Warning: Major Spoilers for Stranger Things Season 3 Below
Stranger Things has easily become one of the most revered Netflix shows of all time, in all its synth-80s-nostalgic-horror glory. Every actor – particularly the kids on the show – is incredible, and Stranger Things embodies the current era of prestige television to a T. Over two seasons and beyond we’ve seen Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp, and Caleb McLaughlin grow from teeny kids to teenagers, and it truly makes viewers feel like we are going on the journey alongside these characters in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana.
The nearly two-year break between Seasons 2 and 3 left fans impatiently anticipating more. One of the many things I love about the show is that it is tightly written: there has never been more than a maximum of 9 episodes per season, making it easily binge-able. It also means that there is no filler; that every moment you see on screen is important. Each episode is hour-long, making Stranger Things feel like a series of films rather than a show.
Season 3 was no different. The stakes were higher, emotions more intense, characters more realized, and though there were a few discrepancies, it was a strong season overall. Billy – Max’s brother – becomes the main host for the Mind Flayer, which has returned due to the re-opening of the gate. The re-opening has happened because Russian spies have built a secret base beneath Hawkin’s new mall (it’s 1984, so still Cold War era), and have built a machine to force the gate open. The reason is, presumably, to create a portal between the Upside Down and the real world, to make sneaking into other countries more feasible. And as per usual, the kids, teenagers, and adults all venture on their own journeys to stop Hawkins from being destroyed by the Upside Down, eventually coming together to stop the Mind Flayer.
It’s no surprise that every one of the kids – Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Max, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan – were a delight to watch. Jim Hopper is grumpier than usual, but with the addition of overprotective fatherly instincts over El, his adopted daughter. Joyce is much more confident in this season, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and Murray Bauman appears in all his sarcastic, weird, wondrous glory. This season also brought in some amazing new characters, such as Lucas’ younger sister Erica (who is an absolute delight and straight-up comedic gold), and Steve’s co-worker at Scoops Ahoy, Robin.
Let’s take a moment to talk about Robin. Played by Maya Hawke, Robin is super smart (she’s able to crack a secret Russian code within a matter of hours), witty, and hilarious. We see the progression of Robin and Steve’s relationship over eight episodes, hinting more and more towards a romantic possibility between the two. In Episode 6, Robin admits, under the influence of a truth serum, that she used to be obsessed with Steve in high school. However, in Episode 7 (“The Bite”), Steve and Robin have a heart-to-heart, in which he sweetly conveys his romantic feelings towards her. It seems to be a classic romance moment, one that we all knew was coming from the moment we saw Steve and Robin banter at work in the first episode. And then: Robin comes out. She admits to Steve that she was never attracted to him, rather, was attracted to the girl that would always stare at Steve in class and was desperately upset by this.
It’s a magical moment. Steve, in all his slowness, doesn’t quite understand what Robin is telling him at first. Maya Hawke delivers a heartrending performance, the emotions on her face a mixture of the anticipation, wariness, and quiet relief. And then, Steve understands. He seems affected at first, and viewers desperately hope that he doesn’t come at Robin with a homophobic response. There’s a long pause. And then, in a beautiful and relieving moment, Steve gets over his heartbreak. Instead of griping about his feelings or obsessing over Robin’s sexuality, he jokingly ribs the girl she liked, Tammy, for her inability to sing. He breaks the tension entirely, and the two lightheartedly share laughs about Tammy’s singing. This was probably one of my favourite moments in the entire season. The writers completely subvert heteronormative romance storylines and simultaneously avoid making a huge dramatic deal out of Robin being queer. It’s incredible because Robin is the first openly queer character on the show, and honestly, the Steve and Robin pairing would have been so predictable that it would end up being a boring and played out choice.
The final episode brought tears across the board when Joyce has to make the difficult decision to close the gate. Hopper has just fought off a terrifyingly strong Russian hit-man, and can’t make it back to safety in time, standing right next to the gate and the machine that’s keeping the gate open. He looks at Joyce, tears in his eyes, nodding knowingly that he will be sacrificing himself. It’s a moment of disbelief because Hopper – alongside Eleven – is the heart of this show. Surely enough, Joyce turns the key, and the other Russians who have been working on the project are disintegrated. We don’t actually see Hopper die, but when Joyce looks back to where he was standing, assumes that he has also disintegrated. Though I wouldn’t say that Hopper’s death is entirely unpredictable, due to the moments of closure he got both with El and with Joyce finally agreeing to go on a date with him, it was still hard to bear.
The day has been saved, however; the Mind Flayer is dead, and Billy sacrificed himself to ensure that El wouldn’t get flayed. After a series of heartbreaking moments, in which El realizes Hopper is dead, the show cuts to three months later. Joyce is moving out of her home in Hawkins to go to Chicago, and because El no longer has Hopper as her guardian, is now part of the Byers family. It’s a tearful, emotional goodbye between the group. Joyce comes across a written speech that Hopper wrote at the beginning of the season (under Joyce’s instructions) when he attempts to confront El and Mike about their relationship, and gives it to El to read. While it starts off robotically, we eventually see Hopper write out his true feelings, taking an emotional turn while he tells El that he’s having a hard time letting go as she grows up, but ultimately accepts and supports her no matter what. It’s truly a great moment because it shows just how close the father-daughter bond has become between El and Hopper. Season 3 ends with the Byers and El moving out of Hawkins, the other kids slowly biking back to their respective homes. And then, of course, a secret scene: the cliffhanger we need to lead us into Season 4. In a Russian prison, we see a prisoner being taken to a cell where he is eaten by a Demogorgon. But that’s not all: when the guards are going up to the prisoner’s cell, they almost open another one mistakenly, when one interjects “No, not the American”. This is a huge indicator that Hopper might very well be alive.
I’ve learned to trust in the TV and film rule that you should never believe someone is dead until you see the body. (Even then, there are exceptions. See: every CW show ever). Until I see tangible proof that Hopper is gone – though the writers were smart in making the other people disintegrate amidst the explosion, making it hard to come up with hard evidence – I won’t believe it. Largely because he is such an important part of the show, but also largely because of the ambiguity of his death. It’s very likely that he jumped into the Upside Down before the gate closed, and either this led to a portal in Russia where he was imprisoned (and is the aforementioned “American”) or that he’s trapped in the Upside Down. While I desperately hope that Hopper is still alive, the impact of his death at the end of Season 3 was hard-hitting, sentimental, and ultimately made it feel like the consequences of Stranger Things are more real than ever. The writers were extremely smart in writing his death, though, because it makes the possibilities completely open for the future.
In regards to the character of Billy, I’d say I didn’t feel quite the level of sympathy for him that the writers might have intended. In episode 6, El uses her powers to look for Billy and taps into his consciousness and sees a tragic history of abuse he endured from his father, which led to his mother leaving the family. It’s all very sad and speaks to the vicious, cyclical nature of abuse. But frankly, Billy is still kind of a bad guy. In Season 2, from the moment he was introduced, he’s never shown any ounce of goodness. He has always been menacing, aggressive, and full of nothing but rage (let’s not forget his flat out racist moment when he warned Max to stay away from Lucas because he’s black). I’ve never once doubted that Billy could kill someone out of blind rage without batting an eye, even before the Mind Flayer took him as a host. So, at the moment where El is able to reach Billy in the final episode despite his possession, and he manages to fight against the Mind Flayer and ends up sacrificing himself to save El, my sympathy was only momentary. The decency that he showed was too little too late. He’s always given off a sleazy, malevolent vibe, and that’s probably why the Mind Flayer chose him to be the figurehead for the army. Perhaps we were never intended to feel a strong sense of sympathy for Billy, but I’d say the complete lack of basic morality inside Billy before his possession made his sacrifice and death somewhat underwhelming.
Though I would have liked a bit more exploration as to what the Upside Down actually is and how it was created, I’m assuming that will be explored in Season 4. I will say that there were some slow moments this season, particularly within the first few episodes. It’s also becoming increasingly harder to shock viewers the same way Season 1 did, though I do enjoy the continuity of the show and the commitment to keeping the Upside Down as the main conflict. I think what the creators are doing now is focusing on the complexities and unpredictability of specific character arcs rather than the overarching theme, which I can appreciate.
Things that I did enjoy: the numerous amount of product placement in this season and the dedication to portraying these brands accurately as per the 80s, Dustin and Suzie singing the “Neverending Story” song on their walkies, Erica in general, Will’s Mind Flayer Spidey Sense, Eleven being more of a badass than ever, Hopper and Joyce yelling at each other in moments of crisis, and Murray speaking Russian. All in all, I’ve loved this series as a whole, and the way Season 3 unfolded has really solidified Stranger Things as an epic saga. I truly cannot wait to see how this series ends, whether it’s after Season 4 or if it extends to a Season 5, and I know that no matter what the creators decide to do with the content, it will be a wild, nostalgic, crazy ride ’til the end.
~ Z ~
Photo by Rafal Werczynski on Unsplash
