Stranger Things is an American supernatural horror-science fiction web television series created by the Duffer Brothers. It is written and directed by Matt and Ross Duffer and executive-produced by Shawn Levy. It stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Cara Buono, and Matthew Modine. The plot follows the disappearance of a young boy, and a telekinetic girl who helps his friends in their search, while the boy's older brother, mother, and the town police chief start their own investigations.
The show is set in the 1980s in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, and is an homage to '80s pop culture, inspired and aesthetically informed by the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, Stephen King, and George Lucas, among others.
The show was released on Netflix on July 15, 2016. It received critical acclaim for its characterization, pacing, atmosphere, acting, soundtrack, directing, writing, and homages to 1980s genre films. On August 31, 2016, Netflix renewed the series for a second season of nine episodes, to be released in 2017.
Cast:
Main
Winona Ryder as Joyce ByersDavid Harbour as Chief Jim Hopper
Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler
Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven ("El")
Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson
Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair
Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler
Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers
Cara Buono as Karen Wheeler
Matthew Modine as Dr. Martin Brenner
Recurring
Noah Schnapp as Will ByersJoe Keery as Steve Harrington
Shannon Purser as Barbara "Barb" Holland
Ross Partridge as Lonnie
Rob Morgan as Officer Powell
Randall P. Havens as Scott Clarke
Aimee Mullins as Terry Yves
Premise:
On November 6, 1983 in the town of Hawkins, Indiana, 12-year-old Will Byers vanishes mysteriously. Will's frantic mother, Joyce, searches for him while Police Chief Jim Hopper launches his own investigation. Will's friends Dustin, Wheeler and Lucas discover a psychokinetic girl who claims to know Will's location. As they uncover the truth, a sinister government agency tries to cover it up, while a more insidious force lurks below the surface.Episode List:
1 1 "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers"
In 1983, in a US Department of Energy laboratory in the town of Hawkins, Indiana, a scientist is attacked by an unseen creature. 12-year-old Will Byers vanishes after encountering the creature while riding his bicycle home from a Dungeons & Dragons session with his friends. The next day, a young girl with a shaved head, wearing a hospital gown, steals food from a local diner. The owner, Benny (Chris Sullivan), takes pity on her and feeds her before calling social services. A woman posing as a social worker arrives and shoots Benny. Armed men search the diner for the girl, but she escapes. Joyce, Will's mother, believes she hears Will's voice on a distorted phone call, but her phone short circuits. Will's friends Lucas, Mike, and Dustin find the girl in the woods as they search for Will.
2 2 "Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street"
The boys learn the girl's name is Eleven, which is tattooed on her arm; they nickname her "El". Scientists from the laboratory find a substance oozing from the walls of Joyce's home. At Mike's home, El recognizes Will in a photo. She uses psychokinesis to lock the door and prevent Dustin and Lucas from informing Mike's parents about her. Searching for Will, Hopper discovers a torn piece of El's hospital gown outside the laboratory grounds. Nancy goes with her friend Barb to a party at her boyfriend Steve's house. Will's brother, Jonathan, investigates his disappearance, photographing the woods where Will went missing. Hearing screaming, he runs and sees Steve, Nancy, and their friends in Steve's swimming pool, and he photographs them. Barb vanishes from the poolside. Joyce receives another call from Will, hears music from his room, and sees something coming through the wall.
3 3 "Chapter Three: Holly, Jolly"
Barb wakes up in an empty pool near a dark creature. She tries to climb out in vain, but is dragged down. Joyce strings Christmas lights around her home, establishing communication with Will, who can turn them on and off. Hopper and his deputies research Dr. Martin Brenner, the laboratory, and a woman named Terry Yves who claimed her daughter was taken by scientists. El has a flashback in which Brenner, whom she calls "Papa", has her put in solitary confinement for refusing to telekinetically harm a cat. Nancy worries about Barb, who is missing. Steve and his friends discover Jonathan's photographs and destroy them along with his camera, but Nancy notices a photo of Barb before she disappeared and returns to Steve's house to search for her. Nancy finds Barb's car and sees the creature in the woods. Joyce establishes a code with Will using the lights, which he uses to tell her that he is alive but unsafe. He tells Joyce to run as a creature begins to climb through her wall. Will's body is discovered in the water at a quarry.
4 4 "Chapter Four: The Body"
El proves to the boys that Will is still alive by making contact through Mike's walkie-talkie. Using their science teacher Mr. Clarke's powerful ham radio to contact Will, El and the boys overhear Will talking to his mother, saying he is afraid. Simultaneously, Joyce hears him through her living room wall and tears the wallpaper, revealing a flesh-like substance with Will on the other side. She breaks the wall with an axe, but this opens only to her front porch. Examining Jonathan's photo of Barb, Nancy realizes the monster is also visible. Jonathan realizes that Nancy's description of the creature matches his mother's: a humanoid figure with long arms and no face. Hopper confronts the state trooper who found Will's body. Suspicious, Hopper goes to the morgue, cuts open Will's body, and discovers it is a dummy. He heads to the laboratory and breaks in.
5 5 "Chapter Five: The Flea and the Acrobat"
Will's father Lonnie assures Joyce that her experiences are hallucinations. The boys conclude that Will is trapped in an alternative dimension which El calls the Upside-Down: the same place but on another level of existence. Hopper infiltrates the Hawkins National Lab and discovers the portal. He pursues the creature but is knocked out by suited guards. He wakes up in his own home and finds it bugged. After Will's funeral, the boys ask Mr. Clarke about dimensions, who he tells them that a spacetime tear could create a passage between dimensions. The deputies inform Hopper that Barb's car was found by the state; Hopper finds the state's involvement suspicious. Positing that a tear in spacetime would disrupt the electromagnetic field, the boys follow their compasses to find the source of the disruption. El remembers being placed in a sensory-deprivation tank to telepathically intercept information from a Russian spy; while listening to the spy, she came across the creature. Scared of finding the gate, El directs the compasses away from the laboratory. Lucas notices the distortion and confronts her. Mike defends her, and he and Lucas fight. El telekinetically flings Lucas off Mike; Lucas recovers and runs away. In the woods, Nancy and Jonathan find a wounded deer, which the creature drags away. Following the blood trail, Nancy crawls through a passage to the Upside-Down world and discovers the creature feasting upon the deer.
6 6 "Chapter Six: The Monster"
Jonathan pulls Nancy through the portal, saving her from the creature. In her bedroom, she is afraid to be alone and asks Jonathan to stay. Steve sees them together through her bedroom window. The next day, Nancy and Jonathan resolve to kill the monster and purchase supplies from an army surplus store. After a fist fight with Steve, Jonathan is arrested after he inadvertently assaults an officer. Joyce and Hopper decide to investigate together after Hopper discovers his home has been bugged. They track down Terry Yves; she is El's biological mother, who underwent MKUltra training while pregnant. Jane, now known as "011", was taken by Brenner. El shoplifts frozen waffles and recalls how she accidentally opened the gate to the Upside-Down on a reconnaissance mission, allowing the monster through. While searching for El, Mike and Dustin are ambushed by Troy and his bully friend; Troy holds Dustin at knifepoint and demands that Mike jump off the cliff into the lake where Will's body was discovered, which will likely kill him. Mike jumps but is levitated to safety by El. Lucas sees agents leaving the laboratory and realizes they are heading to Mike's house to capture El.
7 7 "Chapter Seven: The Bathtub"
Lucas warns Mike via walkie-talkie that government agents are en route. Mike, Dustin, and El flee the house and narrowly escape with Lucas; El telekinetically flips a van that blocks their path. At their junkyard base, Lucas reconciles with Mike and El. Joyce and Hopper are called to the police station, where they find Nancy with Jonathan, and Jonathan reveals his knowledge about the creature to his mother and Hopper. The group contacts Mike and his friends, and they rendezvous with him at the junkyard, formulating a plan to make a sensory-deprivation tank to amplify El's powers so she can search for Will and Barb. They break into the middle school and construct the tank in the gym. With Joyce's help, El successfully enters the Upside-Down to find Barbara dead and Will alive, hiding in the Upside-Down "Castle Byers", his makeshift fort. Hopper and Joyce attempt to break into Hawkins Laboratory to save Will, but are apprehended by security guards. Nancy and Jonathan resolve to kill the monster, and steal their hunting gear back from the police station. In the Upside-Down, the monster breaks into the fort where Will is hiding.
8 8 "Chapter Eight: The Upside Down"
Interrogated by Brenner, Hopper gives up El's location in exchange for neutrality and access to the gate. He and Joyce enter in Hazmat suits and discover the creature's nest, where they find Will unconscious with a slug-like creature in his esophagus. Nancy and Jonathan booby-trap the Byers' home, then cut their hands to attract the creature with their blood. Steve arrives, intending to apologize to Jonathan about their fight. The monster attacks and Steve traps it, but it escapes back to the Upside-Down. In the middle school, where El and the boys are hiding, Mike asks El to a school dance, then kisses her. Agents storm the school, but El crushes their brains. As Brenner recovers the weakened El, the monster enters and begins to attack Brenner. The boys escape with El and hide in a room, until the monster finds and tries to attack them. El pins it against a wall, says goodbye to Mike, and both vanish. Will is hospitalized and reunited with his mother, brother, and friends. Hopper is reluctantly picked up by a black car. One month later, Nancy has gotten back together with Steve, and both are friends with Jonathan. Hopper leaves Eggos in a box in the woods. In the bathroom of his home, Will coughs up a slug-like creature, briefly sees the world like the Upside-Down, and returns to dinner.
The Verdict:
After hearing people on social media that I know rave about it so much, I took the plunge to check this out a few months ago. I didn't tell anyone that I was watching this as people I know personally have a knack for spoiling something they've seen before me, even more so for television shows that are "trendy" or heavily popular - hence why you don't see me watching nor covering shows like Empire, Game of Thrones, nor The Walking Dead.
Let's go ahead and get this out of the way now, but the biggest spoiler/reference in this show was the kids mentioning X-Men #134 on the first two episodes. I'm sure that reference along with a lot of the more nerdier things referenced by the kids will go completely over most viewers' heads but for me, it kinda spoiled a few things ahead of time as I saw them coming from that one comic book the kids mentioned, much like the foreshadowing from Will being taken by the demogorgon in the game of Dungeons & Dragons they played before Will is abducted by the monster.
X-Men 134 is in the middle of the Phoenix Saga, specifically the one where Dark Phoenix first appears. The Phoenix Saga is one of the most famous X-Men stories, where Jean Grey, a telepathic mutant, learns to fully unlock her powers and becomes the Phoenix, and then the Dark Phoenix. The panel where she becomes the Dark Phoenix is one of the more famous in all of X-Men.
But that's not all! In the book the Dark Phoenix is accidentally unleashed by the Mastermind who is tinkering around in Jean's brain trying to unlock the full potential of her powers. This is comparable to Brenner pushing Eleven to go poke the monster and then tearing a dimensional wall by accident, letting the monster into our universe. Furthermore, in the comic there is a scene where Jean/Phoenix uses her mental powers to pin Mastermind to the wall, and then unloads on him with the full force of her mind putting him into a coma. Sound familiar? That's how El defeats the monster in the school. Pinning it to the wall and deciding to make it so he can't hurt anyone anymore.
It's a cool reference/homage, and furthers the idea that the Duffy Brothers really did put good care and attention into the references they make beyond just "hey, that's totally 80s!" -- via reddit
The folks on reddit explained that better and possibly less long-winded than I would have but you get the point. The Duffy Brothers blew me away with a compact and concise story that keep me engaged and interested for the duration of all eight episodes. That's not an easy task either as most shows have bullshit filler or other nonsense to extend their airtime and fulfill their episodes per season order but the Duffy Brothers kept it simple and straight to the point.
Outside of Will's mom and Hopper, most of the parents in this show are oblivious to everything - another joke that anyone born after the mid-90's won't understand in this show. That's another thing I have to applaud the Duffy Brothers for. There's so much charm and nostalgia from the American 80's culture all over this show and it was all in good taste. They didn't do like most nostalgic properties do where they reference "popular" pop culture tidbits in the sake of being "cool", "edgy", and "hipster". No, anything and everything that was referenced here tied to the overall plot and contributed to the narrative in some shape or form, whether it was foreshadowing or adding to character development.
If I had to knock this show for anything it's that the Upside-Down is almost a complete ripoff of Silent Hill in terms of visual presentation, especially if you've seen how the two live-action adaptations of that video game. Y'know the decent one and the not-so-good sequel. The fog atmosphere effect is almost a spot on match for the "ash" and fog of darkness from Silent Hill. The "monster" even borrowed a few visual cues from that universe, which showed a lack of imagination on the Duffy Brothers' behalf in that department. When they finally showed what it looked like without the aura of mystery of the Upside-Down, that was ultimately the biggest letdown the entire season for me. Then again, most of these horror movies/shows have that moment so I can't really fault them at that. They did a great job of making viewers crave that anticipation of seeing what horrors lay wait in the Upside-Down and kept viewers hooked from start to finish.
As for the ending, I'm guessing that in the next season El comes back with more mastery over her powers and is established as an impromptu guardian between our reality and the Upside-Down while Will finds himself in peril again as he has been somehow "infected" by the demagorgon and is slowly becoming one himself. I would like to imagine that the Duffy Brothers will shed light on how those creatures come to existence and the whole connection to the slug-like creatures and what-not.
Watch It or Don't Bother?
If you're looking for a quick weekend binge or simply have about roughly eight hours to kill, this is a definitely worth a look. You're going to hear me point this out about more Netflix shows, but goddamn an eight episode season is worth it for these hour long seasons for shows like this. Short, sweet and straight to the point without dragging on just to fulfill the show order by the cable networks.
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