Stranger Things 2
(2017)
(SPOILERS) It would be very easy to uncritically adore Stranger Things. When it first filtered
into my awareness it was still called Montauk,
and I made a mental note to follow its fortunes due to that connection to the holy
grail of unholy conspiratorial government projects (as noted in my Season One review, and it’s an aspect that curiously seems to be entirely not discussed by anyone involved for
whatever reason, despite Eleven being a pretty clear gender-swapped
carry-through). Perhaps because my immediate attention lay there, much of the
subsequent negative conversation, relegating the show to no more than an ’80s genre
pastiche, didn’t really vibe with me. Sure, there were references, but it was
more than such relatively minor parts. Season Two, or rather Stranger Things 2, initially seems set
on confirming the worst preconceptions of everyone who laid that charge at its
curiosity door. Indeed, it had me immediately thinking sequelitis, so it’s
gratifying that it can ultimately lay claim to building on the original in the
manner most pay lip service to being essential but few actually manage: by
focusing on its characters.
Random School Kid:
Who you gonna call? The nerds.
Admittedly, I was entirely unconvinced by the need for a
second run, as the show felt perfectly positioned as a one-off. A follow up
seemed poised to tap into exactly the most surface level response to its
Amblin-by-way-of-Stephen King sensibility. And that concern, of an unabashed
nostalgia trip, looked to be what the Duffers were proffering in 2.1 (Madmax) and 2.2 (Trick or Treat, Freak), complete with shameless Ghostbusters-themed Halloween costuming.
Lucas: I specifically DIDN’T agree to be Winston.
No one wants to be Winston, man.
The Duffers take their time introducing a selection of new
characters, notably Max (Sadie Sink), her stepbrother Billy (Dacre Montgomery),
Dr Brenner replacement Dr Owens (Paul Reiser) and Joyce’s safe new boyfriend
Bob (Sean Astin). The younger recruits can’t claim to be as successfully
defined as their peers from last year, however. Max may be great at arcade
games, and skateboarding, but she’s essentially established as the object of Lucas and Dustin’s
attentions. Which makes it fitting that she ends up with Lucas, as he was the
least well defined of the original quartet.
As such, the Winston conversation is a tad ironic, since
Lucas is rather given a second fiddle romance (to the distant yearnings of Mike
and Eleven) to make him stand out. Adding insult to injury, we get to see his
family, and they’re hilarious. Little sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) steals
every scene she’s in (her timing when she mouths “Nerd” is impeccable). And, as with the other briefly sketched out
parents in the show (aside from Joyce, obviously), the Duffers make Mr (Arnell
Powell) and Mrs Sinclair (Karen Ceesay) marvellously memorable in only the
briefest of exchanges, as Lucas asks his dad how goes about making amends with
his mum when they have a disagreement.
Mr Sinclair: First, I apologise. Then, I get her whatever
she wants.
Lucas: Even when she’s wrong?
Mr Sinclair: She’s never wrong, son.
Mrs Sinclair: That’s right.
Sink can’t be faulted, but the Duffers haven’t managed to
make Max seem essential to the group; indeed, her best line could have come
from anyone, a very meta breakdown of the previous season’s events/ critiques
thereof when Lucas decides to let her into his confidence (“I just thought it was a little derivative in
parts… I just had a few issues with originality”).
Billy’s issues aren’t that he doesn’t stand out, but that he
stands out in the wrong way. The Duffers wanted to write a villain more aligned
with how they initially envisaged Steve (until Joe Keery’s performance led them
to moderate him towards a redeemable character), and they can boast success in an
entirely one-dimensional fashion. Well, aside from the scene in 2.8 (The Mind Flayer) when we meet dad Neil
(Will Chase) and get an insight into why Billy is the way he is (“What did we… talk about?” asks old man
Hargrove, pinning his son against the wall: “Respect and responsibility” comes the reply through gritted teeth).
There are early intimations that Billy’s driving rage may derive from repressed
sexuality (his antagonism towards Steve, the shower scene where he calls him “pretty boy”, the pointed manner in which
his father suggests he is “a faggot”
for spending so much time looking in the mirror), but given the brothers expressly
wanted to present him as a sociopath, any amelioration or resulting
self-awareness doesn’t seem to be on the cards.
Billy: I didn’t realise Nancy had a sister.
As such, Billy’s pretty much there to be outright loathed or
mocked. Montgomery (a Power Ranger) wholeheartedly embraces the opportunity to
portray him as a horrifying exemplar of all that’s wrong with ‘80s trends and
fashions – body building, mullets, soft rock. Hilariously, he even chain-smokes
while pumping iron. He’s also given a most amusing, inverse Mrs Robinson scene
in which he makes overtures to Cara
Buono’s Mrs Wheeler (a mention too for Joe Chrest’s Ted Wheeler, another parent
superbly defined in miniature: when Dustin calls looking for the absent Mike,
he drolly responds “Our children don’t
live here anymore. Can I go now?”) Generally, Billy’s function and
presentation is entirely crude, and as such effective (the alt-mirroring with
Steve comes to a head in the finale episode, where, rather than being revealed
as a secret hero, he pummels Steve’s face in until Max forcibly sedates him).
Bob: I just looked at Mr Baldo in his stupid face
and I said “Go away. Go away”. Never
saw him again.
Astin’s Bob apparently grew in scope once the Duffers had
cast him, having originally been designated an exit early (one idea had him
killed soon after his fatefully terrible advice to Will in 2.3: The Pollywog). He’s so overtly an
ineffectual, doughy putz, I had him pegged as a possible bad guy before it
became evident he really was too good to be true (in particular, that advice to
stand and face Will’s demons being just what the demons wanted couldn’t have better
helped out the Mind Flayer if he had done it on purpose).
Bob was always destined to die, though (Joyce-Hopper shippers
would be outraged otherwise, and probably David Harbour too, who suggested “sex would be a lot better with Hopper than
with Bob”), and if plotting-wise his heroic action is strictly basic stuff
(based on his knowledge of BASIC), Astin invests Bob the Brain with a genuinely
likeable quality in spite of his infuriating affability (the feeding frenzy on his
corpse is a particularly unkind cut, resonant of the walking dead, but
absolutely the right move: no justice for Bob, nor should there be. There has
to be some edge. Besides, there’s
another in the season for whom nary a tear is shed when they die, and who is
callously forgotten by those closest to him).
Astin was, of course, one of the cast of a key-note ‘80s
movie informing Stranger Things, the
wearily raucous The Goonies, and he
put himself forward (as a fan of the show) to the initially wary Duffers. They,
on the other hand, absolutely wanted a Paul Reiser-type for Dr Owens, only to
land the real deal. It’s an expert piece of working-against-expectations
casting (assuming they didn’t also change plans when they got him). Courtesy of
Aliens, we instantly think Reiser is
evil in sheep’s clothing, so when he’s established as a good guy, it’s
something of a surprise (the key moment coming in 2.6, The Spy, when one of his group suggests that if Will dies, he dies,
and it doesn’t really matter: “You say
that again” warns Owens). The only problem with Reiser – and he’s a fine,
subtle actor, and fits the part like a glove – is that when we get to 2.8 and
the Aliens-in-a-lab with demo-dogs
instead of xenomorphs, the homage element is perhaps a little too in your face (complete with motion
tracking, Bob as Bishop bashing in the BASIC, and “Stay frosty” lines).
Eleven: FRIENDS DON’T LIE!
While 2.1 and 2.2 set up elements that eventually pay off
(the dying crops leading to a particularly unsettling episode for Hopper as
he’s subsumed by roots), only the “halfway
happy” Hopper-Eleven relationship really feels essential, one of the
season’s high points being pairing Millie Bobby Brown with David Harbour.
The Duffers contrive to keep her separate from her friends
in a manner that feels organic (in fact, every different mission, excepting
perhaps the fan service-y “Justice for Barb” fits seamlessly), such that, when
she arrives to save the day (or night) at the end of 2.8, it’s a much-anticipated
moment. Admittedly, the factors that inform her along the way, from perceived
jealousy of Mike and Max to estrangement from Hopper, are more decisive fuel than
her eventual destination.
Her visit to Momma works reasonably well, with a strong
showing by Amy Seimetz (Alien: Covenant)
as her well-meaning aunt, but the rest of 2.7 (The Lost Sister) is a low for the series, unconvincingly directed
by Rebecca Thomas (pegged to shoot a live action The Little Mermaid for Working Title, Universal evidently keen to
get the drop on Disney – look how well that worked out for Warner Bros and Peter Pan) as a laughable ‘80s street
punk costume party by way of Oliver Twist,
with sister-in-suffering Kali (008, Linnea Berthelsen) as a crucial link to her
past entirely squandered in the aid of some deadly artful dodgering.
Aside from a confrontation with former torturer Ray (Pruitt
Taylor Vince), everything here is laid on far too thick (“We’ll always be monsters to them”; “Find that anger”; Bon Jovi’s Runaway),
and the dangling thread that Brenner may still be alive is the brothers
probably not knowing to leave well enough alone (if they are to bring him back,
they better have a very good reason to do so, other than just enjoying working
with Matthew Modine). I wondered about Eleven/Jane’s conviction that her momma
had sent her to Kali, and I guess the only reading that would make it a
positive is that she knew she’d teach her to marshal her powers (this sequence is
as hackneyed as they come). As for her makeover, it plays as cheesily as
everything else in The Lost Sister.
The upside is that after this dive in quality, the later
scene between Eleven and Hopper is a moving high, as he apologises to her and
opens up about his loss (“Sarah’s my girl”).
Arguably, the show often goes for the easy hit with its emotional rollercoaster,
but this one is perfectly judged. Bitchin’, even.
Lucas: He’s like a living booger.
If the Aliens
referencing is writ large in 2.8, the “Polywog”, or D’Artagnan, or D’Art, or
Dart, fits much less clumsily, much in the manner of E.T.-Eleven in the first
season. 2.3 is where the season finds its feet, perhaps surprisingly at the
point where Shawn Levy (in person something approximating a more exuberant, socially
mobile Tim Burton) takes over for a brace of episodes. Gaten Matarazzo is the show’s
unfailingly energetic comic relief, the Mickey Dolenz of these little Monkeys, with
a dash of Fozzie Bear, and his season arc has him fretting over girls
(thankfully, the producers don’t completely sacrifice all plausibility by
giving him a Snow Ball’s chance at the dance) and finding an unlikely new
mentor in Steve. Matarazzo goofily elevates any scene he’s in, be it interacting
with his indulgent mother (“Are you
constipated again?” she dotingly asks at one point) or his new “pet”, the
living booger Will snotted out at the end of the first season.
Steve: How do I know it’s not a lizard?
Dustin: Because his face opened up and he ate my
cat.
Dustin wants Dart to be his Gizmo (Gremlins is wisely not mentioned in the pop culture melee, at least
directly), but he’s really his Spike. Even more nastily, though, given the
Gremlins didn’t actually harm the family dog (“I’m sorry. You ate my cat”). Dustin’s resourcefulness comes
repeatedly to the fore, particularly in a sequence where he “coaxes” Dart into
the secured (he thinks) environment of the coal cellar. Quite why Dart spent a
year foraging around dustbins before experiencing a growth spurt, I wasn’t
entirely clear, but it’s a nice touch that Dustin had a moment where his
deception regarding the squittery critter was shown to be not entirely
wrong-headed (not turning on its one-time master at a crucial point of fleeing
through the tunnels).
As for pairing him with Steve (because he has no one else to
call on), it’s the season’s stroke of genius. The Duffers admitted it was
actually a choice born of practicality (they had nothing for Steve to do), but
it neatly unfolds as the comic flipside to the seriousness of Eleven and
Hopper.
Steve: I may be a pretty shitty boyfriend, but it
turns out I’m actually a pretty damn good babysitter.
Steve’s rehabilitation is an all-round winner, judging by
responses, making him the unlikeliest hero of the season (not so much for what
he does, but how he does it). Keery makes him very easy to root for, his less
laudable qualities in the first run dwindling in the memory as his better self’s
deeds stack up; resoundingly gracious in losing his girlfriend (he’s wryly
resigned to driving alone into the night in his final scene outside the ball,
having offered Dustin advice that’s doomed not to work because, obviously, he
isn’t Steve), and a nanny who actually can’t pull rank, he’s also very adept at
getting his face pulverised.
In contrast, Jonathan, the underdog you were rooting for in
the first season, becomes almost a non-event once he has Nancy. I’m not sure
what the Duffers have planned for him in Season Three (if Charlie Heaton can
lay off the nose candy and get let back into the country), but his story here
is very much Nancy’s story, which is very much defined by the most enjoyable
new character, paranoid investigator Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman). Harbour has
suggested Hopper and Bauman being forced to team up at some point, and you can immediately
see how effectively sparks would fly as a result.
Murray: You’re being naĂŻve, Nancy.
Nancy’s mission just about flies, but it’s evident that the
vocal contingent of fans disapproving of how Barb exited the show so casually
and finally set them on this course rather than the express intent of the
Duffers (and doesn’t Dr Owens keep a remarkably open house with regards to
giving anyone who drops by a guided tour? There’s amenable and then there’s sloppy).
Indeed, just about the best Barb-related scene isn’t about mourning her after
the horse has bolted, but the visit to her parents’ home, where those gathered tuck
into a grossly unappetising gourmet KFC feast (with Cokes). Was that the height
of cuisine in 1984 (there wasn’t a KFC near me)? The Duffers wouldn’t know as
they were still being wet nursed.
Murray: You need Them to believe you... With a
capital T.
Indeed, it’s actually Murray’s psychological profiling of
the not-quite-lovers that forms the highlight of their mission (“My goodness, you two are adorable, aren’t
you?”), leading to a clearly Temple
of Doom-inspired hallway encounter between the restless souls (talking of
Indy, Hopper retrieving his hat from the roots is another nod). But the
specifics of quite how Murray’s great idea were supposed to work in practice
were lost on me. It’s all very well saying you need to dilute the truth for it
to be picked up by the media, but why exactly were they supposed go along with
or report on a disprovable fake story again?
A word also for Nancy’s adorable treatment of Dustin in the
finale, inviting him to dance and plying him with compliments (“You know, out of all my brother’s friends,
you’re my favourite. You’ve always been my favourite”). What a darling.
Will: No. He likes it cold.
2.5 (Dig Dug) and
2.6 (The Spy) were directed by Andrew
Stanton, no less, fresh from Finding Dory
and representing only his second foray into live action (after John Carter didn’t exactly crash and
burn, but entirely didn’t set the world on fire either). It may just be a
coincidence, but I think the season peaked with these two, perfectly juggling
its mysteries and forward momentum and various subplots before the unfortunate
street gang episode and then the expertly executed but more predictable final
two.
These are the episodes where the extent of Will’s possession
makes itself known, and one can’t praise Noah Schnapp highly enough,
particularly since he was more of a MacGuffin than a rounded presence last
year. Mike, with Eleven out of the picture, turns his saviour complex on Will
instead, but Finn Wolfhard’s performance ensures his character doesn’t seem too
diminished (particularly since he spends the rest of his time being mean to
Max).
And Winona has really found her footing – I think I noticed
only one scene where Joyce was waving her arms about excessively – completely
selling the maternal concern, but willing to go all out when she needs to, even
against Jonathan’s protests when it comes to exorcising the invader from her
boy.
Joyce: What if you didn’t have to use words?
There are some
rather less than elegant plot expediencies in adding up Will’s condition, much
less resolving it, however. The whole “crazy Joyce doing crazy things in her
house” idea had been more than sufficiently serviced when communicating with
Will in the first year, so I’m not sure such an obvious repeat was in order
(particularly recalling, as the map does, The
X-Files first season episode Conduit,
making a giant face from 0s and 1s computer printouts on the living room floor).
Mike: He can’t spy if he doesn’t know where he is.
And, while I liked the thinking whereby Will was cut off
from the world and unable to relay information to the Mind Flayer (depositing
him in a sealed-up shed), the Duffers also employ ideas that suggest these kids
are maybe just that bit too
impossibly bright (using Morse Code to send the message “Close Gate”, although one wonders if that worked, given the final
shot) and that they, like the makers of the most recent season of Game of Thrones, are inadvisably
beholden to George Lucas for their plot twists (“Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army too”), specifically the
climax of The Phantom Menace.
Jonathan: Would you rather be Bowie or Kenny Rogers?
Bob: Kenny Rogers? I love Kenny Rogers!
I wondered if the above, from the opening episode, was a knowingly
ironic comment, given Bowie had just shamelessly whored himself in the most
mainstream manner possible at that point, all tan, bottle blonde hair and Nile
Rodgers production sheen. After all, this is a show that popularises the geek,
makes the geek cool, and even attempts to make D&D cool (even Vin Diesel
couldn’t do that). It rather dilutes the Brothers’ proclamation this is a show
about outsiders – “an anthem for the
outsider” – as, in their envisioning, everyone
is an outsider. It’s that inclusive.
Which means no one is. We now have an environment where comic books and former
nerd niches like Doctor Who and Star Trek are thoroughly mainstream,
where geek holds cachet rather than derision. It’s a social equivalent of the
Upside Down. Is the series doomed to lose its essential footing, or ethos if
you will, as its popularity burgeons?
That could go back to my original qualms about how it dodged
any significant exploration of the Montauk Project, as the further down the
line it gets, the more it reveals itself as essentially a very cosy concept,
despite its horror element: life-affirming and character-building in the manner
of a Joss Whedon series of old, but – fortunately – lacking the need for
endless pop culture quipping. It’s John Hughes meets John Carpenter, but more
of the former. Stranger Things 2 has
designs on the character growth of The
Empire Strikes Back (always the sequel touchstone), but ultimately carries
the emotional weight of a Lethal Weapon 2
(right down to Sean Astin as Patsy Kensit), because it’s “just a sequel”,
knowing a third and fourth (and maybe fifth) instalment will follow.
As such, if the show has developed a problem, it’s that it
has set itself out a limited stall, that it’s already ploughed itself a predictable
furrow and isn’t inclined to take a truly different or distinctive or divergent
course now. It’s a furrow in which a (new) big bad is poised to threaten
re-established order at the end of each season (the Duffers may have been
granted a bigger budget this year, but those demi-dogs aren’t going to win any
effects awards) and they take in the various horror icons (King, Lovecraft, er James
Wan) but ultimately rest on their laurels, unable or ill-equipped to break any
new ground themselves. One in which none of the young protagonists are really
going to be endangered (well, the show might
end in such a way, but only one important character died this season, two if
the you include the one no one shed a tear for, and he was a newbie – the
writers are going to think twice before they Barb someone so frivolously again),
and are clearly too beholden to their own creations and performers (hence Paul
Reiser surviving, not that I’m not grateful he did, but in any other scenario
he would have been toast).
I probably shouldn’t complain about a show with a junior
cast front and centre playing it safe, and I’m all for exploring character, but
one thing Stranger Things 2 doesn’t
do is build on its strong foundations ideas-wise. Its template is
straightforward and unsophisticated. Maybe bringing back Dr Brennan would lend
it something in the mythology stakes, or maybe I just have to accept that it’s
content to be what it is. In the meantime, let Justice for Mews be the demand for
Season Three. Forget Barb. Those Duffers are heartless monsters.
Season 2 Episode Ratings:
2.1 Madmax
2.2 Trick or Treat, Freak
2.3 The Pollywog
2.4 Will the Wise
2.5 Dig Dug
2.6 The Spy
2.7 The Lost Sister
2.8 The Mind Flayer
2.9 The Gate
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.