Wise Words for You

“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...