Listen, this isn’t the place for newcomers. Stranger Things has been around for almost a decade, and it has spent almost all this time building a mythology that has grown so unwieldy that trying to explain it would cost me my wordcount and my will to live.
However, in fairness, this new penultimate batch of episodes gives it a good try. The content of these new episodes can neatly be split into three categories. There’s action, which is high-octane and fun, and probably why you’re watching. Then there’s dialogue, which is less successful because it causes characters to stop moving and emote at each other, even though they should probably be concentrating on the imminent end of the world.
And then there is explanation, of which there is a ton. You will remember that Stranger Things was initially conceived as a one-off, and its success forced the Duffer Brothers to cake on endless new lore to keep the engine running. Well, things have become so convoluted that maybe 40% of the show is taken up with people reminding other people what the hell is going on. The second episode of this new batch is so incomprehensible that Maya Hawke has to stop everything so that she can very slowly explain the plot, using props, as if talking to children. It doesn’t exactly scream entertainment.
And yet more lore is caked on by the second. The thrust of these episodes is that the Upside Down (the evil parallel dimension at the heart of the show) isn’t actually a parallel dimension. It is in fact a wormhole to an even worse dimension, and Vecna (who remains a winning cross between the Grinch and an unbroadcastable outtake from a colon cleanse commercial) is trying to collapse it so he can take over the world.
And our young – well, youngish, since the male cast is now 90% Adam’s apple – heroes have to stop him. Some of them are in the real world. Some are in the Upside Down. Some are in a secret memory world hidden inside the Upside Down. For some reason, two of them are trapped in a room that’s slowly filling up with yoghurt. No, really.
So the fact that none of this is unbearable is miraculous. Stranger Things is one of those shows that, when it gets everything rolling in the right direction, absolutely slaps. It’s a grand, pedal-to-the-metal spectacle where everything is maxed out to the nth degree. The action sequences are beautifully choreographed. The nostalgia remains extremely effective. The emotion rarely drops below operatic. On a second-by-second basis, Stranger Things is amazing.
The downfall of season five’s release strategy, though, is that it gives you time between episodes to think. We had a month to sit with the last batch, and a week until the finale, and the moment you apply any level of reason to the show, the entire thing falls apart.
You notice that almost every character becomes significantly more or less intelligent at any given moment, based on the demands of the plot. You start counting all the characters, and realise that more than half of them are dramatically superfluous. You realise how old and tired the children look, and that the sidelining of Winona Ryder is unforgivable.
Usually at this late stage of a landmark drama series, things winnow down. Unnecessary characters and extraneous plot points are shed so that the finale can deliver with maximum power. Look at Breaking Bad, which cut everything away so that the final episode could focus on Walter White settling his last scores. Look at The Sopranos, which systematically killed off characters to prepare us for Tony’s fate in the finale. Even Mad Men dropped its ad industry sheen to concentrate on Don Draper’s personal collapse and rehabilitation.
But not Stranger Things. As things stand, the finale has a mountain of admin to battle through. Vecna needs to be defeated. Children need to be rescued. The world needs to be saved. The evil scientists – who started all this, remember – need to be stopped. And then, when all that is done, it somehow needs to find believable and distinct emotional denouements for (if I’ve counted correctly) 17 characters. There is so much work to do in such a short space of time it’s unfathomable how the Duffers can wrap a satisfying bow around such a sprawling mass. Then again, stranger things have happened. Let’s talk again next week.
• Stranger Things is on Netflix now.
