Stranger Things · Plethora

A living room wall painted with the alphabet, strung with Christmas lights — The wall that started it

I watched the first episode back in 2020. I did not have a subscription then, so I could not go any further, and that was that. It sat there for three years.

Then in 2023, on the vacation right after my SSC exams, I started it again from the beginning. Four seasons were out at the time. I finished all of them in four and a half days. Thirty four episodes, around thirty five hours.

One, two, three, four

Season one

It opens with a boy cycling home from a friend's house and not arriving. Everything the show ever does comes out of that one missing bicycle.

Season one had me from the start, and Eleven most of all. The character I loved was Jonathan Byers, the quiet one standing at the edge of every frame with a camera in his hands.

My favourite was Steve Harrington. And I could not stand Dustin Henderson. That is the honest position I held for eight episodes.

Will Byers on a bicycle at night, headlamp burning — Will, on the way home

Eleven in a pink dress and blue jacket, standing on gravel — Eleven

Mike Wheeler holding a walkie talkie to his ear — Mike, listening for anything

Jonathan Byers outdoors in a denim jacket — Jonathan

Dustin grinning under a baseball cap — Dustin, who I could not stand yet

A government van thrown into the air above four children on bicycles — The first time she does something in front of everyone

The other half of season one is the town. Hawkins looks like nothing, a few streets and a school and a laboratory nobody asks about, and that is exactly why it works. The horror is underneath a place too ordinary to check.

The exterior of Hawkins National Laboratory with a car passing — Hawkins National Laboratory

Children in hospital gowns at tables in a white room with a painted rainbow — The Rainbow Room

Doctor Brenner in a grey suit, hand at his mouth — Papa

Eleven facing a Demogorgon across a school classroom — Season one ends here

Steve and Dustin walking down railway tracks carrying buckets

Season two

Then season two turned my opinion around completely. Dustin and Steve became a duo, and it was one of the best things in the whole series. Two people who should have nothing to say to each other, walking down the train tracks with buckets of raw meat.

The part I got bored in was Kali, when Eleven leaves for the city. Everything slowed down and I wanted to be back in Hawkins.

Lucas Sinclair in a camouflage headband — Lucas

Hopper in uniform holding a bowl of cereal — Hopper, before any of it got hard again

Eleven with curled hair on a city street at night — The city, and the episode I could not wait to end

Two people dancing at the Snow Ball — The Snow Ball

A wooden cabin with a porch, deep in green woods — The cabin in the woods

Dustin, Steve and Robin at a table covered in ice cream — Starcourt Mall, summer 1985

Season three

Season three was somewhat good. Starcourt, the sailor uniforms, the ice cream. It never got to the top for me, but I was never bored in it either.

It is the sunniest the show ever gets, which is the trick. Everything bad in it happens in daylight, in a shopping mall, with the fireworks going off.

Steve Harrington in a Scoops Ahoy sailor uniform — Steve

Robin Buckley in a Scoops Ahoy uniform — Robin

Erica Sinclair eating an ice cream cone in the Starcourt Mall — Erica, holding the whole mall hostage

Robin watching through binoculars while Dustin looks on

Four people with no business doing any of this work out that there are Russians under the shopping centre, and then go down there anyway. Erica Sinclair was interesting to watch every single time she was on screen. Robin was great from the moment she arrived and only got better.

The bathroom scene, when Robin finally says the thing she has been carrying, is one of the quietest and best scenes in the series.

Steve, bruised, and Robin tied back to back in a chair — Interrogated, and still talking

Billy Hargrove at sunset in a denim jacket — Billy

Suzie in a nightgown, cheering into a telephone receiver — Suzie, do you copy

The NeverEnding Story duet is one of my favourite things in the show. The world is ending, Dustin needs a number out of his girlfriend, and Suzie will not hand it over until he sings the whole thing with her. Everyone else just has to stand there and wait.

The whole group leaning over a table with figures set out on it — Everyone in one room, finally

Season four

Season four was the peak. It was epic, all around. There were three or four different stories running at the same time, and they all met in one place at the end.

In Hawkins there was Dustin, Steve, Nancy and that group. In California the Byers were roaming around with the pizza delivery guy. Eleven was somewhere else entirely with Doctor Brenner, trying to get her powers back. And in Russia, Joyce and Hopper were trying to escape.

Four separate threads, and all four came together at the end. It was really, really awesome.

Hopper and Joyce in heavy winter coats inside a dark facility — Russia

Eleven sitting across a chess board from a man in white in a laboratory — The lab, again

Dustin and Eddie back to back holding weapons in the Upside Down — Hawkins, underneath

Hopper, Alexei and Joyce standing together looking upward — Three people who should not be in the same frame

Murray Bauman waving, in a puffer jacket — Bauman

Murray Bauman is the friend of Joyce and Hopper who actually knew how to speak Russian, and he is the one who took Joyce to Alaska. The whole Russia thread does not work without him. He starts as a joke and turns into the person the plot depends on.

Argyle standing in the desert holding a golf club — The pizza delivery guy

Jonathan Byers aiming a revolver — Jonathan, out of his depth and going anyway

The boarded up Creel house under a grey sky — The Creel house

The action was good, and it was really scary how Vecna showed up. The way he pulled his targets in and went through their heads is what created the emotion. He does not chase anyone. He waits until they are already carrying something and then walks in through it.

Season four earned every hour it took.

Max lifted into the air above a headstone while three friends sit below — Running up that hill

Hellfire

Eddie Munson pulling a face with his hands above his head

Nancy Wheeler in a pink shirt, looking off camera

Steve at a radio station desk wearing headphones

Season five

Season five disturbed me, and not in the way it was trying to.

From season one they built the Upside Down as this quiet, wrong, frightening place. By season five you are looking at an entire military base built on top of it. That is too much.

The other thing is personal. I am not a big fan of homosexuality, and Will coming out did not feel necessary to this story at all. It felt like some kind of push of an ideology, and I did not like it. I actually started hating Will in season five, because he almost ruined that thing for me.

And they made Vecna weak. Across the whole series they fought him hard and it was tough every single time. Then in season five some of them go into the other dimension and he is finished almost instantly. It felt too easy for such a massive villain, the one the entire franchise was built on.

Season five was a loser. Everything up to season four was awesome.

Max standing in tall grass with another girl at sunset — Somewhere that is not Hawkins

A young woman raising a shotgun in red light — The last fight

Steve Harrington in a dark room, lit from one side

The sound of it

The music is half the show. Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein wrote the score, and Kids from season one is the one I keep going back to. The First I Love You from season three is the other. The background pieces do more work than people give them credit for.

Then the songs. Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush, which season four handed back to the entire world. And Every Breath You Take by The Police, which plays at the Snow Ball at the end of season two and then returns in season four inside Max's head. Both are great.

Mr Clarke teaching in front of a blackboard — Mr Clarke, who answered every question honestly

Steve in sunglasses and Dustin walking along a road — The duo, still going

Steve at his car with Robin, Dustin and Max — Whoever ends up in the car is the party that day

The ones who stayed

Nancy Wheeler was a badass. She turns up as an ordinary, soft girl and ends up one of the toughest people in Hawkins. That was really awesome to watch.

Max Mayfield was the baddest character in it. I really loved her. Erica Sinclair was interesting every single time she was on screen, and Robin was great once she arrived. Lucas Sinclair and Mike Wheeler and the rest of them held it together.

And Dustin Henderson, who I could not stand in season one, ended up as one of my favourites. That is the show working on you without asking permission.

The two things I did not care for were the relationships. Jonathan and Nancy never worked for me, and neither did Mike and Eleven.

Maelle 003 · End of entry

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