An Ode to Steve Harrington, the Soft Hero Stranger Things Fans Deserve

This post contains spoilers for Stranger Things 3.

Stranger Things is excellent at many things, including homage, atmosphere, and, in season three especially, needle drops. But it doesnt always know the most convincing or compelling way to move its characters forward—an especially important quality in a show about a gaggle of preteens. We saw it last season with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), and this season with Jim Hopper (David Harbour), who spends most of his screen time yelling at everyone around him—a shift for a character whose original appeal was his subdued glumness. Still, Stranger Things has done right by many of its other characters—especially its greatest triumph, Steve Harrington (Joe Keery). In three seasons, this immaculately coiffed townie has transformed from a frustrating popularity-chaser into a fan favorite—a glorified babysitter who really wants to be a hero.

When Stranger Things first premiered, Steve was a jock whose desperate need for notoriety often eclipsed his sense of morality. Even his gravity-defying hair only served to suggest the depths of his shallowness. After three seasons, however, some smart character development has turned the former high school God into a tender caretaker to all of the kids, especially Gaten Matarazzos Dustin. While Steves encouragement often comes in the parlance of a teenage boy—“I give the advice; you follow through…. All right, Peabrain?”—but love is clearly there. And in season three, especially, fans get to know Steves vulnerable side thanks to some light existential dread: Hes mulling the possibility that he peaked in high school.

Stranger Things 3 is the first season of the series to be set in the summer and its writers have stuck Steve in a demoralizing seasonal job. He spends his days slinging ice cream at the food court establishment Scoops Ahoy, where his coworker Robin (Maya Hawke) makes fun of him relentlessly—mostly for hanging out with a bunch of kids all the time. In bringing their resident jock down a peg—constantly—the Duffer brothers have humanized him; sure, Steves athletic, but he also loses so many fights that its become a running joke in the series. Hes kind but not clever. Hes good-hearted but occasionally snarky. In other words, hes human—a quality that stands out in a world largely built on genre pastiche.

More than any other character, its Steve who has become the audiences stand-in on the various capers of Hawkins, Indiana. Its only after Dustin ropes both Steve and Robin into helping him crack a secret Russian code, that the seasons real adventure fully begins. The Steve–Robin–Dustin team-up is probably Stranger Things 3s most delightful story line, thanks to aRead More – Source

Vanity Fair