Stranger Things Doesn’t Know How to Grow Up

This post contains plot details from the entire season of Stranger Things 3, which debuted July 4, 2019 on Netflix.

The trick with Stranger Things is not to look too hard. Three seasons in, Netflixs 80s-nostalgia horror series starring the spunky kids of Hawkins, Indiana has very little to offer in the way of plot—but makes up for it with syrupy, nostalgic aesthetics, a gooey take on both childhood innocence and the Reagan years. The shows feel—the retro neon logos, the big and weird hair, the shabby interiors, the pop music—is warmly enveloping, a mood rooted in the feeling of being a child in that moment of time. But the earnestness can also become sticky, a gummy coating over flimsy plot mechanics and weak character work.

Stranger Things is known for its callbacks and references, which in its third season expands to some that are definitively more 90s in flavor. The structure is still the same. Its horror sequences make great use of the eras equipment, fashions, and pop-culture, creating tactile, emotionally fraught set pieces—only to become unnervingly referential. Youll be hip-deep in a chase scene, only to suddenly realize the kids are being hunted in the exact same way the kids are stalked by raptors in Jurassic Park—that their story has become another opportunity to turn Stranger Things into pastiche. Like that Magic Eye set up on an easel in Mallrats—another 90s movie nodded toward this season—the series encourages a kind of shallow, blurred vision. To watch Stranger Things is to attempt to focus in and out of its source material, to digest it both as a standalone story and as an assemblage of allusions.

I couldnt quite get the hang of it, though Stranger Things 3 is not without its joys. Theres Winona Ryders performance as Joyce—kooky, internal, and glorious—who maybe exists on a different plane of existence than the rest of the show. Theres Nancy (Natalia Dyer), girl detective, who goes from fetching coffee to wielding a shotgun over the course of this season, in a plot line possibly designed to pander to me alone. Theres the earnestness of all the children who want to solve the big, scary problems—especially tremulous Will (Noah Schnapp), who keeps getting goosebumps on the back of his neck while wishing his friends wouldnt waste all their D&D time with their new girlfriends, and El (Millie Bobby Brown), who continues to emotionally devastate via minute facial expressions. The lights are always flickering, and the town is always in danger; the fears Stranger Things stokes can feel very real.

The third season revolves around the opening, heyday, and eventual destruction of the Starcourt mall, an eight-episode arc that makes as much use of retro brand signage as possible. Starcourt is introduced to the audience with slow seduction, as character after character falls under its spell. El and Max (Sadie Sink) go on a shopping spree there; Steve (Joe Keery) and newcomer Robin (Maya Hawke) get jobs there; Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) drags Mike (Finn Wolfhard) there to buy an apology gift; Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas' sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) sneak into a showing of Back to the Future at the malls multiplex. Its as if theyre being pulled there magnetically, lured by the scents of the food court, plastic plants, and the nuts-and-bolts of Read More – Source

Vanity Fair