‘Where there’s a Will…’ Stranger Things mid-volume has Trouble in Mind…

Three more episodes of Stranger Things‘ final season/volume dropped on Christmas Day ahead of the feature-length 31st December finale. It may feel like the spacing of this final run is a little off, but given that most of us can barely remember what day of the week it is over the holidays, that can mostly be forgiven.

Those with very short memories will recall that we left our heroes in the aftermath of Will hacking into Vecna’s abilities and saving his friends from imminent death. That’s all fine and dandy, but the bigger threat isn’t over, so what happens next and will it involve Kate Bush?

Episode 5 ‘Shock Jock‘ gives our ensemble a few minutes to breath after Will’s last-minute save and power-upgrade and discussing a range of options as they realise the anniversary of Will’s original disappearance is about to get an anniversary and the conclusion of Vecna’s plans. The next two episodes ‘Escape from Camazotz’ and ‘The Bridge‘ build on the subsequent revelations about the true nature of the Upside Down. (Our baddie now has most of the kids he needs for his diabolical plan – or, at least, has most of them in place, despite Holly and Max’s attempts to thwart him. Yes, as fans would demand, Max finally makes it back to the land of the living (by way of more whispers of Kate Bush, Holly’s indomitable determination and nods to The First Shadow, the series’ officially-sanctioned  stage/theatre prequel) and Sadie Sink certainly gives Millie Bobbie Brown’s Eleven a run for her money as MVP at the moment, even with Max’s body still broken.  Holly (Nell Fisher), sadly, remains trapped when her exit route doesn’t lead home. We get some kind of for-the-moment resolution to the only mildly-irritating love triangle between Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Steve (Joe Keery), with the first two confessing their love and doubts as they think they’re about to die. (And Nancy/Natalia showing extra fiery initiative in the Discover credit-card commercials tie-in). Cara Buono as Karen Wheeler also gets another triumphant moment protecting the kids. With the likes of Max, Karen, Robin and Nancy being so pro-active this season, it’s nice to see female roles that are as strong as their male counterparts (sometimes more so) but still believable in the context of the story.

Over the holiday season, I’ve also watched both versions of IT which underlines the nostalgic Tetris that Stranger Things has become. The show continues to rattle off and treasure the connective tissue that many a show throws to the wind, to the extent that there does sometimes feel like a list of plot-devices that need to be referenced and influences to be ticked off.  Vecna’s layer… yeah, that’s suspiciously like a tracing of the Skeksis’ castle in The Dark Crystal, the downgraded-to-grunt-duty demagorgans (continuing to look like a cross between the hyenas from The Lion King and the war-wolves from Marvel Comics‘ early Excalibur run) make the ‘surviving the kitchen’ scene a direct riff on Jurassic Park and the mindscape is all kinds of Alice in Wonderland  – but these are all openly nods to iconic origins, so it’s more an over-effusive love letter to the genre rather than outright theft. Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time also continues to be an important touchstone to the extent that the Episode Six title namechecks the book’s fantastical land. (But I’m truly surprised no-one’s yet entered the Upside Down through the back of a wardrobe – maybe there’s still time for Narnia…). The moment where Robin has to convince her girlfriend Vicki (Amybeth McNulty) about the kaleidoscopic plot to date and Viki’s very logical response – especially as a nurse – is “What drug are you in withdrawl from?‘ underlines the fact the show has become more complicated in its narratives but that there’s plenty of people in Hawkins who are probably still shrugging off events as weird but not that weird.

Of course, in some quarters, there was the inevitable accusations of The Bridge being too ‘woke’ (a word with so fluid a definition that it’s nowadays used to describe a concept that the individual wants to hate but can’t explain why and which may change daily. Honestly, how long before we get ‘The good guys won? That’s so woke!‘ as their foot-stomping, pearl-clutching lament?). In particular was the revelation that Will was gay.  The thing is, anyone complaining about a forced, overt storyline here either has the memory of a goldfish or doesn’t get the underdog maxim that the show has had since launch. As far back as the first season – and even from his own father – there were derogatory comments about Will’s possible sexuality and it’s being alluded to a various points throughout the run but rarely getting in the way of the wide plot. It began to solidify in the last episodes of the fourth season. Here, as the series gets close to drawing to a close, Vecna is actively using the kids’ fears and insecurities against them and the fact that Robin offers him non-judgemental friendship and experience and Will ‘comes out’ to his family and friends and they (thankfully) say they still love him… and it changes nothing  for them is a double-win for our heroes. It negates Vecna’s use of Will’s ‘secret’ as a weapon to be used against Will and also reaffirms that real family don’t care about it as long as he’s happy. It’s a powerful scene – delivered with real emotional wallop by Noah Schnapp – but just one in a season full of people finding out what makes them tick and how to survive monsters (both human and supernatural). Some will say the 80s were, in reality, far less forgiving of outliers at that point… yes,but the 80s were also, in reality, not plagued by multi-dimensional monsters and super-powered governmental projects, so c’est la vie and fa la la la la.

The cast continues to be expansive, to the extent that I was pleasantly surprised so many are catered for, but that we don’t have more significant deaths so far – I was presuming at least one of the main core of younger characters would have met their demise. There’s too many characters to name-check in a review without it sounding like a Who’s Who, but they all do  pretty well (That being said, Linnea Berthelsen’s Kali seems to have very little to do except suspiciously undermine Eleven’s plans and screen heroine and hard-ass Linda Hamilton does feel like under-used stunt-casting given that she’s really had nothing to do but bark a few orders. If she’s anything more significant we have only two more hours to find out).

I’m enjoying this final run, even if it sometimes feels over-reverential to the genre. Early-negative-review-bombing seems disingenuous and hasn’t helped, neither has the rumour of many deleted scenes and calls for a longer ‘Duffer Cut’ to reinsert them – which seems ridiculous as all shows and films have edits for the sake of the final product and there seems no truth that the fundamental shape of the finale has been changed. But the end is nigh… or rather Night and New Year’s Eve night to be specific.

So, what’s next? Is Kali conniving; is Vecna going to be vanquished, is Eleven going to get eradicated or is all this death and destruction merely D&D with a RND budget???? Nearly two hours left to stick the landing… well, stranger things have happened.

Prtevious review: When A Stranger (Thing) calls: Can Netflix’s genre giant join all its dots..? – echochamber.online