the courage to do so while he ponders whether his lifelong buddy, Mike, would be interested in banging.
    • PS. Don’t forget that the boys are still school-age teens.

Silly Boys, These Chicks are Pure Netflix

• Remember when this show was about a dorky group of boys who didn’t know how to quit, and only one girl was tough (and only because she had superpowers)? That show is gone. Now, the boys can’t even wipe themselves without a woman there to tell them how to do it. With the exception of Hopper, the male characters are almost always the comic relief, silly, or the focus of derision. Conversely, the women are always serious and always the ones leading.
  • Despite being in their 20s and having spent the last four years living through some very serious times, Steve and Jonathan continue to act like preschoolers competing for Nancy’s affection in the most juvenile ways. Meanwhile, she’s the worst.
    • During one such time, the lesbian ridicules their obvious attempt to impress the anorexic and unpleasant Nancy, who is openly neither impressed nor flattered.
    • The two doofuses share more than one conversation that no straight 20-something American males in the ’80s ever actually had in real life, as they discuss chauvinism like they’re on an early episode of Dr. Phil.
  • Several male characters repeatedly bicker like chicks.
    • During one such time, the 80 lbs plank, Nancy, threatens to shoot one of them in the testicles and then makes a crack about the size of his manhood.
      • There’s another reference to a young woman/girl kicking a different, much larger young man in the private. You know… like a joke.
• A male doctor somewhat dismisses Nancy’s questions and commits the mortal sin of calling her “sweetheart.” He is, therefore, not to be trusted.
  • Nancy, of course, in a very 2020s kinda way, gets in a huff over it.
• Mike’s dad remains useless.
  Spoiler

  A demogorgon portals into his house in an attempt to kidnap his sister, who is suddenly important to the plot, and his dad goes after it with a golf club (at least he attempted to help his wife and child, I guess), but is unable to get even a swing in before being swatted away. However, Mike’s stumbling, drunk mom somehow is able to stab the monster repeatedly with a broken bottle before the beast swats her.
• Lucas’s sister is one of the most insufferably snarky female characters on TV in the last 10 years, but that doesn’t change the show’s perspective that her garbage personality is charming, funny, and effective.
• There’s a scene meant to make Nancy look tough in which she fires off a shotgun. Between her bared pipcleaner arms and garden gnome stature, it ends up looking faker than Vecna’s rubber monster suit.
  • I doubt she could fire off a .410 bore, let alone the 12 gauge she does in this scene, without being knocked on her rump and suffering from a dislocated shoulder.
• I love Linda Hamilton as much as any man who grew up in the 80s, but can we not pretend she doesn’t look like a 90-pound grandmother now?
  • She’s meant to be an intimidating presence, as 6+ foot tall soldiers shake in their boots at her displeasure, but she’s a long way from frightening Miles Dyson and his family. She looks like she should be handing out homemade rock candy while munching on a Skor bar and drinking ginger ale.

GOPutzes

• Unsurprisingly, the wealthy, openly republican family is self-centered jerks.