Some final thoughts on Stranger Things

I thought I remembered when I first watched Stranger Things, but when I looked up the dates, I saw that things didn’t align as I thought they had.  So this is the best recreation of events that I’ve come up with.

In the summer of 2016 when the first season of Stranger Things came out, I heard a bunch of stuff about “The Upside Down” and “Eleven,” but I didn’t fully know what they were.  And at the time, I didn’t have Netflix.  But some months later, I found a not entirely reputable website that had it and I watched that first season there.  From what I remember, I thought it was interesting, but it didn’t really stick with me. 

Then in late 2017, or probably early 2018, a YouTuber I watch was talking about shows and mentioned this one called Dark.  He called it a “German Stanger Things,” but some of the things he said made me curious.  By this time, I did have a Netflix account so I watched the first season of Dark and instantly fell in love with it.  Dark is in my Top 20 favorite shows of all time.  It’s not perfect, but I’d say that the story is more complicated than that of Stranger Things, but it’s told better in like half the runtime.  I forget how many times I’ve rewatched Dark, and I’d watch it again, but it’s gotten to the point I would much rather watch it with someone who’s never seen it to explain things, without spoiling.  I think that’s the next step in enjoying the show.

Anyway, by the time the first season of Dark was out, the second season of Stranger Things was out.  I watched it, without rewatching the first season, and that was a bit of a problem because I forgot some of the characters and couldn’t remember what had happened to some of them.  I think I just had to read the Wikipedia page to get caught up.  The second season, I still liked it, but again, it didn’t really stick with me.

In the summer of 2019, I rewatched Dark season 1 to prepare for season 2.  And then, after watching season 2, I think I went back and rewatched seasons 1 and 2 again to try to see what I missed.  And around this time, I also did a rewatch of seasons 1 and 2 of Stranger Things to get caught up for Season 3.  This rewatch wasn’t as enjoyable.  I think the twists and surprises of Stranger Things really only work the first time.  And then Season 3 stretched credulity, so by the end of it I was losing interest in the show.  I think I figured I’d continue watching it just for “I understood that reference” reasons.

In 2022, I was half-heartedly getting ready to rewatch the first three seasons to get ready for Season 4, when it was announced that there would be a fifth and final season.  I decided that instead of having to rewatch everything again in a year (ha), I’d just wait.  So I didn’t watch Season 4 when it came out, but I was spoiled about Eddie.

This brings us to late 2025.  My original plan was to start rewatching on some date so that if I watched an episode a day I’d watch Season 5 Episode 7 the day before the final episode was released.  But a couple weeks before that date I was feeling under the weather, so I started my rewatch early and I probably did like four episodes in three days.  Still, I was only in my first time watch through of Season 4 when Season 5 Part 1 dropped.  It was a week or so after Part 1 dropped that I finally caught up with everyone.

This, probably wasn’t for the best.  For Stranger Things, at least.  By finishing Season 4 and starting directly into Season 5, I didn’t have any time to ponder what was going on.  But in the weeks between me finishing Part 1 and Part 2 coming out, I had time to think.  And there were some things I was confused by.  And thinking about it, I came up with a somewhat bland but plausible explanation that would answer the questions I had, as well as a bit more exciting and plausible explanation.  So going into Part 2 I was really interested to see which idea it would be, or would there be a more interesting third option.

Then Part 2 came out and I realized that the odd things I assumed were indications of a more interesting story, were just plot holes.  That was the third option.  And since the final episode wasn’t six hours long, there was no way they’d be able to fill them all.  So I went into the final episode without much confidence.  And the ending, I didn’t love it, but I didn’t care enough to hate it.

A lot of people seem to hate Season 5 for various reasons, but I’d say I dislike it because the writing isn’t that great.  Which isn’t an issue only for Stranger Things.  But it is so frustrating when better writing could have nipped problems before they showed up.  As an example of a minor issue that could have been fixed with an extra paragraph or two, I was confused during Dustin’s graduation speech.  He mentioned the principal and I couldn’t remember if we’d ever seen this character before.  Later, I looked it up on IMDB and apparently that character only appeared in that episode.  And we just had to go with the movie cliché of the asshole principal.  This could have been fixed with one, slight fix.  In the first episode of the season, when Dustin was roughed up by the bullies at school, the principal could have stopped it.  But instead of holding them accountable, he could have sent them on their way and then snidely asked Dustin something like, “Why do you bring this on yourself?” With that one simple fix, we would know the principal was an asshole and would have cheered on Dustin during his speech, instead of scratching our heads wondering if we ever met the guy before.

The way I write a post like this, is think through most of the arguments I want to make and come up with a roughish outline of things.  And then it just rattles around my head for a few weeks before I finally sit down and type it up.  So I came up with all that stuff about the principal, but I had yet to type it up.  And then I watched a YouTuber’s reaction to Season 5, and at one point they put in a clip from Season 4 of Eddie saying something about grabbing his diploma from the hands of Principal Whoever.  I didn’t care enough to check if this Principal is the same from finale, but I’ll assume it is.  Since Eddie had an issue with the Principal, we could assume they were an asshole.  So I guess it was established that Principal Whoever was an asshole, in one line of dialogue about fifteen episodes before Dustin’s speech.  How could I have missed such an obvious thing?

Moving away from a simple problem that could have been easily fixed, to the plot holes that really killed my interest in the show: the ineptness of the military.  For example, was there no one at the camp with a radio listening for transmissions either from the mysterious Upside Down or from other actors?  I mean, even if Murray had some special encrypting walkie talkies, you’d think the military would notice that every time they made a supply run to their Upside Down base, there’s a lot of unknown transmissions.  Or why did nobody notice that all these people – known associates of the person they’re looking for – all seem to gather at the radio station when they do supply runs?  Is nobody curious about that?

A bigger issue is the first question I had about Season 5 which was why people were still in Hawkins?  You’d think the military would have gathered everyone up and put them in a tent city about ten miles away while they studied the cracks to another world.  This would be for everyone’s safety, and so they could do medical checks to make sure they weren’t exposed to anything.  But then you’d think they’d cite national security, give everyone some money, and move them elsewhere.  And then they’d bulldoze the buildings and haul in a ton of howitzers to point directly at the opening, in case anything came through.  I mean, that’s the logical thing to do.

So I was very confused why the town of a few hundred people(?) with a school, and a restaurant, and a radio station, was still around inside this military compound.  But then, in Episode 4, Vecna takes the kids for some plan.  Thinking about this, I assumed that Kay knew Vecna needed kids, so she kept the town and school there so that they could watch him take the kids and somehow replicate his power.  That was my “somewhat bland but plausible explanation” for why the plot hole of keeping everyone in the town wasn’t really a plot hole.  It could also explain that Kay knew about the crawls, but didn’t want to tip her hand.  Of course, why would you want a villain that was halfway competent?  The “bit more exciting and plausible explanation” I had was that Kay and Vecna were working together.  Well, actually, they both promised to help the other with some project, but both were just waiting for the right moment to stab the other in the back.  Of course, who would want to watch a show where the good guys have to debate about working with one competent villain to take down another competent villain?

But in the end, the grand answer to the issues I had was that they were just plot holes.  Don’t get me wrong, every movie and show has plot holes.  For most, the holes are small and there’s enough good stuff that you can overlook them.  But for Stranger Things, these plot holes were just too big for me to ignore, and there wasn’t enough other interesting parts to keep my interest.  Likely, I’ll largely forget about Stranger Things, except for the occasional “I understood that reference.” Probably, the only way I’d ever watch it again is if I had a girlfriend who, somehow, never watched it and wanted to.  But afterwards, we’d watch Dark.

Trump’s Hell

Last night, I foolishly checked social media for the latest news just before going to bed, and saw more of the evilness of the Trump regime.  As I was getting ready for bed, I started thinking of ways I’d love to just fuck with Trump.  What I came up with, was if I had the power – maybe I found a few dozen magic lamps and after I did what I could to make the world better, I’d save a few to fuck with those trying to destroy the planet – I’d make Trump have the same nightmare every night for the rest of his miserable life.  In it, he’d show up to the Pearly Gates and he’d see a bunch of people inside having the time of their … afterlives.  I’d say that two of these people would be Renée Good and Alex Pretti, but I doubt Trump even knows their names let alone what they look like.  So maybe there would be Jimmy Carter and other people Trump despises.  They would wave to him, maybe even motioning him to join them, but as soon as he takes a step forward, a giant hole opens up and drops him to Hell.

Once I was in bed, I started to wonder what Trump’s Hell would be like.  What punishments does he deserve?  This is what I came up with.  For an appetizer, there are probably a billion people who know enough about him to form some opinion on him.  And I think he should hear all of them.  It would start with some magat going on and on about how great he is, and then there would be a hundred people talking about what an evil shit he is.  At first, he’d probably just ignore the whining of libs, but then he’d find out what some of his inner circle really think of him, which I’d bet is most of them are just waiting for the shitty moron to die so they could use his death for their own political reasons. 

For the main course, I think everyone who hates Trump should be able to put as many suggestions they care to in a suggestion box for punishments.  And then Satan – or whatever demon he outsources Trump’s punishment to – just goes through all of them.  You’d have annoying ones like he plays a hundred rounds of golf with Obama, who always manages to beat him by one point, or however golf is scored.  And then the next suggestion would have someone like “The Mountain” swing a sledgehammer into his crotch, once for every thrust Trump made into a child.  Once that was done, Trump could then relive the last ten minutes of every person who died because of him.  Some would be gasping for breath after his piss poor handling of Covid, and then he’d be some fisherman having a beer, and then his boat explodes. 

So I had some nice thoughts as I drifted off to sleep.

Random Story – My dream house?

This is just an odd little story from my life.

Waaaay back when I was in my 20s, for a while I had the idea of moving out to the Dakotas, or somewhere.  Someplace where my nearest neighbor would be ten or more miles away.  And instead of buying an existing house, I’d build one.  I don’t know how long I spent designing this dream house, but it was a relaxing, escapist fantasy.  Eventually, I moved on to other escapist fantasies, and I didn’t think of this dream house for twenty years or so.  But recently, I remembered it, so here is what I remember of what 25ish-year-old me thought my dream house would be like.

The front door would open into a mud room.  From this an inner door would open to the first floor, which – except for the mud room and bathroom – would be entirely open.  There would only be some pillars, and there would be couches or bookshelves to break up the kitchen, dinning area, and living room.  The other odd thing about the first floor, is that it would be a few steps down from the mud room.  I distinctly remember that being a feature, but I can’t remember why I wanted it.  I think there was some idea of it driving home the idea that the first floor would be a big open space.

The basic layout of the first floor would have the mud room in the center with the bathroom to the left and a pantry to the right.  The inner door from the mud room would open to the kitchen/dining area, with the back of the first floor being the living area.  Except for the front, the first-floor walls would be large windows, to let in as much light as possible.  On both sides and the back of the house there would be doors that would go out to a covered patio.  On the sides, this cover would maybe only be ten feet, but at the back it would be twenty or even thirty feet.

There would be a set of stairs on each side going up to the second floor, the one on the left would go to the front of the house, while the other would go to the back.  This would be because the second floor would be in two sections.  The front section – over the bathroom, mud room, pantry – would have another bathroom and the bedroom.  The back part – over the living area – would have a study and a spare room.  The central area of the second floor would be open, with a walkway and railing going all the way around.  There would also be several doors to go out to the deck that would go around three sides of the building. 

I think at some points in the plan there would also be a third floor – perhaps just covering the front or back half of the house – that would be just for storage.  There might even be one spot with an opening all the way down to the first floor, just to be extra cool, I guess.

The big open space open to the second, or third floor, for some reason I thought it was really cool.  And I think that was the whole point of the steps down, just to make it seem even bigger.  I’m not sure why I thought that was important. 

That’s as much as I remembered.  But if I had to build this now, what would I change?  First off, the steps down into the main room.  I could live without them now.  Also, while having a big, two or even three-story open space would be cool, I don’t really feel the need.  I could still see a little open space on the second floor, just above the dining area, but it wouldn’t be necessary.  Instead of a third floor, those storage rooms could just go on the second.

I don’t remember where the garage was in the original plan, but I think it was detached just because that’s what I grew up with.  Now, I’d rather have an attached garage.  At first, I thought about swapping the mud room and the bathroom, but the first-floor bathroom would only be a half-bath, so instead of a squarish mud room, there could be a stubby panhandle hallway leading to the attached garage.  I also don’t know if I thought of it all those years ago, but this new house would have solar panels.  And depending on how bad the winters are wherever I built this, I’d probably cut back on the windows.  Unless there are some really well insulated windows that work as well as walls to keep the warmth in. 

I think the only other change I’d make would be the garden.  I’m sure there was one in the original plans, but now it would be much larger.  And there would be a greenhouse, possibly attached to the house either behind the garage or on the other side of the house, depending on how the house was orientated.  The greenhouse would let me grow stuff through the winter as well as warm weather crops.  And I’m sure I had house plants in the original plans, but now there would be far more of them.  Possibly even used with bookshelves to break up the first floor into little nooks. 

So that’s my dream house.  And unless I win the lottery, that’s all it will be.