Stranger Things 3 is a huge mess: part 3 of an exhaustive diatribe

Disclaimer(!):the following is just an opinion, but it's definitely a negative one. If you enjoyed Stranger Things 3, that's great! Nonetheless, this probably isn't the article for you. Otherwise, read on!

Written by The Curmudgeon

WARNING: The following is not a review, it is a spoiler-filled rant. I recommend that you watch Stranger Things 3 before proceeding.

And so, as the summer months draw to a close, as does my patience. It’s time we hammered the nails into this disgusting, televisual coffin, once and for all.

Last time, we overcame feelings of deep sorrow and regret. Oh, and we talked about pacing a bit - see more on that here. As is typical, I’ve decided to save the best until last.

Well, I say “best,” but I’m not sure that word really counts if what I’m describing is only “best” at being hot, steaming garbage. But I digress. It’s about time we sat down and had a good, long, uncomfortable chat about the characters of Stranger Things 3. To say they dropped the ball in the character department would be an understatement. It’s debatable whether or not they even picked up the ball in the first place.

Chapter Three: I’ve run out of references, whatever, the characters are terrible

For me, and I’m sure for many other people, a large part of what made the first season of Stranger Things so binge-worthy was its stellar set of characters. With a flavoursome, well-paced mystery as its driving force, said mystery was navigated with expert scripting by a group of genuinely interesting people, all of whom weighed in on the situation with their own unique little contribution.

Hopper, for example. While he certainly came off initially as the typical incompetent, fat police chief, he quickly performed a perfect 180: infiltrating the secret government lab with nought but his wits and his trusty revolver in hand, the ghost of his deceased daughter looming over him, pushing him to uncover the truth behind Will’s disappearance. His alcohol-numbed trauma left him emotionally standoffish for sure, but gave him that ruthless pragmatism needed to get the job done.

Season 1 Hopper, just generally being a badass.

Oh, Hopper. Poor, sweet Hopper. What did they do to you?

I suppose somewhere between season one and now, Hopper must have suffered some kind of blunt force trauma to the cranium, because he certainly acts like he’s missing a few brain cells. Or his entire frontal lobe. I’ve heard people saying that Hopper was “Homer Simpsoned” this season. And while that’s definitely an ambiguous term, it’s pretty easy to see how the moronic shlubbiness of the iconic cartoon dad has rung through peoples’ minds in the form of the new Hopper.

For instance, his difficulty in communicating with Eleven vis-à-vis her relationship with Mike could have been an opportunity to explore some of the deeper themes regarding his dead daughter and his surrogate dynamic with Eleven. Credit where credit is due, that’s exactly why Hopper adopting Eleven was such an interesting concept to begin with. I remember thinking as he fumbled over words desperately trying to communicate with Eleven and Mike: “this must be hard for him, he lost his daughter and never really learned how to deal with this sort of situation”. Alas, the entire thing is played off as a joke – the two kids mock him ceaselessly. Mike, especially, comes across as a loathsome cunt, but we’ll get to that. And by the time Hopper has aggressively threatened Mike and soaks in his victory whilst singing joyously along to You Don’t Mess Around with Jim, the whole business with his daughter – a major part of his characterisation in season 1 – is seemingly forgotten. All we’re left with is an insensitive jerk who’s about as endearing as a hobo covered in gruel and wasps.

This is, of course, bolstered in no small measure by his utterly insufferable relationship with Joyce this season. Joyce remains one of the only characters who hasn’t become more unbearable since season 1, but only because she was basically detestable from the word ‘go’. But their never-ending, romantically-fuelled bickering in Stranger Things 3 does a huge disservice to Hopper’s character. He has a propensity for getting dangerously side-tracked by their romantic misadventures, like in episode 5 when he comically misinterprets Joyce’s attempts to communicate with their Russian captive as flirtation. Why is he thinking about that right now? The old Hopper was far too pragmatic to be distracted by this kind of bullshit, and such behaviour makes him come across as painfully incompetent when compared to his season 1 counterpart. And I swear to fucking God, when Murray says the line “move your lovers’ quarrel elsewhere” and they deny so fervently there’s obviously a story there, my eyes rolled so hard they slid right out of my skull.

Time for a palette cleanser before I dive headlong into the rest of these grotesque, jism pies. I’d like to point out some of the character writing in Stranger Things 3 which doesn’t make me want to fling myself into oncoming traffic: Steve and Dustin.

At some point in season 2, Steve and Dustin pair up out of necessity and discover – to our surprise and their own – that they actually get on pretty well. I don’t know whose idea it was to stick these two characters together, but it works a charm. Dustin’s unapologetic nerdiness keeps Steve grounded and humble, and Steve’s experience with high school popularity and typical ‘cool guy’ shtick provides Dustin with a certain confidence he sorely desires. It’s legitimately entertaining to see their relationship having developed into a full-blown friendship entirely unique to them, complete with a secret handshake and everything. I love it!

All things considered; I think Billy was fairly well-handled this season too. Billy wasn’t in Stranger Things 2 a huge amount, but he might actually have been one of the few things about that season that was interesting. He was a belligerent, implied-racist, violent scumbag who had a genuinely intimidating on-screen presence. He showed up from time to time to do a bit of damage and then disappeared. What made him interesting in spite of his extraneousness to the plot was his relationship with his father. We got a brief look at his experience as a victim of domestic abuse, and all of a sudden, his bullyish antics made perfect sense. Perhaps, on some deeper level, Billy was just lashing out at the world. He had to be the big man to overcompensate for the fact that he’s small and pathetic behind closed doors.

It was a pleasant surprise to see the Duffer Brothers expand on this a little more. We’re treated to some brief vignettes of his childhood: himself and his mother sustaining some pretty nasty domestic violence, his mother’s disappearance and the abandonment issues which followed. And from the ashes, an increasingly agitated kid who protects himself from the world with a brutish veneer. Again, we don’t see much of this stuff, but it’s enough to be effective. Another point for season 3.

But that’s all the positivity I can muster without giving myself an aneurysm.

Alas, there’s no point delaying any longer. It’s probably about time I talked about Mike. I have some pretty strong opinions regarding Mike, so without further ado…

"wHaT aRe YoU dOiNg HeRe?"

I think season 3’s Mike is about as appealing as an adult magazine with suspiciously sticky pages. The fact that someone got paid to produce the bile that went into developing this character – and I use the term “developing” with my tongue firmly plastered to my cheek – is upsetting to me. As if he wasn’t detestable enough in season 2, what with his constant whining and his relentless need to treat everyone around him like complete shit. But at least there was something going on in season 2. I can almost (operative word being ‘almost’) forgive him on account of the fact that he’s clearly undergoing some sort of trauma with respect to Eleven’s disappearance. But in this season, he follows Hopper’s example of being an insensitive douche bag, coupled with his own unique blend of mopey trifle.

Season 3 more-or-less picks up where season 2 left off, with Eleven and Mike having entered into a relationship with one another. But it isn’t dramatic enough to have characters getting on well, so it doesn’t take long before it all goes tits-up. With the tits pointing definitively skyward, we pave the way for a good-old-fashioned bit of forced character drama. You see, it’s the manner with which Mike navigates his crumbling romance which makes him so fucking repugnant.

Hopper threatens Mike, so he runs away with his tail between his legs. He then bails on poor Eleven the next day, making up the most obvious lie about his grandmother being sick, embarrassing himself on several levels. His mother even calls him out on it while Eleven can still hear.

Why didn’t he just say he wasn’t feeling well? Or anything else that isn’t so needlessly contrived? Whatever, that’s not the point. So, our boy Mike over here clearly isn’t intellectually inclined, and this is a trend which doesn’t let up any time soon. He then consults Lucas for relationship advice, which at this point is like scraping the gum from beneath a classroom table for sustenance. They head to the local mall to try and find something shiny for her to apologise. But then he bumps into her at the mall. So, what’s his next step? Does he apologise, like he intended? Does he try to make awkward but well-meaning small talk? If you guessed either of the above, you score zero points. Instead, he chooses to angrily confront her, for some ungodly reason. “What are you doing here?” he proclaims. Good one, Mike, aggressively interrogating her is the perfect way to get into her good graces. Isn’t that a little counter-productive to apologising? The one thing you’re trying to do? Why am I still watching this crap?

Naturally, she drops him faster than my self-esteem at a high school reunion. Then you get the tired, overdone dialogue where his friend tries to console him by saying “you’re the victim”, Mike is moaning along the lines of “why would she do this to me?” The point is, he’s not just exhaustingly mopey, he’s also eye-wateringly oblivious. And none of this would bother me so much if it weren’t for the fact that these characters have been through hell and high water together. I find it hard to believe that Mike would misunderstand Eleven to such a degree after everything they’ve experienced together. But no, I guess Mike is just a dumb, insensitive shitbag now. His pathetic self-pity doesn’t exactly help his case either.

All of this could have been resolved if he’d just talked to her openly and honestly from the beginning, and considering Hopper didn’t exactly ban him from seeing her, there should be no real reason for him not to be open and honest. But that’s just conjecture, and thinking about Mike this much is giving me a headache.

Lucas falls into a similar vein as Mike, so he’s hardly any better. Of all the cast, Caleb McLaughlin is the one I feel most sorry for. After all, he got stuck with a character who’s been the least developed and most unlikable since season one. And for all the praise I give the first season, Lucas was there mostly just to argue with Mike for no real reason other than to manufacture drama.

Lucas is a pretty well-rounded character in terms of detestability. As aforementioned, he’s hardly any better than Mike as far as being an understanding boyfriend goes. If you made a drinking game out of every time that he did something stupid or dickish, the real game would be guessing which would kill you faster: liver failure or alcohol poisoning. For example: while the kids are hiking in the first episode, he drinks all the water they packed, then spits some back out again when Max points out what a retard he is for drinking all the damn water. We haven’t even made it through the first episode and he already makes me miserable.

Or what about the bit in episode 7, The Bite, when he cracks open a can of New Coke and starts slurping it loudly and obnoxiously? Is that meant to be a joke? And then him and Mike start arguing over the validity of New Coke, as if it matters at all. None of this is game-changing – Mike takes the crown where that’s concerned – but why did they write Lucas to be so generally irritating?

Frankly, those are the only characters worth talking about. The rest are mostly just bland. Nancy and Jonathan do some things, and neither of them grow or change as people. They have an argument or two, but it ultimately amounts to fuck-all. Robin, the new addition to the season, is okay. She plays well enough off Steve to be entertaining, so I she gets a pass as well. And then there’s Will, who basically does nothing but complain and pull this fucking face:

Yeah, Will is about as interesting this season as a slice of dry, white toast slathered in wallpaper paste.

One could talk all day about how over-bloated the series has become with unnecessary additions to its cast. It’s like a condom overfilled with horse semen and cat hair, teetering precariously over a thorn bush. But if so many of the leading characters weren’t forgettable at best and utter spunk puppets at worst, I doubt the large cast of characters would have been so grating.

And that’s the real issue. I can complain about tone and pacing all damn day, but when push comes to shove, it’s the characters who matter. And when I’m clenching my teeth just to make it through any scene with Mike and his stupid fucking…everything…that’s probably a bad sign. Without a set of characters to identify with, the story fails. We lose interest in their well-being and the stakes dissolve like a soggy biscuit in your morning coffee. Such is Stranger Things 3.

Now excuse me while I douse myself in tea and never think about this fucking show ever again.