I’m guilty of jumping on the bandwagon hype of the show. IMDb users rates the show with an average of 9.1/10 making me push through with watching a genre I’m not really fond of.
So Stranger Things is a Netflix original show that aired July 15, 2016. Story starts as a young boy vanishes and his best friends go on a mission to find him but they found a strange little girl instead.
The 80’s meets ET – I love how they brought the nostalgia of the 80’s and brought it to the digital age. But I’m gonna be honest, I wasn’t hooked until the second half of episode 3. The first two episodes were a little dead to me. Typically I would have abolished the idea of watching within the first 5 minutes of the show, but I was encouraged by almost everyone to watch it and the ratings on IMDb doesn’t fail me. And so I did and I hope I did.
It’s not too obvious but I’m a huge Game of Thrones fan,and I say it’s the best show ever. Stranger Things doesn’t level to that, it’s incomparable, but it’s definitely something to watch that won’t make you regret it. GOT nudges my standards up higher, but Stranger Things is something I’d recommend anyhow.
**WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT**
Firsthand, I was a little worried that they introduced too much characters that some of them would be left flat. But as the story progresses, despite some of them only having limited scripts, the directors didn’t fail to give a little more personality to each one.
Characters
Okay, I’m sorry, but Mike is probably my least favorite character. That’s probably because he’s too nice of a kid and has a very protagonist role. But still, he didn’t fail to stand up and protect his friends and even sacrifice himself for them despite the dangerous situation.
This adorable kid Dustin, at first he was my least likeable character because he seemed a little weird and dumb, like a decoration cast. But he definitely rises up to his character when he figures out about the gate and the compass. He also acted as the mature one to come between his friends who don’t see eye-to-eye. Closer to the end of the season, he turn out to be my favorite character because he throws just the perfect lines for my taste.
Lucas is the only rational kid from the group. He was seeing all the situations as an adult, meeting El to marking her as a traitor. Despite him being wrong in that theory, he was the most realistic one from the lot.
I love Eleven‘s acting. She doesn’t say much but her expressions says a lot about what’s going on in her head and how she reacts to her environment. She copes up with the situation, is protective of her new found friends and has learned about being a normal kid through the three boys.
My first impression with Steve came off a little rough. His character was very much that of popular guys who bully the nerds. He was a total D and a pervy teenager. I was surprised that his character was given a realistic flaw and that he came to his senses later on as a better person in the show… and that he smacks that thing.
Nancy reminds me of Sansa Stark of Game of Thrones where she developed a character from a whiny teenager to a strong and smart lady. Jonathan came out to be a loving brother and son who came to be a mature character who stands in place of his dad.
I was actually surprised that the directors went away from producing a cliche romance plot where Nancy and Jonathan ends up together even though they did have a kissing scene that didn’t make it to the cut.
Hopper is a loving dad. Despite lacking with his daughter’s backstory, we can clearly see how he is greatly affected by it. He’s given a flaw that makes him weak despite his very courageous character. I was surprised that the Hawkin’s Lab didn’t kill him off especially since he didn’t tell anyone about the situation. They could have faked a story just like Will and Barb’s. But let’s see who and what kind of secret project he’s actually working with.
A really loving mother. Joyce Byers ensembles all the mothers out there who would stop at nothing even if the world tells her otherwise. I was so close to the thought that she would lose her mind but she came out to be a strong woman who cared for his children more than anything… even if tapping the conscience of her boss into getting ridiculous things no one understood.
Plot
The plot wasn’t very predictable. Sure, we know that it’s the protagonists who saves the day and probably not much of them would die even as the series progresses because GRRM isn’t the director, but the path it took to get to the ending – saving Will, was a little more complicated than how it seems.
Of course we knew that Mike jumping off the cliff would bring Eleven to use her telekinesis and that Lucas leaving the group to follow the compass that leads to the gate tells us that it would lead to something more, but that was greatly part of all the character’s personality development and the whole plot of the story.
I hate the fact that even a short period of time wasn’t allotted into giving Terry Ives some clearance that her daughter Jane is alive as Eleven. We could see how Joyce was very affected on the disappearance of Will but Terry had experienced much worse when Jane was taken from her. The least we could have done was at least show a few seconds to let her know that fact.
Maybe, one thing that made me hate the show was that everyone loses their mind when Will vanishes, but no one seem to care as much when Barbara, Nancy’s best friend, went missing. Sure it could have been happening off-screen, but Will got much much more attention that could have been shared to Barbara.
Eleven isn’t gone for good and Dr. Brenner isn’t dead. There’s more to the story than just getting Will back or killing that odd single monster. Dr. Brenner must have something up his sleeves as his last facial expression didn’t show any remorse. Eleven bid goodbye to Mike at the end because she knew what she was up to but she probably teleported herself with the monster or used some other abilities we have yet to know. We can see that at the end when Will went to wash his hands but coughed a parasite out of its mouth.
Like I said, horror and suspense isn’t really my kind of binge watching, but Stranger Things made sure to give the show something that just isn’t about scaring or surprising viewers. It doesn’t level to Game of Thrones, but it has it’s own uniqueness that makes you want to just marathon the whole thing. I got used to the fact that people were just giving too much praise to a not-so-great show, I did get my hopes up pretty high due to that, but it didn’t go too much below of what I had in mind.
I never thought I’ll say this, but it will be a show I’ll look forward to just like Game of Thrones.
Life and Lemons 