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Dolfan in NYC

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I really felt like this season fell off a cliff midway through.  I enjoyed the first 4 episodes where it felt like the show was transitioning to almost an old school sitcom “hang out” format, but the last half of the season was super plot-y and all that fun character stuff fell to the wayside.  A lot of characters were underserved by the plot mechanics and expanding cast.

I thought the late season Hopper/Joyce/Smirnoff/Gelman grouping was the absolute pits.  As mentioned, Gelman is best in small doses, but Hopper and Joyce shrieking at each other nonstop was not a good time either.  And I didn’t even think the Smirnoff stuff was as charming as the Duffers seemed to think it was.  On top of that, you had Great Value Terminator showing up constantly in their storyline, who fucking sucked.

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19 hours ago, EVA said:

I really felt like this season fell off a cliff midway through.  I enjoyed the first 4 episodes where it felt like the show was transitioning to almost an old school sitcom “hang out” format, but the last half of the season was super plot-y and all that fun character stuff fell to the wayside.  A lot of characters were underserved by the plot mechanics and expanding cast.

I thought the late season Hopper/Joyce/Smirnoff/Gelman grouping was the absolute pits.  As mentioned, Gelman is best in small doses, but Hopper and Joyce shrieking at each other nonstop was not a good time either.  And I didn’t even think the Smirnoff stuff was as charming as the Duffers seemed to think it was.  On top of that, you had Great Value Terminator showing up constantly in their storyline, who fucking sucked.

I feel pretty much the same. I wasn't as high on this season as the majority. I felt like Steve maybe got too over in the previous seasons, so they stuck him in the mid-card and threw a stupid outfit on him to cool him off. 

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watched the 3 seasons in under a week..

Joyce sorta went in the "Lois from Malcolm in the Middle" direction at times during S3. Neither Byers son really did much with their season 3.

Season 3 sorta had a Spiderman 3 sort of thing where they were trying to do two simultaneous storylines where it got sort of implausible that either could be overcome. Also it kinda got to the point where it felt like the writers put things in such a corner that they went with "just have Eleven show up and do stuff" to get out of danger. Aside from when they went to "just have Dustin show up and somehow save Steve/Robin"

Leaving aside the argument about "Russians in Indiana in the mid-80s" since this is a show where there's a monster controlling people and all. The base under the mall aspect may have not been very subtle in a few ways.

The Flayer's plan to get Eleven was sorta flawed. Okay, you have Billy, and his stepsister is a friend of the people you want to get, and the plan to lure them in involves having Billy go for a lifeguard and her newspaper editor father. Like the Flayer was more concerned about making sure he stayed out of the newspapers than actually getting into the loop of the friends.

Then again, I guess the plan to lock Billy in a sauna until something.. or "I should lock myself in a room to get away from this liquid monster" plans weren't smart either, so..

Nancy having mid-80s Madonna hair for an entire season was neat.

Getting outside of Hawkins means what.. a season where Eleven/Will/Jon/Joyce are one of the clusters having to deal with things. Will the long burn of Episode 7 of S2 lead to having some of those characters showing up again.

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Bumping this because my wife and I made the decision to let my daughter watch Stranger Things. She just turned 11 and we had been on the fence for letting her watch it. We figured she could handle it though.

Man, this series is so fucking good. Season 1 and 2 both suffer from some of the typical Netflix series padding, but on the whole, they really hold up. The worst part of season 2 is still Dustin thinking the pollywog could be good or not putting 2 and 2 together and realizing it's another interdimensional monster. That lasted shorter than I remember though. Right now we're up to episode 7, which is the first big action packed episode that has a really sad ending. I'm not sure I'm ready for that again.

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4 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Jesus fuck...

 

EDIT -- Oh, and in hilarious news, there's a new Monopoly Stranger Things tie-in game that apparently spoils all of season 4.  

Swapping “ Go to Jail” for “Eleven Dies” was a bit much.

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On 5/20/2022 at 11:20 AM, Dolfan in NYC said:

Jesus fuck...

 

EDIT -- Oh, and in hilarious news, there's a new Monopoly Stranger Things tie-in game that apparently spoils all of season 4.  

Wow, so the last 3 episodes are basically movies. That is fucking insane.

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Reminds me of the Sherlock BBC series, but even then those episodes were all around 90 minutes I think and definitely nothing close to 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Whatever though. I'm here for it all.

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Watched the first two episodes. 
 

Spoiler

First I don’t care about Nancy and the older brother of the kid who went into the Upside Down, they’re pretty much the Stranger Things version of the Brody kids from Homeland.

Who they hell was Chrissy and the kid with glasses from the school paper? We’re they in previous seasons?

Roller rinks in 1986 didn’t play music from 1986, if you were lucky you might have gotten some tunes from 1981.

I’m all in on a powerless El dealing with 1980’s movie bullies, 

 

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Posting this while watching Episode 6, don't click if you don't want spoilers

Spoiler

Season 4 is a bit darker than Season 3 and a bit more demony and less Soviety.

I know exactly why they had a warning about the first scene due to the Uvalde shooting, but this entire show is sorta built on the concept of teenagers being traumatized by death and near-death so, if you're watching ST with recent trauma, that's your decision but it's more than the first scene that'll fuck you up

They've split the crew to start the year as opposed to splitting them as the season goes on. They further split the crew to send Winona and the bald/beard guy off on Hopper duty on a plot line that I don't really give a fuck about and it's pretty much the tertiary storyline while you have the main crew dealing with Vecna and the government trying to traumatize Eleven into getting her powers back.

There's a lot of Maya Hawke/Natalia Dyer scenes for any of you who like pretty ladies in your suspense series. More Robin/Nancy than Robin/Steve when it comes to investigating.

Naturally Max doesn't die in episode 4. Thanks Kate Bush for providing a good deus ex machina to get out of the demon being totally unstoppable.

The Basketball Team being the vigilante force trying to solve crimes is the closest thing to hilarity so far and that's unintentional. The D&D panic stuff is to remind you that this is actually set in the 80s.

Everybody has horrendous hair in this season, it's really extraordinary

Pretty much Hopper had to stay alive or else Winona wouldn't really have anything to do and she would be in the way of the California contingent of the crew. But seriously, the Hopper storyline is just really uninteresting so far and it sorta exists to give the rest of the story a breather.

The Neverending Story girl is back because the doofier part of the crew has to do stuff while outside of Hawkins.

They sorta have a logical challenge of making the first 7 chapters good enough that people will want to watch the last 2. 

Before I see the end of Chapter 7, lemme guess that it involves cliffhanger peril and then the government is able to harness Eleven to save the rest of the cast in the last 2 episodes.

Edit: Okay cool, Nancy/Robin/Steve/Eddie are in the Upside Down. Also the Russia stuff is going somewhere, i'm sure.

Edit 2: okay cool, we end the May episodes with plot development as it’ll be Eleven vs Vecna in episodes 8/9 with some personal issues occurring. And goodness does Vecna love laying on the guilt trips.

 

Edited by Cobra Commander
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And we’re done with all 7 episodes. Fucking outstanding. Vecna may be one of the best tv villains ever. Which, given his namesake from D&D, he damn well should be.

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Finished watching all 7 episodes earlier tonight with my brother. Absolutely loving it so far even if some plot are a bit weaker than the main. Was nice to see how things came together to explain Vecna. Can't wait to see the final episodes come July.

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On 5/29/2022 at 1:57 PM, Craig H said:

I fucking cried so much at the end of episode 4. I’ll never be and to hear Running Up That Hill the same way again.

Just finished that episode, and I couldn't  believe how powerful that scene ended up being. Max has lowkey been the standout this season.

Loving the Nightmare on Elm Street vibe of this season.

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This season being almost this perfect depiction of battling depression, feelings of worth, and thoughts of suicide is something that hits incredibly hard. Max seeing, realizing, and knowing she's loved and then her first three words when she gets back just totally broke me down. 

Yeah, if I were to pick an MVP for this season it would be Max, but I love of all of these characters so much. The Duffers also continue to hit home runs with the new characters they add. Eddie and Argyle are both so different, but I love them both. I didn't think I was going to like Eddie much at first, but then I quickly thought, shit, I knew so many people like him in high school. Not the exaggerated guy in the lunch room, but the person he is when he's away from everyone. 

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The new characters work, but I'm also a big fan of how well the Duffers play with the pairings each season. They are smart to not move Dustin and Steve from each other, and I really dig the Nancy/Robin pairing this season.

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