1244 days, but who’s still counting? It’s been over three years since the last season of Stranger Things on Netflix, three years during which spectators, like us, were passionately devoted to other television productions. Three years during which we were able to foment theories on the outcome of the series launched in July 2016.
This wait could have convinced us that the grass was greener elsewhere, limiting our enthusiasm for discovering the first chapter of this grand finale. Yet at two in the morning, we were excited to find Hawkins, the Upside Down and everything in between. It was with the appetite of a starving man that we began a nighttime marathon, not just out of professional responsibility.
Because Stranger Things marked us in a way that few series can claim to have done. Because the creation of the Duffer brothers is one of the rare ones capable of keeping us awake until the early hours. But by anticipating the return of Netflix’s prodigy so much, aren’t we at risk of being disappointed?
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More than a year after the rifts opened, Hawkins is under military surveillance. The city is barricaded and no one enters or leaves. Vecna has disappeared. Mike, Dustin, Hopper and even Nancy organize to find him and settle his score once and for all. In the Upside Down or the surface, the final battle of a war that lasted almost six years is being prepared.
Waiting for answers
If we have to be completely honest, we haven’t really been waiting for these episodes for three years. Nine years ago, the Duffer brothers deployed a rich imagination, populated by frightening creatures whose simple existence is a mystery in its own right. This final season therefore has the heavy responsibility of answering all the questions we still have about the Upside Down and Vecna.
Except that, on their little bikes, our heroes are skating. The first episode drags on inexorably before allowing Stranger Things to get to the heart of the matter: the track of Vecna. The Duffer brothers wanted to take the time to build a particular climate in Hawkins, that of an occupied city and an organized resistance. They fail to bring this idea to fruition.
We must ensure that all the heroes have the necessary screen time, even if it means neglecting the city itself. Hawkins looks more like a ghost townultimately little affected by the consequences of opening vulnerabilities outside our team.
We are clearly shown the military convoys, the plan of our heroes, but the other inhabitants are conspicuously absent. It is with them that season 5 could truly have overturned the established order, confronting ordinary mortals with the intrigues of the Upside Down.
The Duffer brothers have bigger fish to fry… a lot. Not content to already have two dimensions to explorethe creators venture into new lands and make the game more complex. Too much ? Undoubtedly. They no longer know what to do with this overflow of locations and narrative arcs. What emerges is a real rhythm problem which largely taints the idea that we had of Stranger Things. We’ll have to wait until episode 4 for the series to really start to offer something new (who’s surprised?).
Waiting to find everyone
But if you look closely, this is not the first time that Stranger Things rehash his ideas. Season 2 already adopted patterns and mechanics similar to the previous season, while season 4 focused more than reason on a rescue mission which could have been the job of one episode. But then why, this time, are we not taking part in the game? Or at least not completely.
The characters lack breadth in a gallery that is slowly starting to resemble a subway line during rush hour. Everyone sticks together in front of the camera, everyone has the right to a major stake, but few really have the time to convince us.
However, it is the great success of Stranger Thingshis gallery of characters. American archetypescertainly, but excellent vessels for sci-fi that is intended to be accessible to the general public. Many have had notable progressions, like Steve who started the adventure as an unbearable cool kid to become a tender loser. He is cut down in mid-flight by a season 5 which confines him to two-dimensional writing.
Facing him, Dustin benefits from a rise in power and escapes from his humorous guarantor figure. However, here again, the story is content to mechanically set the benchmarks for this evolution before materializing it through the dialogues. There’s simply too much to do to dwell on what was previously the beating heart of the story. We won’t go so far as to say that we aren’t happy to see them again, that we haven’t cracked a few smiles when they appear, but something rings hollow.
The Will case is particularly interesting, it symbolizes all this difficulty for Stranger Things to compose with its whole. In the background in season 4, he once again becomes the epicenter of the plot and offers himself an arc that is not unworthy. Except that after three years, and a number of other stories, this shift inevitably seems artificial.
Waiting for surprises
We’ve probably spent too much time on the forums delving into theories, too much time writing about a season 5 that’s long overdue. That’s the risk when you make the public wait so long, they end up evaluating all the possibilities.
Often, in these cases, it’s the suspense that toasts. Nothing is really surprising in this first half of the season. Already because the same music has already been played to us, but also and above all because it is the season which seems to be most keen to satisfy its fans… even if it means refusing many things, and in particular the most obvious: kill characters.
This is a mechanism well known to worshipers of Stranger Thingsso well known that she is ready to smile. At the start of each season, there is talk of bringing in a new character (Bob Newby or Eddie Munson) to better kill him as the grand finale approaches. The elders are spared by the decidedly very solid narrative armor.
THE Duffer brothers lack courage if you want our opinion. They saved Hopper at the last minute, they cultivated the mystery surrounding Max’s survival… And now they are paying the consequences. If they promise a tragic season 5, it is increasingly difficult to believe it.
Highly trained soldiers are torn apart by bloodthirsty creatures, but our heroes escape with a few scratches. Their strength is their knowledge, their knowledge of the Upside Down, but it is difficult to explain how all these beautiful people were able to spend the winter of 1983… then the winter of 87! There are still four episodes left in the series to convince us that we were wrong, to really shake us up… and traumatize us a little.
Too many expectations?
When it comes time to take stock, after four episodes and a marathon of almost 5 hours, we wonder if we weren’t expecting a little too much from this season? Yes, but the Duffer brothers have an ace up their sleeve: we like the universe and the characters enough to forgive this lackluster launch.
We readily forgive them for the lack of subtlety – even if some of the dialogue is criminal – because we weren’t bored. The series was not stingy with ambitious sequences. A sequence shot that revitalizes the whole or even effective transitions, Stranger Things has not lost his soul. Its aesthetic remains devilishly playful, as do its gimmicks. Taking advantage of technical advances in visual effects, the series finally seems to have the generosity to linger in the Upside Down. More than ever, Stranger Things explores its dimension of hell and delivers gripping sequences illustrated by an achievement that does not deserve its merits. The grand finale which catches us in mid-flight almost saves everything. The art of the cliffhanger…
Now we wait for the December 26 as Christmas morning (uh… the day after Christmas morning?) and we hope the series ends on a better note. We wait for creators to offer us what we came for, but above all what we didn’t anticipate.
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