How much bloodlust is too much bloodlust? When you work in genre television, this is not such an easy question to answer. The decision to kill – or benevolently spare – beloved characters is never taken lightly. Get too trigger-happy, and you’ll sour the very ingredients that made your show work. Prove too reluctant to kill off your faves and people will start saying you’ve become predictable.
It was this complaint that was levelled at Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer recently, by members of the show’s own cast (Millie Bobby Brown and Noah Schnapp). Stranger Things, one of the biggest series of the past decade, has always proved unwilling to slaughter its darlings, despite its horror pretensions. The season four finale – spoiler alert, I suppose – killed off just one secondary character, who had been introduced as cannon fodder at the start of the season. Brown called on the Duffer brothers to adopt a Game of Thrones-style remorselessness when it comes to killing off characters. “The Duffer brothers are two sensitive Sallies,” she said. “We need to be Game of Thrones.” While the comment, and the Duffers’ response, was more lighthearted than some of the reportage has made out, it is nonetheless an idea worth discussing.
