Stranger Things

Okay, I admit it. I’m afraid of technology. So, when streaming became the thing to do, I stayed with the DVDs that you mail back and forth. It made sense since my beach house had no internet.

I missed out on a bunch of new shows – The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel, the Disney stuff, Game of Thrones, etc. etc. I didn’t really care too much about them.

Then my youngest child moved back to the Bay area for 10 months, spending practically every weekend at my place since her sibling lives there, too. She put me on her streaming account. I started watching Hulu stuff on a regular basis – the college professor show with Sandra Oh, the end of the world show with one guy and a male monkey left on a planet of females. Oh, and the Queen’s Gambit. I even got Disney+ for the Beatles documentary – Get Back.

That reminds me. I need to cancel Disney+.

Then I started in on Stranger Things on Netflix, a funny little show about a bunch of dorky kids and Winona Ryder as one of the moms. The crazy police chief and his two sidekicks, the evil government men, and more dorky parents. It grabbed me right away, and I binged it for a week. Someone dies.

Then I binged Season 2. Nancy has shorter hair, Will still had the worst part to play, and a goofy conspiracy theorist enters the picture. Winona has a dorky boyfriend and we all know how that ends. Someone dies.

Then I binged Season 3. Billy and his younger half sister have increased screen time, Will gets a break, Dustin becomes more important, and Steve gets stuck in a sailor suit and a hat that covers his good hair-day hair. His co-worker (female) figures into the plot (she speaks Russian), and Russians become the evil government people.

Youngest child warned me that Season 3 was the goriest. I don’t do gore. But the dialogue was too funny to stop watching. I learned to laugh at the mushy jelly monster thingie and the walking zombies. I couldn’t stop watching the hot chemistry between Winona and the police chief or Billy and somebody’s mother – Nancy and Mike’s? I think so.

“You’re watching a kid show,” someone might have said.

But no, it’s not a kid show. Yes, there are lots of kids (they’re teens by Season Three) but there are also lots of adults. It’s like E.T. in a way, with the kids smarter than the adults most of the time.

The song duet near the end (of the world) is hilarious. The monsters are hilarious. Why do the kids keep walking into dark spaces and crawling into darker holes? Come to think of it, the adults do that, too. What a bunch of dummies! But it does advance the plot. If they stayed home safely, there’d be no story.

My favorite character is El. She figures into every season. She has rad 80s clothes by Season 3 (the guys are in short shorts), and a boyfriend! What an awesome part to play, except for the bloody nose thing.

If you haven’t seen it, binge it. Season 4 will drop May 27th.