i’ve seen three episodes of this now and you know what? i love it??i feel like it’s leaning into pre-80s genre pulp in a way i love. the high school basketball star wandering into the woods, distraught, screaming to the gods.. the utter psychedelic insanity of the roller rink. elle is going to go full carrie and i can’t wait
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 12 June 2022 08:43 (one year ago) link
I wondered if the denouement fight was a trope I wasn't overly familiar with, based on pulp films from the time or something
― Stevolende, Sunday, 12 June 2022 09:42 (one year ago) link
I watched the first half of the first episode last night, not bad at all.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 12 June 2022 10:47 (one year ago) link
In a way, it felt like returning home after a long journey.
But I’ll echo many others in saying damn, that’s a long episode of TV.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 12 June 2022 11:33 (one year ago) link
Will Byers has grown!
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 12 June 2022 14:34 (one year ago) link
Lucas’ sister is NOT ELEVEN YEARS OLD
But whatever. This is a good time
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 12 June 2022 14:37 (one year ago) link
The Duffer brothers grew up in Durham NC. Nice easter egg placing Skull Rock at Cornwallis and Garrett roads .. both roads in Durham probably near where they lived though those 2 roads don't intersect
https://imgur.com/a/3vISxMD
― that's not my post, Sunday, 12 June 2022 15:48 (one year ago) link
Agh, the image didn't work. Can look it up on google maps if you care.
We had a good time watching. As everyone has pointed out, editing the episodes down from 80+ minutes to 60-65 minutes would have made it much better. No need for a self-indulgent director's cut of this season - we're already watching it.
― that's not my post, Sunday, 12 June 2022 15:56 (one year ago) link
I’m rewatching from the beginning before the final S4 episodes come out. While the attention to period detail is mostly very well done — they even got the 1984 candy wrapper designs right! —there’s a 1986 Corolla that keeps showing up in 1983-84 and it’s making me IA.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, 12 June 2022 20:11 (one year ago) link
never seen this show but am thinking about watching it, but ... well ... "graphic child death" doesn't sound like something i'm super stoked to see. what are we talking about here? can someone give me a brief description? might be a deciding factor for me.
― alpine static, Thursday, 16 June 2022 09:03 (one year ago) link
in S4 there is a flashback scene of a lab with a bunch of kids who have been killed in the hallways and various rooms. the deaths have pretty much all already happened, so you just see their bodies. i didn't think it was really necessary.
the first couple of seasons are a bit tamer with that sort of thing iirc.
i just watched S4E4 and it would have really been an all-time episode if it hadn't been for the laughably long exposition from victor kreel in prison, and the really quite too long trip to the underworld from max. otherwise it really was excellent. i love will. the hawkins kids are great. TIL: the incredibly crush-worthy actress who plays robin is THE CHILD OF ETHAN HAWKE AND UMA THURMAN
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 16 June 2022 09:13 (one year ago) link
Also, to be fair, the whole show from the start more or less hinges on children in peril. In the '80s movies they reference, kids of this/their age very rarely are subjected to the kind of horror and trauma and pain that they experience in this show. That to me ... I can't decide if it's subversion of the formula or cynical adaptation to current trends/tastes by leaning into violence and gore. S3 kind of shocked me with its pretty impressively ott body horror, not just because of the graphic blood and guts but because I'm not used to seeing it in what is essentially on its face a family show, or at least a show for young teens. Then again, I know families that watched "Walking Dead" together, and that show is pretty gnarly, too, so who knows.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 16 June 2022 12:03 (one year ago) link
i think it's leaning into current trends - the lab scenes feel more akin to something like Last Of Us than anything in the past - but also a way of giving themselves a bigger palette of nostalgia references to draw from i.e. poltergeist, exorcist - stuff i was totally not allowed to watch when i was the age my kids are now
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 16 June 2022 12:07 (one year ago) link
The Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scanners ...
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 16 June 2022 12:15 (one year ago) link
i really like how it’s quite explicitly about ptsd and suicide without getting too after-school special about itmax: trauma witness, abusive stepdadnapolean dynamite: survivor’s guiltchrissie: ?? did her boyfriend abuse her? is she bulimic? the scene in the toilet suggests that
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 16 June 2022 12:55 (one year ago) link
I’m enjoying Jason’s “grab the microphone and seize the moments” far too much, keep expecting him to turn to the camera and wink
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 16 June 2022 12:57 (one year ago) link
The persistent flashbacks to the dead kids in the Hawkins lab is tough, but the scene which really stood out for me was in E6 (I think) - the suddenly vicious gun battle and the dude dying in the back of the van, Reservoir Dogs style. A lot of the violence is cartoonish but this seemed in another level of horror.
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Thursday, 16 June 2022 13:27 (one year ago) link
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 16 June 2022 12:03 (one hour ago) link
The spirit of this post is similar to my thoughts on Star Wars. What it is vs. the demographics it targets.
― Evan, Thursday, 16 June 2022 14:01 (one year ago) link
so, bear with me here: these are, like, reasonable movie deaths and not "torture porn" style? define all of that however you will.
like, a kid is shot or stabbed or killed but not, idk, disembowled or pulled apart limb from limb or whatever?
― alpine static, Thursday, 16 June 2022 19:18 (one year ago) link
It's not quite that bad, but it's still pretty horrific. I mean, this is a season with teens being levitated into the air and essentially twisted into grotesque pretzels by unseen forces.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 16 June 2022 19:20 (one year ago) link
TIL: the incredibly crush-worthy actress who plays robin is THE CHILD OF ETHAN HAWKE AND UMA THURMAN
Do please excuse me, but DUHH
― kinder, Thursday, 16 June 2022 19:23 (one year ago) link
lol the cheekbones should have given it away i guessidg everyone ffwd-ing through the russian plot, i love it. joyce and fleabag guys are extremely good value and enzo probably as fanciable as robin.baddie really is very laughable. the kind of thing you’d dream up if you own an xbox as your only console
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 16 June 2022 20:17 (one year ago) link
Love Brett Gelman.
― Evan, Thursday, 16 June 2022 20:39 (one year ago) link
Watching this now. Aside from a few little problems (most of which have been part of the series from day 1) I really don’t get the hate. If you liked the first three seasons you’ll probably like this too. Sure, there are groanworthy moments, the Big Baddie is dumb as hell, and the usual anachronisms that indicate the writing team probably didn’t live through the times depicted (like the word “assholery” being coined by Max a full 20 years before it appeared in the real world), but for what it is it fits the bill fine — for me, anyway.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Monday, 20 June 2022 05:16 (one year ago) link
Also ffs at all the 30-year-old teenagers in this. A persistent feature of Hollywood teen movies of the 80s, but c’MAWN.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Monday, 20 June 2022 05:19 (one year ago) link
I wouldn't have minded all that stuff if the first episode hadn't been feature-length. It's easier to not start playing Tetris on your phone when each scene doesn't go on ten minutes too long.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 20 June 2022 05:52 (one year ago) link
New part out. Eh
― hrep (H.P), Friday, 1 July 2022 15:39 (one year ago) link
Huh
This wasn't SNL on a Thursday night.This was Wyoming's Republican primary debate. pic.twitter.com/PUHeOMdx7I— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) July 1, 2022
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 1 July 2022 17:46 (one year ago) link
Whoops, wrong thread
Everrrrrything takes sooooo lonnnnng
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 2 July 2022 16:01 (one year ago) link
no spoilers, but we're watching the first of the two new ones and it suuucks. so dumb. hoping it gets better. why does one monster survive a million bullets and the other dies with one shot? why is Jonathan falling asleep on the six hour drive from salt lake city to Vegas? why did they even shave eleven's head again?there's really another season after this?
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 July 2022 22:51 (one year ago) link
Max and Hopper may be the only two actors this season.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 July 2022 22:53 (one year ago) link
This Russian comic relief guy sucks.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 July 2022 22:55 (one year ago) link
The reason anything happens in this show is "just because."
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 July 2022 22:57 (one year ago) link
It's like they're comically averse to momentum. This is season ...4? Whatever it is, we get it, now get moving!
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 July 2022 23:01 (one year ago) link
I've been watching everything from Ep2 of this season on x1.25 playback and still it's like fucking glacial, I should just step off.
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 2 July 2022 23:27 (one year ago) link
This is like "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: The Extended cut."
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 July 2022 23:32 (one year ago) link
And so loud. All of it so loud. My poor dogs did not enjoy being in the room with it.
― trishyb, Saturday, 2 July 2022 23:36 (one year ago) link
Dogs are the best tv critics, mine barks at the television whatever is on and he's always correct.
― calzino, Saturday, 2 July 2022 23:46 (one year ago) link
why did I expect this episode to be anything but hot garbage, it was filmed with the rest of this season.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 3 July 2022 00:19 (one year ago) link
Ha! Mine normally don't care, which was why I noticed it. They had a real air of "Jesus, is this still happening?" when we started into the final hour last night, and I could only agree.
― trishyb, Sunday, 3 July 2022 08:53 (one year ago) link
Despite the runtimes I felt like these last two moved much faster than the first batch of this season. Having the different locations moving toward the same point in time worked very well in that respect.
― Long enough attention span for a Stephen Bissette blu-ray extra (aldo), Sunday, 3 July 2022 09:10 (one year ago) link
I stuck with it but yeah, fucking interminable. If I had a button that automatically jumped past any 'people emoting in rooms' scenes, the second episode would have been about a half-hour long.
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Sunday, 3 July 2022 10:03 (one year ago) link
And so loud. All of it so loud. My poor dogs did not enjoy being in the room with it.The problem is that the dialogue is so much quieter than everything else, and the sound effects are on steroids.“Here, let me staple that.” [ominous zoom-in on stapler] KER-CHUNK!!!!!!
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, 3 July 2022 14:03 (one year ago) link
Has anyone made a youtube supercut of every time someone turns away from the group, looks off in the distance, and shouts “Guys?…GUYS!” ?
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, 3 July 2022 14:05 (one year ago) link
That's become a running joke in our household.
God only knows when we'll get around to watching the final episode. Even one of my kids had just about had enough. She'd recently re-watched most of the other seasons with her cousin, and when the credits of this penultimate episode hit she immediately said she wanted to watch S3 again to remind herself that the show could be good.
Her theory of what went wrong with this one is basically the "high on their own supply" theory. That is, the show people think every single cast member and relationship is equally important and iconic, and therefore deserves as much screen time as possible. And yet, they keep adding new characters, who if only by dint of being new are often more interesting. Again, imo the only actors carrying any weight in this season are Hopper and Max, and the former has been relegated to a Russian prison camp (I have no idea why) the whole time. Tbf, my kid defended Wynona's acting in this season by citing the terrible dialogue she's been given to deliver, but my take is that a good actor (David Harbour, Sadie Sink) can rise above the campy melodramatic stuff.
In their defense, the rest of the crew features some performers with solid comedy chops. Dustin, Steve, Argyle, Murray. But this show is not a comedy, and their comedic relief comes off as yet more padding amidst all the oppressive portent.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 3 July 2022 14:39 (one year ago) link
This is like reading a book by having it spelled to you. Trust your fuckin audience just an IOTA for god’s sake.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Monday, 4 July 2022 03:08 (one year ago) link
Still enjoying, but increasingly grudgingly.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Monday, 4 July 2022 03:09 (one year ago) link
Bah, you grumpy old fucks :p
My daughter and I loved the finale. Yes it was overlong but there was certainly plenty of fireworks and also lots of feels and stake raising.
Also liked how everything was tied in to earlier seasons and the final shot definitely left me looking forward to next season
― groovypanda, Monday, 4 July 2022 07:00 (one year ago) link
I guess I'm grumpy because I really enjoyed the first 3 series, despite always wishing it was a little pacier (can't defend the 'old' part tho lol)
― Maresn3st, Monday, 4 July 2022 15:04 (one year ago) link