Will (Noah Schnapp), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Max (Sadie Sink) and their superpowered friend Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) are now poised for a final battle against their mind-bending nemesis, Vecna, when the season\u2019s Volume 1 arrives with four new episodes; Volume 2 (three episodes) drops Christmas Day, and the finale arrives Dec 31.<\/p>\n
I might complain about the staggering of episodes \u2014 all timed for a holiday, of course \u2014 but the strategy gives sentimental viewers (my hand is raised) a bit more time to emotionally uncouple with the show.<\/p>\n
The end of Netflix\u2019s oddball-to-blockbuster series marks the end of an era, and surely the last generational touchstone to come out of series television. Gen Z, which grew up in the dawn of YouTube and, later, the emergence of TikTok, has generally favored short-form content over lengthier productions; however, \u201cStranger Things\u201d became the exception. Young fans stretched their attention spans, watching entire seasons of a show where episodes might range anywhere from an hour to two hours plus. The Upside Down, a dark, gooey parallel universe of Hawkins, and its predatory demogorgons became part of their middle school vernacular, in the same way that pre-streaming generations used \u201cisms\u201d from their favorite shows: (\u201cJust MacGuyver it, dude\u201d).<\/p>\n
\u201cStranger Things\u201d takes place in the Reagan era, so from its very beginnings parents of Gen Zers could watch the series with their kids while revisiting their own fond and\/or torturous memories of growing up in 1980s<\/a>. My son was in the sixth grade when the show premiered, meaning I was there to confirm that, yes, tragic hairdos, pleated jeans and unchecked bullying were a thing in the \u201880s. But unlike Eleven, we did not have the power to make said bullies pee their pants in public. If only … <\/p>\n The Day-Glo decade still plays a pivotal role when \u201cStranger Things\u201d returns this week. Look forward to a Tiffany \u201cI Think We\u2019re Alone Now\u201d moment, nods to great bands like the Fall, and a well-timed mention of a flux capacitor. But Hawkins is no MTV dance party. The sleepy town is under a militarized quarantine. It\u2019s for their own protection, and because the government is up to no good, again. Nothing comes in or out of the place without the knowledge of authorities, unless it\u2019s smuggled in by the perpetually scheming Murray<\/a> (Brett Gelman).<\/p>\n Hopper (David Harbour) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) make their way to the Upside Down. (Netflix) <\/p>\n Max (Sadie Sink) remains comatose as Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) attempts to reach her. (Netflix) <\/p>\n Last we knew, antagonist Vecna (who takes on many forms) had finally opened the gates to the dandruffy Upside Down, merging it with the real world. It was a violent event, but most of the town folk believed all that shaking and noise was because of an earthquake. Poor souls.<\/p>\n Hawkins\u2019 beloved band of nerds know better. They\u2019ve been doing covert \u201ccrawls\u201d with the goal of locating and destroying Vecna before he turns the town, then the world, into an oozy wasteland. Joining the fight are Mike\u2019s older sis Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Will\u2019s big brother Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), friends Steve (Joe Keery) and Robin (Maya Hawke), Will and Jonathan\u2019s mom Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and Elle\u2019s adopted father, Jim Hopper (David Harbour). Max is comatose in the hospital. Her consciousness is trapped in Vecna\u2019s mindscape, no matter how much Lucas plays Kate Bush\u2019s \u201cRunning Up That Hill\u201d to wake her.<\/p>\n Following multiple attacks on their modest home by demodogs and U.S. agents, the Byers have been living in the basement of Mike\u2019s home with his family, the Wheelers. The unfulfilled Mrs. Wheeler (Cara Buono) has been hitting the sauce and the usually flaccid Mr. Wheeler (Joe Chrest) is finally bothered by something \u2014 they\u2019re eating his morning bacon! The youngest Wheeler, Holly (Nell Fisher), is now approaching the age that the core cast of kids were when the series premiered in 2016. And Erica (Priah Ferguson), Lucas\u2019s don\u2019t-mess-with-me little sister who still delivers all the show\u2019s best zingers, is now in Mr. Clarke\u2019s middle school science class.<\/p>\n Elevating the storylines of younger characters helps bridge the age gap created when the core cast of kid actors had the audacity to grow up over the show\u2019s run. Brown was 12 when the show premiered. She\u2019s now 21. Critics have complained that they should not be playing high schoolers. But accepting 22-year-old Wolfhard as a teenage Mike is not a stretch \u2014 especially given everything else \u201cStranger Things\u201d fans have been willing to believe in (\u201ctalking\u201d Christmas lights, psychokinetic battles, a nefarious Soviet lab under the mall food court).<\/p>\n There are spoiler embargoes aplenty so there\u2019s a limit to what can be said about the first four new episodes out for review. Suffice to say there\u2019s a mega battle on the horizon. Eleven has been training hard, honing her powers. Now she can fling armored vehicles, leap atop large buildings and bend the toughest of minds with a minimal nosebleed. Dustin is fighting angry, hardened by the death of his Hellfire Club buddy, Eddie Munson<\/a> (Joseph Quinn). Steve and Jonathan are still competing for Nancy\u2019s attention while her focus is on perfecting her sharpshooting skills. Hopper has a distractingly long beard. And Mrs. Wheeler proves to be a formidable warrior when armed with a jagged, broken wine bottle.<\/p>\n Their original kids\u2019 circumstances haven\u2019t changed all that much, but their outlooks have, making for unpredictable twists in their powers, strengths and alliances. <\/p>\n In the final season of their little show that did, creators the Duffer Brothers (twin siblings Matt and Ross), lean heavily on the interpersonal feuds and friendships between all the aforementioned characters, pairing high-budget action with advancing storylines about folks that fans have come to love. It is, after all, the kids at the center of the story that kept us coming back for more. And it appears they\u2019ll continue to do so, right up to the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seasons change. Kids grow up. Monsters evolve. Beloved TV series end. \u201cStranger Things\u2019\u201d fifth and final season kicks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[11154,42129,42133,3410,48,52,51,47,50,49,42130,23511,42132,6339,4840,278,425,1860,42131,37492,37489],"class_list":["post-71792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-fan","tag-hawkins","tag-ind-will","tag-kid","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lucas","tag-mike","tag-misfit","tag-new-episode","tag-power","tag-season","tag-series","tag-show","tag-strange-thing","tag-stranger-thing","tag-vecna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n