FIVE THOUGHTS ON STRANGER THINGS
On Body Count Storytelling, 80s Moms, Being Chaotic Good, and Queerness as a Superpower.
Stranger Things ended its five year/ten years/after-the-pandemic-what-is-time run last night with a two hour finale that really had just about everything.
For fans of the show, here’s five final thoughts….
*Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers*
1. Giving Karen Wheeler Her Due.
I love that the fifth season made Holly a central character. It tracks well with the genre—horror films love to stay within families. And the story they gave Holly (brilliantly brought to life by Nell Fisher) enabled the show to play with much that had come before.
But for me, one of the season’s crowning achievements will always be giving Mike, Nancy, and Holly’s mom something real to do. For most of the series, Mrs. Wheeler has been the classic John Hughes’ movie mom. Her husband is a drip, she’s got no idea what’s really going on with her kids, and she spends her time being unhappy and fantasizing about a hot lifeguard. Actress Cara Buono has made the best she can of those storylines, giving her character a growing sadness and sense of being trapped. But she’s never been allowed to do much with any of it.
Finally in this season, she’s thrown fully into the real story of her world when Vecna’s Demigorgon comes for Holly. And unexpectedly she becomes Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, and Jamie Lee Curtis all in one.
They set it up so well—she’s taking a bubble bath; Mr. Wheeler is golfing, ABBA is playing—all the 80s parent beats. Then WHAM, she’s in it, and she’s coming up with solutions—the bubble bath hideout; smashing a bottle and uses the neck to attack the Demigorgon (and doing actual damage). The whole thing is enormously satisfying.
The Stranger Things Play Actually was Important to the Show.
