Last episode Joyce
and Jim were captured by the Ominous people
They try to convince
Joyce to join sides by telling her about the monster that eats people and they
totally want her to help them save people because they’re good people who just
want to save people, Joyce
These would be the
people who faked the death of her son, presented a fake corpse to her to bury
in a fake funeral. In other words, Joyce would like to set them all on fire
then hit them with hammers.
While they’re
questioning Jim with tasers and planning to fake is death via drug overdose.
But Jim remains confident and strong and makes a deal - a deal which seems to
involve giving up El in exchange they get to see the portal they have in the
basement. They’re dressed up in Haz mat suits to head into the ominous black
void - all the while Jim has devastating flashbacks of his daughter dying from
her illness as they examine the alien landscape, the ruins of Will’s camp,
ominous eggs and general ominousness, looking for Will
Nancy and Jonathan
are not hanging around, they gather all their monster tools, all their weapons,
set an array of weapons and are totally ready to take the monster down. Which
is when Steve arrives to make nice with Nancy and then freak out when he sees
the state of the house and Nancy and Jonathan on high alert waiting for the
monster to come. He won’t leave, he and Jonathan argue - and Nancy points a gun
at him
Ok, I want a spin off
series of Nancy the monster hunter, I’m just saying.
The lights blink… the
monster arrives and since Steve keeps freaking out she just kicks him out. I
say again, spin off
The monster tries to
eat Jonathan and Nancy’s bullets don’t do a whole lot - but Steve comes back in
time to part save the say so they can lure the monster into a trap. And set him
on fire
Seriously, these
three, monster hunters. Nancy the boss. Make it so Netflix, make it so.
In the void, Jim and
Joyce find evidence of the monster’s burning injuries.
The kids are still
hold up in the school gathering pudding for an exhausted El and arguing what to
do (there’s talk of helping Nancy but everyone recognises now that Nancy has
taken several prestige class levels of badass and probably doesn’t need them).
El and Mike keep building on that chemistry, talking about dances, El joining
Mike’s family and them eventually kissing.
This moment is
interrupted when the Ominous squad arrives to try and kidnap El
The problem with that
plan is absolutely no-one has come up with a way to actually capture El.
They’re surrounded, lots of guns are pointed and El promptly melts their
brains. Really.
Do not mess with her
She does faint
though, so the second wave can arrive and kidnap everyone. And Papa can hug her
and declare how much he cares and how they’re going home. She resists -
repeatedly saying “bad” - Mike and Joyce have both shown her a much better
image of home than what he has to offer. She doesn’t melt his brain though -
because the monster appears - it’s attracted to blood and El just mushed many
many many many brains. And eats everyone except El and the kids who promptly
run
The kids retreat and
Lucas manages to delay the monster with a slingshot. Seriously several machine
guns just opened up on this thing but a slingshot makes it delay. It’s going to
eat them all so El steps forward. Mike tries to stop her, predicting the
inevitable - and she pins him to stop him meddling
El confronts the
monster. It’s epic, it’s awesome. It can’t move an inch from the wal where she
slams it. She says goodbye to Mike - and then she and it vanish in a wave of
motes
And in the shadowy
realm, Joyce and Jim find Will, save him from the horrible tentacle rammed down
his throat and Jim talks Joyce through CPR to save him. Yes, he lives. Everyone
lives.
Except maybe El? But
this got a second season so I doubt it.
We have lots of
lovely reunions, everyone lives, everyone’s alive - and Jim gets in an Ominous
car. This is Ominous.
And a month later we
catch up in their real lives, happy, playing games, alive. Noteworthy:
Nancy is with Steve
not Jonathan and I kind of like that. Yes Steve was an arsehole, but he clearly
at least stepped on that redemption path, Nancy was attracted to him (and
points to Stranger Things sexual woman is ok. The monster got her
virginal friend. Nancy got some and that’s FINE) and I the whole plot would
kind of force Nancy and Jonathan together as some kind of completeness - this
feels like it’s Nancy’s CHOICE, not what is written in the plot.
At the same time she
buys Jonathan a nifty camera - which Steve knows about and clearly approves of.
So we’ve also shattered any sense of possessive jealousy. I like it
Jim is ominously
leaving food in the woods. Which is Ominous. And Will is vomiting black goo and
tentacles - which also feels very ominous. Plot hooks!
And so ends Stranger
Things and it had a lot I loved. For a start can we give points for a story
focusing on kids where parents were INVOLVED? Not inexplicably absent? From
Karen quietly playing parent of the year (she was awesome) to Joyce and
Jonathon’s complex, loving, imperfect, but awesome relationship. And yes,
Joyce’s set gnawing was the second best I’ve seen.
Nancy was awesome and
the way her Jonathan/Steve storyline continued worked well. I like that the
group of friends included a Black kid and a disabled kid - but I think Lucas
may have been the only POC in the series and both of them felt… peripheral? I
mean if both characters weren’t there would the plot have actually changed?
There were also no LGBTQ people but compounded by a whack of homophobic slurs.
I hate erasure and homophobia but have a special pet hate for anything that
combines the two.
I liked this show.
The plot was good, the visuals and aesthetics excellent and the characters
awesome. I liked it a lot… I really did
But… I don’t get the
hype? I mean, I liked it, it was a solid, good show definitely. But my gods people
are rhapsodising about this and I DO NOT GET IT. This is almost as confusing to
me as the hype over Leftovers
