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[.JayZii]

I'm just happy that we didn't have to spend an episode or two with Will's older brother in police custody as the prime suspect after taking his creeper pictures on the night that Barb disappeared. I was thinking "Ugh, do we really have to go through the motions with this?". And it turns out no; no we didn't.

Didn't even know people cared about Barb till I read this thread. She was a terrible character and she won't be missed. Trying to make Nancy feel like a slut cuz no dudes wanted to hook up with her...

I mean... Nancy basically forced her to go to a "party" with two couples planning to hook up, and made her the awkward fifth wheel by default. Nancy also told her beforehand to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't do anything crazy. I'm not a huge Barb fan, but this critique, and other aggressive ones that I've seen around, seem pretty unfair.

And also was Hopper part of the FBI or CIA or something? He seemed to be expecting the black car he gets into near tge end.

He made a deal with the company off-screen, unless I'm misremembering, in order to get he and Joyce out of their custody. Maybe there was more to the deal than just "you can go into the upside-down after the kid".

 

[Christopher]

I'm just happy that we didn't have to spend an episode or two with Will's older brother in police custody as the prime suspect after taking his creeper pictures on the night that Barb disappeared. I was thinking "Ugh, do we really have to go through the motions with this?". And it turns out no; no we didn't.


I mean... Nancy basically forced her to go to a "party" with two couples planning to hook up, and made her the awkward fifth wheel by default. Nancy also told her beforehand to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't do anything crazy. I'm not a huge Barb fan, but this critique, and other aggressive ones that I've seen around, seem pretty unfair.


He made a deal with the company off-screen, unless I'm misremembering, in order to get he and Joyce out of their custody. Maybe there was more to the deal than just "you can go into the upside-down after the kid".

Nancy also peer pressured barb into shot gunning the beer and inadvertently cut her hand summoning the monster Nancy is awful...

 

[Alucard]

Just finished season one. Fantastic! I haven't felt this uneasy or fascinated by a show...maybe ever. It has its own very unique energy. What I love most is the dialogue and character behaviour. The kids and teens talk, act, argue, and interact like kids and teens do. No one is fully good or fully bad...except for Brenner, whom I wanted to die every time I saw him. Jesus what a motherfucker of a human being. As a father, I wanted to strangle him, and I abhorred his lies and his slimy as fuck nature.

5/5 TV show so far. Can't wait to see what they do next, though the arcs seem to be pretty complete now. Not sure if they can top this or make the relationships more complicated, as what we got here was pretty damn satisfying.

 

[jmood88]

Barb was a one-dimensional foil of Nancy. Her purpose was to be "that friend" for Nancy, providing a voice of reason, and the die. That's it. She wasn't an interesting characters, she was one created for plot convenience. That's all. I don't get the obsession.

I completely agree.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Just finished season one. Fantastic! I haven't felt this uneasy or fascinated by a show...maybe ever. It has its own very unique energy. What I love most is the dialogue and character behaviour. The kids and teens talk, act, argue, and interact like kids and teens do. No one is fully good or fully bad...except for Brenner, whom I wanted to die every time I saw him. Jesus what a motherfucker of a human being. As a father, I wanted to strangle him, and I abhorred his lies and his slimy as fuck nature.

5/5 TV show so far. Can't wait to see what they do next, though the arcs seem to be pretty complete now. Not sure if they can top this or make the relationships more complicated, as what we got here was pretty damn satisfying.

Matthew Modine nailed Brenner, you hated him from his first second of screen time, makes 31:06-31:09 of the finale some of the most satisfying 3 seconds in TV history.

he was fantastic almost every scene he was in he was doing something scummy, my motto while watching this show was literally Fuck You Matthew Modine.

One of the best TV villains ever.

As for Barb I think part of the love has to go to her being 80s as fuck and that being kinda charming, plus she's the means well, loyal friend (she doesn't abandon Nancy she was going to wait to drive her home) who gets fucked over and dies, that's something a lot of people can relate to (minus the death mind you).

Total plot device but the actor did a decent job and her role was one many are familiar with and like I sad 80s as fuck.

 

[Alucard]

Matthew Modine nailed Brenner, you hated him from his first second of screen time, makes 31:06-31:09 of the finale some of the most satisfying 3 seconds in TV history.

he was fantastic almost every scene he was in he was doing something scummy, my motto while watching this show was literally Fuck You Matthew Modine.

One of the best TV villains ever.

As for Barb I think part of the love has to go to her being 80s as fuck and that being kinda charming, plus she's the means well, loyal friend (she doesn't abandon Nancy she was going to wait to drive her home) who gets fucked over and dies, that's something a lot of people can relate to (minus the death mind you).

Total plot device but the actor did a decent job and her role was one many are familiar with and like I sad 80s as fuck.

I mouthed "fuck this guy" more than once when Brenner was on screen. I haven't been that invested in a villain in a long time.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I mouthed "fuck this guy" more than once when Brenner was on screen. I haven't been that invested in a villain in a long time.

Totally. And the crazy thing is he really didn't have a whole lot of lines or real character development, he was basically generic 80s movie government evil scientist guy, but Modine just fucking embodied that character.


When I said Fuck You Matthew Modine was my motto for the show I meant that literally I would say it out loud every time he did something scummy, aka every time he was on screen.

He was so fucking good, I kinda want him back.

 

[zoukka]

One of the best TV villains ever.

Jesus christ. He's not like in the top-1000.

Really? Praising the bad guy? I thought he was as generic and boring as it gets, his role in the final confrontation and his death are absolutely pathetic.

Yep. And the decision to push Detective and Winona to the upside down world was the classic "AND NOW MR. BOND YOU WILL DIE SLOWLY TO THIS LASER WHILE ME AND THE GUARDS LEAVE TO HAVE MARGARITAS ON THE BEACH" -trope which I hate so much.

 

[Nev]

Really? Praising the bad guy? I thought he was as generic and boring as it gets, his role in the final confrontation and his death are absolutely pathetic. One of the worst things of the show by far. "One of the best TV villains ever" ayy. He barely does anything in 8 goddamn hours, and his traits are cardboard thin. Zero character development as well, which fits to his "meh whatever kill him off somehow already" ending I guess.

The white haired woman was a much better antagonist -it wasn't hard-, except for when she awaited her death staring at the girl they've been studying and trying to capture doing her life-threatening spell casting for 10 seconds.

The monster was terrible all around. He captures people with his fucking arms and mouth but somehow they escape when they get to the upside down world? Fucking really? Except for Barbara, who died for drama reasons. Why did he stop eating that deer anyways? To bring the jumpscare later? Ugh.

 

[chaobreaker]

Me and my brother went through the series in the span of a week. Good stuff. I would usually be left questioning shit in series like this but the writers managed to not make anything really ambiguous in the ending episodes while leaving a lot of ground to cover in season two. Good on them.

Also, put me on the camp of people surprised at the love of Barbera. I have to admit, I really do appreciate her aesthetics. She looked the part of a 80s teen like crazy fucking well. Someone must have built a time machine and snatched her from the set of a John Hughes film.

 

[Alucard]

Jesus christ. He's not like in the top-1000.


Yep. And the decision to push Detective and Winona to the upside down world was the classic "AND NOW MR. BOND YOU WILL DIE SLOWLY TO THIS LASER WHILE ME AND THE GUARDS LEAVE TO HAVE MARGARITAS ON THE BEACH" -trope which I hate so much.

Really? Praising the bad guy? I thought he was as generic and boring as it gets, his role in the final confrontation and his death are absolutely pathetic. One of the worst things of the show by far. "One of the best TV villains ever" ayy. He barely does anything in 8 goddamn hours, and his traits are cardboard thin. Zero character development as well, which fits to his "meh whatever kill him off somehow already" ending I guess.

The white haired woman was a much better antagonist -it wasn't hard-, except for when she awaited her death staring at the girl they've been studying and trying to capture doing her life-threatening spell casting for 10 seconds.

The monster was terrible all around. He captures people with his fucking arms and mouth but somehow they escape when they get to the upside down world? Fucking really? Except for Barbara, who died for drama reasons. Why did he stop eating that deer anyways? To bring the jumpscare later? Ugh.

I think one of the main reasons I hated him so much was actually not because of anything HE said or did, but because of how El reacted to him. My heart cracked any time she was shown being dragged off against her will and yelling "Papa!" The fact that that asshole of a human being would gain her trust to that level infuriated me. It's his total submission to his character trope of full-on government asshole who will do anything to reach his goals, even if it means mentally, emotionally, and physically fucking up a goddamn child that really hit my anger triggers towards him. I wanted to see the fucker burned and tortured. Not sure what that says about me, but there it is.

 

[MarkMclovin]

Bought this top as soon as the show finished.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Really? Praising the bad guy? I thought he was as generic and boring as it gets, his role in the final confrontation and his death are absolutely pathetic. One of the worst things of the show by far. "One of the best TV villains ever" ayy. He barely does anything in 8 goddamn hours, and his traits are cardboard thin. Zero character development as well, which fits to his "meh whatever kill him off somehow already" ending I guess.

The white haired woman was a much better antagonist -it wasn't hard-, except for when she awaited her death staring at the girl they've been studying and trying to capture doing her life-threatening spell casting for 10 seconds.

The monster was terrible all around. He captures people with his fucking arms and mouth but somehow they escape when they get to the upside down world? Fucking really? Except for Barbara, who died for drama reasons. Why did he stop eating that deer anyways? To bring the jumpscare later? Ugh.

Jesus christ. He's not like in the top-1000.



Yep. And the decision to push Detective and Winona to the upside down world was the classic "AND NOW MR. BOND YOU WILL DIE SLOWLY TO THIS LASER WHILE ME AND THE GUARDS LEAVE TO HAVE MARGARITAS ON THE BEACH" -trope which I hate so much.

I already said it was because of Modine's acting work and not the writing that made it work for me.

But feel free to calm down a bit in response to someone liking something a lot. Jesus christ indeed.

 

[guek]

Why did he stop eating that deer anyways? To bring the jumpscare later? Ugh.

The deer was hit by a car and limped into the woods, the characters says this plainly. The monster is attracted to blood.

 

[HStallion]

I'll say it again but Modine knock's the Dr. Brenner character out of the park because of how "subdued" he is. This isn't an egomaniacal narcissistic like Walter White who wanted everyone to know he was the best or had succeed in his plans nor was he some mustache twirling Snidely Whiplash type. Modine played Brenner well because Brenner was the classic cold, calculating sociopathic scientist who only truly gives a shit about his research, not even the "things" he's researching are important, its just getting the results he desires.

Tons of henchman dead, his facility falling apart with a portal to an alien world, and so on and so forth? Doesn't matter, just a few eggs that needed to be broken to make the omelette. I'll be honest I didn't really notice this until a second viewing as he is cold as it gets and does "anything" even things that don't seem to make sense right away to the viewer but it works for his twisted world view. Even when Eleven flips the van and gets away from him yet again he doesn't even seem mad as he see's how far her powers have come and how she's much more willing to use them.

Even the scene where Eleven is being carried back forcibly by the two orderlies after failing to kill the cat with her powers seems like a straight set up by Dr. Brenner. She's already a wreck emotionally, especially after failing to kill the cat, and uses those two guys to make it even worse. Taking it to the breaking point so to speak and setting them up as sacrifices to piss off Eleven and get her to use her powers in a lethal manner. That whole scene where he just steps in over one corpse, looks from one dead body to the other and is just kind of has this look on himself that said,"Not bad!" Doesn't matter that there are two dead dudes, Eleven used her powers lethally!

 

[excelsiorlef]

I'll say it again but Modine knock's the Dr. Brenner character out of the park because of how "subdued" he is. This isn't an egomaniacal narcissistic like Walter White who wanted everyone to know he was the best or had succeed in his plans nor was he some mustache twirling Snidely Whiplash type. Modine played Brenner well because Brenner was the classic cold, calculating sociopathic scientist who only truly gives a shit about his research, not even the "things" he's researching are important, its just getting the results he desires.

Tons of henchman dead, his facility falling apart with a portal to an alien world, and so on and so forth? Doesn't matter, just a few eggs that needed to be broken to make the omelette. I'll be honest I didn't really notice this until a second viewing as he is cold as it gets and does "anything" even things that don't seem to make sense right away to the viewer but it works for his twisted world view. Even when Eleven flips the van and gets away from him yet again he doesn't even seem mad as he see's how far her powers have come and how she's much more willing to use them.

Even the scene where Eleven is being carried back forcibly by the two orderlies after failing to kill the cat with her powers seems like a straight set up by Dr. Brenner. She's already a wreck emotionally, especially after failing to kill the cat, and uses those two guys to make it even worse. Taking it to the breaking point so to speak and setting them up as sacrifices to piss off Eleven and get her to use her powers in a lethal manner. That whole scene where he just steps in over one corpse, looks from one dead body to the other and is just kind of has this look on himself that said,"Not bad!" Doesn't matter that there are two dead dudes, Eleven used her powers lethally!

Bang on.

Modine was brilliant.

 

[chaobreaker]

Is she the new Harambe?

 

[Abilidebob]

Is she the new Harambe?

Woah, what the hell? That's really rude.

Spoiler

To the gorilla.

 

[Nev]

The deer was hit by a car and limped into the woods, the characters says this plainly. The monster is attracted to blood.

Ah ok, I assumed she was just guessing it was hit by a car but was actually injured by the monster. My bad there.

 

[chaobreaker]

I don't think anyone brought this up, but seeing how the lights on Joyce's home reflected the movement of lifeforms on the Upside Down, then that means poor little Will have to bounce side to side to communicate with his mom with the clump of lights in that one scene.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

What about the fan theory that the monster is Eleven's manifest emotions?

I haven't thought about it much, but it's interesting.

 

[br3wnor]

That stupid badass swing made me like Steve after seven episodes

Haha yup, it was the biggest "Fuck yeah!" moment in the season for me, completely turned him around in my book.

Really enjoyed the show, watched the first 7 episodes within a week and then had to wait a couple of weeks to watch the final episode, finally did so on Saturday. Looking forward to next season, interested to see where they go from here.

Glad to see how popular the show got as well, really deserving.

 

[Abilidebob]

What about the fan theory that the monster is Eleven's manifest emotions?

I haven't thought about it much, but it's interesting.

Eh, I wouldn't say that it's her emotions, but it's clearly linked to her. Maybe her from the future, or herself from the UD or another dimension. But the Demogorgon has something to do with Eleven, that's for sure. They left way too many "hints" on the show about it. The "I'm the monster" and all that.

 

[snacknuts]

Bought this top as soon as the show finished.

Where?!

 

[Not]

Lots of people who are into sci fi shows today were, themselves, boring stick-in-the-mud dweebs like Barb in high school. They're just identifying with her now, insisting that she was secretly cool, as they pretend themselves to be.

Wreck-ed.

I was kind of a stick in the mud dweeb in high school. I was not cool.

You can thank prolonged hindsight for this analysis. Not everybody has that yet

 

[Heysoos]

so everyone just forgot Barb

poor Barb

 

[A-V-B]

so everyone just forgot Barb

poor Barb

Nancy obviously didn't. All you need is a look at her face when the boys celebrate their reunion with Will in the hospital.

 

[Christopher]

I think at this point the writers can bring Barb back - I mean Will is back and he had the thing coming out of his mouth too - she's possessed and they gotta save her.

I think a lot of people are upset because Barb was 80s as hell and she was just the good friend/person...in horror movies I always feel like the douches always get what's coming to them, but Barb? She died because of Nancy.

 

[Poimandres]

I had a similar thought, or at least e repeat of the final scene in The Crow when I watched it last week : So many bullets at minimum means so many holes.

I'm also realizing that not everything is Breaking Bad where every single moment of every scene tells more of a bigger story and makes complete sense; The more you analyze the more you'll find to pick apart in anything.

Stranger Things is Jurassic World to me : Absolute blast, incredible music, don't look too close..

I agree with you about this show. Very well done, entertaining, but it's not super deep (and doesn't need to be). But what you said about Breaking Bad is funny because that show has dropped plot lines, rushed character development, and clearly a lot of it was "make it up as we go" territory. If you're looking for calculated, I'd go with The Wire personally. Better Call Saul seems very deliberate as well. BB is one of my favourites though, no doubt!

 

[Jonm1010]

I like what they did with the Steve - Jonathan - Nancy triangle. Steve is a douchebag the whole time until the end where he redeems himself in a pretty big way and expresses regret over his treatment of Jonathan. Jonathan seems like a great caring guy until he starts taking creeper pics. Neither of them are portrayed as one note characters. Jonathan and Nancy getting together would have been so cliche.

Honestly I didn't like either.

I think after I read that partly through the shooting the creators decided to redeem Steve instead of relegating him to the cliche they were originally designing for him, it just ruined both narratives and honestly Nancy's arc. IMO at least.

Let Jonathan be friend-zoned but Steve making the 180 he did and getting rewarded by Nancy, who they were building up as a no nonsense woman, maturing beyond letting boyhood crushes and social status define her, to end the show in Steve's arms seemed a poor path to take for all parties involved. In a way it basically seemed like the show pivoted and decided to bend Nancy's character around Steve's sudden transformation which jolted her arc sideways(if not backwards) off the path the show had been setting up for her character until that point.

 

[Permanently A]

Honestly I didn't like either.

I think after I read that partly through the shooting the creators decided to redeem Steve instead of relegating him to the cliche they were originally designing for him, it just ruined both narratives and honestly Nancy's arc. IMO at least.

Let Jonathan be friend-zoned but Steve making the 180 he did and getting rewarded by Nancy, who they were building up as a no nonsense woman, maturing beyond letting boyhood crushes and social status define her, to end the show in Steve's arms seemed a poor path to take for all parties involved. In a way it basically seemed like the show pivoted and decided to bend Nancy's character around Steve's sudden transformation which jolted her arc sideways(if not backwards) off the path the show had been setting up for her character until that point.

I don't think that was Nancy's intended arc at all. The show plays with tropes, and you're definitely supposed to get the impression that Nancy is the good girl falling prey to bad influences. But I think that the scene where Jonathan tries to psychoanalyze her in this manner and she responds saying that "thats bullshit" is supposed to indicate that her story isn't going to play out like you expect.

 

[Brakke]

End-of-show Jonathan is hanging out at Nancy's place with her family, while Nancy's fucking around upstairs. End-of-show Jonathan is totally different than sneaking-through-windows Jonathan. He wasn't "rewarded", he didn't receive the gift of Nancy: he's changed to deserve Nancy. He met her at her expectations for their relationship.

 

[Volimar]

 

[HStallion]

Barb is dead people. Go back and watch the scene where El finds her. She is a rotted away corpse. So unless she is a ghost of zombie sure ain't coming back outside of flash backs

 

[Christopher]

Barb can comeback have faith! It never clearly lays out Barb is dead - plus it's a scifi show they can do what they want.

I honestly am happy the way it ended with Will back -these days I feel like people enjoy gloomy/not happy endings.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Thinking back, I don't even get that "Flea and the Acrobat" metaphor at all. Like it didn't tell us any information that merely saying "there are two parallel worlds, we can't jump between them, but maybe something else can" doesn't.

 

[Ferrio]

http://i.imgur.com/KRYmm5v.gif

That guy nailed the stereotypical do nothing dad.

 

[JdFoX187]

Barb can comeback have faith! It never clearly lays out Barb is dead - plus it's a scifi show they can do what they want.

I honestly am happy the way it ended with Will back -these days I feel like people enjoy gloomy/not happy endings.

Pretty sure her half-eaten corpse engulfed in whatever that growth was is a pretty good indication that she's dead.

 

[Kazuhira]

What about the fan theory that the monster is Eleven's manifest emotions?

I haven't thought about it much, but it's interesting.

I thought this scene made it pretty clear,especially when both died/dissapeared.
El had the power to kill it from the start but she was afraid to do it because the monster was a part of her, or at least that's my guess.

Also,the demogorgon itself

 

[MarkMclovin]

Where?!

Red Bubble

I want the Black t shirt with the stranger things text logo now.

 

[funkystudent]

Finished. Loved it.


Kind of wished Nancy or Steve got got in the end though. They really nailed the whole shitty teenager thing with them.




RIP in peace Barb. You sure where there I guess.

 

[Alucard]

The question of all husbands. Up there with wives saying "I'm tired" when the idea of sex is brought up.

 

[LycanXIII]

The creators recently said in an interview that the fallout from everything that happened will be explored next season since everything in the show happened in a span of only a few days.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/08/19/find-out-the-fate-of-two-stranger-things-characters?watch=

S2 Spoilers

The show might have taken place over a few days, but the epilogue was a month later. So is S2 going to be before the epilogue or is Barb's memorial going to be later than a month after her death?

 

[zeemumu]

I think at this point the writers can bring Barb back - I mean Will is back and he had the thing coming out of his mouth too - she's possessed and they gotta save her.

I think a lot of people are upset because Barb was 80s as hell and she was just the good friend/person...in horror movies I always feel like the douches always get what's coming to them, but Barb? She died because of Nancy.

Will was in the other world longer than Barb but he evaded the monster almost the entire time while Barb got captured almost immediately. My theory was that the tentacle deposits those slugs into your lungs and after a while they either rupture or you suffocate and die, which would explain why Will has coughing problems.

 

[LycanXIII]

Is she the new Harambe?

No one has their dicks out for Barb.

 

[Falchion]

Just finished it and it was really good. Loved the back and forth character arc for Steve and everything to do with Chief Hopper but there was some stuff I wasn't a fan of. I really hated Joyce since she is the quintessential, irrational mom character that always gets under my skin and Eleven got on my nerves because one scene she would talk in complete sentences and the next she would be back to, "What..........is.............friend?" routine that got really old.

Still really good overall and I think they can take it some really cool directions in the next season.

 

[Jack Scofield]

Was "The Acrobat and the Flea" already an established concept for describing alternate dimensions (like Flatland), or was it created only for the show?

 

[CDX]

Was "The Acrobat and the Flea" already an established concept for describing alternate dimensions (like Flatland), or was it created only for the show?

I've heard of a very similar one.

Brian Greene has been using a similar analogy about an "ant on a garden hose" when talking about the extra dimensions in String Theory.

This 1998 Columbia University article mentions it.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/23/18/14.html

Greene used an example of a garden hose to explain why we don’t see these additional dimensions. From a distance, the hose looks like a straight line, and if an ant lived on the hose, it could move up and down its length. But if you move closer to the hose, you realize it has another dimension, its girth, and the ant could walk around the hose as well. ​

I KNOW I heard it on a PBS NOVA documentary hosted by him but I can't remember which show it was. Probably either PBS NOVA's "The Fabric of the Cosmos" or PBS NOVA's "The Elegant Universe"



Google-ing a bit it seems the analogy is also detailed a bit in Brian Greene's 1999 book "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" but I've never read it.

 

[MoeDabs]

I must have said some variation of "this guy must be the most useless character on a show ever" to my gf 3 or 4 times in the past week. I honestly can't remember his name or if they even mentioned it.

 

[PR_rambo]

Is she the new Harambe?

Honestly, nothing of value was lost.