Wise Words for You

This review is spoiler-free for  Stranger Things  season 3 and is based on all eight episodes. Although the residents of Hawkins, Indiana show remarkable resilience in recovering from nearly annual monster attacks,  Stranger Things  season 3 shows no intention of slowing down or backing off. In fact, when the series returns to  Netflix  on July 4, 2019, it will capitalize on the various main characters’ ability to notice when things are amiss even when others might not be as suspicious. The Mind Flayer still has a strategy or two to hatch, and thanks to a new bit of help from our side of the breach, its presence will be felt very quickly and in fact will end up feeling much creepier than last season, evoking more of what gave season 1 its vintage 80s horror movie feel. One thing  Stranger Things  continues to excel at is allowing different teams of characters to tackle the Upside Down scourge from a variety of angles without necessarily cro...

The first season of  Stranger Things  came as a total surprise. Although that wasn’t the only great thing about it, the unexpectedness did make all of its other appealing qualities — the ‘80s-soaked production values, its excellent cast of young newcomers, the unbearable tragedy of Barb — that much more pronounced. It was great television, and the fact that it felt so under the radar — for a week or two, at least — made it even greater. The second season of  Stranger Things , created by the no-longer-unknown Matt and Ross Duffer, obviously doesn’t have the same out-of-nowhere quality working in its favor. Given the omnipresence of the  Stranger Things  kids, the internet’s fixation on spoilers, the trailers that sparked internet freak-outs, the existence of  Stranger Things –inspired bars, and the fact that it’s impossible to enter a Halloween store right now without being encouraged to dress up as Elev...

“Why are you keeping this curiosity-door lock ed?”, demands a mock-exasperated Dustin toward the end of Stranger Things’ run. It’s a wonderful, small moment, in a show built equally of the sweeping and the intricate. Dustin, although only around 12 years old, seems fully aware of the forthright silliness of his wording, just as he is confident of its unassailability as an argument to a trusted, benevolent science mentor. It’s playful, but it’s smart. It’s whimsical, but it’s insightful and realistic. It encapsulates confident, youthful self-belief triumphing over ‘safer’, middle-aged doubt.  It encapsulates a lot of what Stranger Things is about. But crucially, it emphasizes the importance of opening that door, implicitly comparing the strength of those who do against the lesser capability of the unwilling.  Taking place in late-November Indiana, 1983, Stranger Things’ setting is as much its fabric as it is its scenario, the Duffer Brothers’ Netflix series as much...