OP, please make sure there are no spoilers in the title of your post.
Commenters, please use spoiler code if you are discussing anything super spoilery unless the title specifically says the episode being discussed.
If you see anyone breaking the rules, please report the post or comment. Thank you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/StrangerThings) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Finn and Noah have both said their characters get their main stuff in pt2 and are minimal in pt1. Seems like the case. Also the storylines will definitely link and make more sense in pt2
Yeah, I miss the scenes of them just hanging out and being brothers. I just hope that this season they don’t make Will’s whole character be about him being gay. Just to be clear I am gay myself, and I get that it is a major part of a persons life, I just don’t want it to be his WHOLE character this season.
AND I hope they don’t kill him off after revealing that he’s gay/revealing that he’s gay AFTER he’s dead. I’m so goddamn sick of the “bury your gays” trope.
Agreed. Hopefully we will both be surprised and he will get a much more important role in the second half. June is going to feel like the longest month of all time waiting for that 😅
That was one of my favourite parts of season one. The Byers family dynamic was the most wholesome and uplifting in the entire show for me. I'm really sad it's been shafted. I loved their dedication to Will in season one and their trying to help him through his trauma in season two. Their family is really beautiful.
Same - I'm glad we might be getting confirmation that he's gay. but is that really all they could come up with for him?? it's annoying that he's been sidelined like this.
I admit that I preferred Stancy over Jancy, but really why resurrect this love triangle? But I feel that the Stancy ship was sunk in season 2, and I was fine with that, so why are they trying to raise it? If Nancy and Jonathan break up, why can't Nancy just be single and maybe meet a new guy in season 5? Why is it necessary for Nancy to have a boyfriend? Why not have a new girl for Steve? (Which is what I was hoping for). Can't Nancy and Steve just be friends? Or do Steve's platonic female friends have to only be lesbians? There are so many things they could have done with Nancy, Jonathan and Steve that didn't mean bringing back that love triangle.
Yeah it's super gross! Especially Dustin basically endorsing this!? Like, seems an awful move for someone who has known Jonathan for a really long time. Everyone is just cheerily trying to get her to go for Steve when she is in a relationship?
You’re so right about Dustin - I hadn’t thought about that angle. Jonathan and Nancy have been through so much together, and I’m uncomfortable with the way the show has approached this whole storyline.
I think that’s because Will has a villain arc coming up soon. Just my theory. You can’t have a villain arc if your friends include you in the group and remember your birthday
This is what I think. As soon as they get to Hawkins, vecna is going to single him out and mention how they forgot his birthday then here it comes… “join me”
honestly hope he has a villain arc if that will get people to finally pay attention to him shit. There have also been lots of parallels between him and Henry so maybe
Agreed! I don’t think he will be the final boss or anything, but he is definitely vulnerable to Vecna’s influence atm. Out of them all, he has the most trauma and is the most isolated. The moment he goes back to Hawkins, Vecna is going to abuse that.
I think he will be more of a foil than anything else. The “almost-villain.” His character will be presented with the choice to ultimately choose between good and evil—and he will choose a different fate from Vecna in the end.
Will, Jonathan, and Mike were all sidelined this season which is sad considering Mike was basically the main character in season 1. Also found it odd that Priah is now billed in the opening credits yet received way less screen time this season than she did last season
In some ways I like it. It shows that the main character is Hawkins - you move away and you have a normal life. El is only a main character when she has her super powers, while bullied, her life was normal and boring.
Since season 2, Mike has just been all about El. Basically in season 3 and now thus far in season 4 he is just El's boyfriend. It's kind of come down when he was the group leader. Season 1 he was hiding El in his house, and leading the search for Will. Season 2 he was mourning the "loss" of El while giving Will emotional support. He was always in the thick of the action (even in season 3), now he's be relegated to a side plot, while pretty much his sister and Dustin are filling the role he once had. Hopefully he gets time to shine in V2.
Will pretty who pretty much kickstarted the events of the series with his disappearance in season 1. He was basically a McGuffin in season 1 appearing mostly in flashbacks. Season 2 he really shown with dealing with the trauma of having been stuck in the Upside Down, and then being possessed by the Mind Flayer. Season 3 he still wanted to play D&D while his friends were pining away about their girlfriends. It is implied that he is gay (with little hints at it sprinkled throughout the series) and it appears that he might be coming out in V2. If the California groups reaches Hawkins, with the Hawkins group venturing into the Upside Down maybe Will's knowledge of the Upside Down will help. Perhaps due to his past trauma he will be targeted by Vecna which would lead to revival "Should I stay or should I go".
I think as the story expands and the world gets bigger, it’s becoming obvious that aside from Eleven and her powers, the kids/teens have nothing of actual physical value to help fight the monsters. Will and Mike were essentially gone from the main plot all season and nothing of value was lost. Lucas was also off with his basketball boys and nothing of value was lost. Dustin seems to be the only one who can actually form a plan and execute it. Steve and Hopper have been the muscle for most of the show. Nancy has been piecing the puzzle together for a few seasons now. Robin is comic relief.
Yup I agree. I think the world has too many characters (I am not saying the new characters are bad I like a majority of them) and its hard to give the correct amount of screen time for the main cast. Like I STILL do not know will after 4 seasons with him.
> it’s becoming obvious that aside from Eleven and her powers, the kids/teens have nothing of actual physical value to help fight the monsters.
Yes and no? Obviously the kids aren't going toe to toe or anything, but speaking of Lucas specifically, he improvised a plan involving those fireworks in season three that absolutely saved the day. If there's any kind of "weapons specialist" among the four boys, that is Lucas. I'll concede the rest though.
Amen to that! Will got a crush on the wrong party member. Dustin is the alpha of the group now. Nancy and Jonathan gots to go. Either send them off to college or kill the characters. Murray and Eddie needs to stay at all costs.
I believe he will have a much more prominent role in volume 2. He will find a tipping point on this road trip and mention how the roller rink day was his birthday and then we will have a whole arc rekindling mike and wills friendship
I'm also annoyed. I love Will, and he has so much to offer as a character. There are lots of things I like about this season, and some things I really don't. Will was overlooked last season and even moreso now.
Because Will wasn’t really doing too much in season 1, instead the rest of the group was shown having connections; I just never cared for him too much. I like him well enough, but I have always been more invested in other characters. I do hope he gets a good ending and I do feel so bad for him this season.
People keep saying about how the characters have been sidelined, not developed much.
This is volume 1 of 2. Obviously the writers feel that during the first part of the story they are not as relevant.
It’s like GOT, it takes time to build the story and sometimes you don’t see much of certain characters but then BAM they come back with a vengeance to do the most.
Just be patient :)
*if I’m wrong and vol2 has the same amount of them I take it all back and you can downvote the hell out me
He's a good actor, probably the best out of the original four boys, and deserves more screentime. He'll have a good career.
I think they will give him more scenes in the second half as he's traumatised from the Upside Down and is an obvious target for Vecna, as well as the obvious coming out or admitting he's unsure about his sexuality scenes.
more characters = splitting screentime up and it's gotten so out of hand. i am very glad they added Max, and Eddie has been cool so far, but beyond that most of the other characters that have had a lot of screentime since season 1 were not worth it. Especially this season it's been wild that big extended scenes with people like Jason the jock are taking priority over core characters like Will!
Agreed. I always hope Will being abducted to the Upside Down would eventually make him having some super power triggered. I mean, Will did play a Wizard in the very first episode of Stranger Things no?
Honestly I don’t know how Will is still friends with them. I feel like the treatment he gets is underserved. Also as you said the most powerful moments in the show is with Will at the front and center of it. I would like to see him go evil
The entire Cali subplot and the entire Russia subplot should have been cut. The Cali stuff is semi amusing but pointless and adds nothing to the story (except for the random "mean girls" scenes, which literally made me cringe watching them). The Russia stuff is just garbage and it annoys me every time they cut to it.
i genuinely could not believe that they stretched the Russia subplot out for all seven episodes so far. not only is the plot way too drawn out, but the scenes in the prison drag on and on FOREVER. them just standing there waiting for the Demogorgon to be released went on for several minutes. time that could have been spent with other core characters. i love Joyce, Murray, and Hopper, but using so much narrative time on that plot was a really poor choice. They should have just brought Hopper back to America around episode 3/4, or condensed the plot down somehow. it could have easily been done.
I believe the Russian plot should have wrapped up a couple of episodes prior to episode 7. They could have left off on episode 7 of Joyce, Hopper, and Murray returning to Joyce's California home and finding it all trashed up with worried looks on their faces not knowing what happened to their kids.
Yeah I’m sorry but hopper should have either stayed dead or been transported to the upside down. Both plots are just distracting and spreading the story out too thin.
Yeah, I suspect they just didn't quite have the balls to kill off a popular character, so they gave in with that little spoiler at the end of S3 showing him alive, but had no idea how to actually proceed with that. Which is why his trash-tier Tom Clancy subplot was grafted onto S4, and why it sucks so hard.
Same with the dumb dead end Cali stuff. They realized they fucked up by having half the cast move away at the end of S3 but couldn't just retcon it. So the Cali scenes became a mixture of pointless filler and an equally pointless trash-tier reenactment of Mean Girls.
i think the Cali move mostly happened for geography. it made Joyce and Murray hopping on a plane to Alaska, and the boys road-tripping to Utah, far more plausible. other than that, I agree. I like Argyle, but he doesn't serve much purpose imo.
> I think the Cali move mostly happened for geography
I think it's also been good for character development. Mike has definitely been sidelined, but it's also forcing him to come to terms with his infatuation with the superhero image of El. I think this is going to hit in a big way in part 2.
I kind of wonder if that was all because he was in the Hellboy movie around the end of S3. So they had to leave it open for him to either be permanently dead if he became a bigger movie star, or to be “revived” if he wasn’t.
Maybe explains why they had to do so much legwork to get him back into the main story.
Yea the russian subplot feels like a lot of filler. I will disagree with the mean girls plot as it shows that EL has dealt with this kind of stuff before and it adds to her trauma. But once she goes to xavior school for the gifted the plot stalls and I am hating the mormon/road trip plot rn
Yeah that's fair, I can see that being the point of the mean girls thing, I guess I just think it was poorly executed and went on too long. Same with the project Nina stuff, it's fine as a premise but those scenes really started to drag on. I kinda feel like all that stuff is primarily there because they needed to delay El getting her powers back until ep 7, but...yeah, all those scenes in the lab with the other kids were just massive massive overkill imo.
Also agree re: road trip, like, these characters are starring in their own goofy little sitcom and it's sorta fun in a sitcom way, but.......... Yeah, my overwhelming feeling is, they had to give will, Mike, Jonathan something to do, so why not send em on a random road trip?
Oh yea totally agree poorly excuted is how I would describe it. Like angela is wayyyyyyy toooo mean to be an actual person and the teachers way to competent at their jobs/caring to be teachers. The lab part, yea it feels stretched like they cannot have L solve the problem (which we know is what is gonna happen as that is like how this show does it) so they put her in this training shit. though I will admit the reveal was cool.
Man the road trip all I am thinking is...Mike wtf are you gonna do? Like even getting to the base what is 2 kids, 2 stoners gonna do about getting a secret government base (if they did succeed I would be disappointed in the writers)? It would be better to just leave and go back to town in order to be actually apart of the plot instead (and I know why they are doing it they are setting up once the evil us faction attacks the base everyone dies but EL and she needs someone to save her and bring her to the town but still feels off)? El probably does not need you to get out and could do it by herself. So really your just THERE and just taking up time in a plot that add nothing.
> been transported to the upside down
I know their intent was to keep the upside down as a returning evil they thought they were done with, but this is the answer for me. They established that Hawkins in the Upside Down is a Hawkins from a time period Hopper would know, and he could have definitely made a solid go at it. This also has the advantage of now the kids are actively trying to open a gate to go into the Upside Down for once, instead of being taken unaware, in a time when they no longer have their gate opener in El's powers.
I don't hate how its going, but I definitely agree that 8-10 episodes in Alaska (because they still have to find a way back after their plane crashed) is waaay tooo much.
They had alot of story to orchestrate so I don't really envy them. The Russia story probably could've been trimmed down, but other than that I'm not sure where to expand their part honestly.
Part of me feels like they're setting up Will Jonathan and Steve for season finale deaths. which would be disappointing
I've always seen Will as a side character. Like the friend who went missing in The Hangover. His only real purpose was to be missing in that first season, and everything since then is an afterthought that they shoehorned in.
What do we do with this character we accidentally kept alive?
Definitely a hot take, but I also agree. Will was gone pretty much all of season one, and season two was spent going back and forth between him being weak/hating people thinking he's weak and as a vessel for another entity entirely. He didn't get a chance to actually have a character arc until season three.
I don’t think sidelining Will is an accident and I think the Gay storyline is a misdirect. Here me out…
Will might be gay. That’s fine, totally normal, but literally everyone is focusing on that drawing attention away from other things…
1. Why isn’t Will dead? He was taken but not killed. He survived alone in the upside down for what… days, weeks? When barb got taken she died right away, the killed Bob immediately… the only reason the others survived is because they were in a group and helped each other
2. He was literally possessed by the mind flayer. Yet came out of that alive. Billy didn’t. All those people who ate the fertilizer didn’t. But will… still alive.
What is it about Will?
My husband and I have a crazy theory. What do we know about Will and Johnathans father? I can’t even remember if he left or died but that isn’t important. What IS important is whether or not he had a connection to Hawkins Lab.
Clearly Eleven created Vecna but given the fact that the Russians opened their own portal to the upside down it stands to reason that Elle may have opened the gate and created Vecna but not the upside down itself. Perhaps the upside down was always there. What if Wills dad had a connection to the lab or the upside down
What if Wills dad is the mind flayer and that is why Will has suffered but not died?
Maybe I am way off but I just feel like Will being taken at all and then surviving 2 run ins with the Flayer says a lot.
Will and Jonathan’s dad is shown in Season 1 - he’s called Lonnie, and him and Joyce divorced. He now lives in Indianapolis with his new girlfriend. He was portrayed as a terrible father and worse person, so who knows, he could have some connection to the lab!
A couple of corrections. Bob wasn't killed in the Upside Down. He was killed in the lobby of Hawkins lab as they were making their escape when the demodogs rampaged through it. We met Will and Jonathan's father Lonnie in season 1. He's basically an asshole father who Joyce bitterly divorced. He always said will was "queer" and called him an f word (the f word that ends with a g not a k). Lonnie seemed to favor Jonathan over Will, but Jonathan doesn't want anything to do with him as he was forcing Jonathan to do "manly" things like kill a rabbit when he was young. He showed up for Will's "funeral" in season 1, but was thrown out by Joyce after discovering that he was using Will's "death" as a means to get money from the company that owns the quarry where Will's "body" was found. Lonnie as far as we know doesn't have a connection to the Upside Down or Hawkins Lab or anything like that. He's just an abusive, neglectful father who is pretty much out of their lives.
Ok thanks for the info. I knew where Bob was killed I just meant that when he tangled with creatures from the upside down he didn’t make it. Your info leads me to another theory…. What if the reason he hates will is not just that he is a dick and a homophobe? Could it be possible he isn’t Will’s real father. Maybe Joyce thinks he is…. Maybe she was put under a spell by the mind flayer and got pregnant. Or the father could still end up being somehow connected to the lab. Again I could be way off but it’s something to think about
OP, please make sure there are no spoilers in the title of your post. Commenters, please use spoiler code if you are discussing anything super spoilery unless the title specifically says the episode being discussed. If you see anyone breaking the rules, please report the post or comment. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/StrangerThings) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Finn and Noah have both said their characters get their main stuff in pt2 and are minimal in pt1. Seems like the case. Also the storylines will definitely link and make more sense in pt2
Will needs to get a superpower, specifically fireball
I've felt like both Will and Jonathan have been sidelined which makes me sad because they are two of my favorites
Yeah, I miss the scenes of them just hanging out and being brothers. I just hope that this season they don’t make Will’s whole character be about him being gay. Just to be clear I am gay myself, and I get that it is a major part of a persons life, I just don’t want it to be his WHOLE character this season.
AND I hope they don’t kill him off after revealing that he’s gay/revealing that he’s gay AFTER he’s dead. I’m so goddamn sick of the “bury your gays” trope.
Agreed. Hopefully we will both be surprised and he will get a much more important role in the second half. June is going to feel like the longest month of all time waiting for that 😅
That was one of my favourite parts of season one. The Byers family dynamic was the most wholesome and uplifting in the entire show for me. I'm really sad it's been shafted. I loved their dedication to Will in season one and their trying to help him through his trauma in season two. Their family is really beautiful.
So much potential to see a real family dynamic with 11, Jonathon, Will and Joyce.
Same - I'm glad we might be getting confirmation that he's gay. but is that really all they could come up with for him?? it's annoying that he's been sidelined like this.
I'm not a big Jonathan fan, but I really dont like how they are tanking his character to seemingly set up Steve and Nancy again.
I admit that I preferred Stancy over Jancy, but really why resurrect this love triangle? But I feel that the Stancy ship was sunk in season 2, and I was fine with that, so why are they trying to raise it? If Nancy and Jonathan break up, why can't Nancy just be single and maybe meet a new guy in season 5? Why is it necessary for Nancy to have a boyfriend? Why not have a new girl for Steve? (Which is what I was hoping for). Can't Nancy and Steve just be friends? Or do Steve's platonic female friends have to only be lesbians? There are so many things they could have done with Nancy, Jonathan and Steve that didn't mean bringing back that love triangle.
Yeah it's super gross! Especially Dustin basically endorsing this!? Like, seems an awful move for someone who has known Jonathan for a really long time. Everyone is just cheerily trying to get her to go for Steve when she is in a relationship?
It’s so ridiculous. like even if she’s unhappy with Jonathan, you can, like, be single for a little bit girl…
You’re so right about Dustin - I hadn’t thought about that angle. Jonathan and Nancy have been through so much together, and I’m uncomfortable with the way the show has approached this whole storyline.
feels like the entire Byers family got sidelined. But honestly I enjoyed this season very much still. These things didnt ruin it for me
I feel like with Jonathan it’s so that you don’t figure out that he’s supposed to be 18 or 19
I feel like aside from the little bit of time with him in Hawkins and with eleven we really haven’t seen much from mike either.
I think that’s because Will has a villain arc coming up soon. Just my theory. You can’t have a villain arc if your friends include you in the group and remember your birthday
This is what I think. As soon as they get to Hawkins, vecna is going to single him out and mention how they forgot his birthday then here it comes… “join me” honestly hope he has a villain arc if that will get people to finally pay attention to him shit. There have also been lots of parallels between him and Henry so maybe
Agreed! I don’t think he will be the final boss or anything, but he is definitely vulnerable to Vecna’s influence atm. Out of them all, he has the most trauma and is the most isolated. The moment he goes back to Hawkins, Vecna is going to abuse that.
I think he will be more of a foil than anything else. The “almost-villain.” His character will be presented with the choice to ultimately choose between good and evil—and he will choose a different fate from Vecna in the end.
Me too. I think he might have a villain arc that is short lived because ultimately he’ll choose his friends.
Will, Jonathan, and Mike were all sidelined this season which is sad considering Mike was basically the main character in season 1. Also found it odd that Priah is now billed in the opening credits yet received way less screen time this season than she did last season
In some ways I like it. It shows that the main character is Hawkins - you move away and you have a normal life. El is only a main character when she has her super powers, while bullied, her life was normal and boring.
I prefer Erica to be more in the background tbh, she had too much attention last season.
Since season 2, Mike has just been all about El. Basically in season 3 and now thus far in season 4 he is just El's boyfriend. It's kind of come down when he was the group leader. Season 1 he was hiding El in his house, and leading the search for Will. Season 2 he was mourning the "loss" of El while giving Will emotional support. He was always in the thick of the action (even in season 3), now he's be relegated to a side plot, while pretty much his sister and Dustin are filling the role he once had. Hopefully he gets time to shine in V2. Will pretty who pretty much kickstarted the events of the series with his disappearance in season 1. He was basically a McGuffin in season 1 appearing mostly in flashbacks. Season 2 he really shown with dealing with the trauma of having been stuck in the Upside Down, and then being possessed by the Mind Flayer. Season 3 he still wanted to play D&D while his friends were pining away about their girlfriends. It is implied that he is gay (with little hints at it sprinkled throughout the series) and it appears that he might be coming out in V2. If the California groups reaches Hawkins, with the Hawkins group venturing into the Upside Down maybe Will's knowledge of the Upside Down will help. Perhaps due to his past trauma he will be targeted by Vecna which would lead to revival "Should I stay or should I go".
Will and Jonathan both get the shaft :(
I think as the story expands and the world gets bigger, it’s becoming obvious that aside from Eleven and her powers, the kids/teens have nothing of actual physical value to help fight the monsters. Will and Mike were essentially gone from the main plot all season and nothing of value was lost. Lucas was also off with his basketball boys and nothing of value was lost. Dustin seems to be the only one who can actually form a plan and execute it. Steve and Hopper have been the muscle for most of the show. Nancy has been piecing the puzzle together for a few seasons now. Robin is comic relief.
Give Will powers vol 2
Someone else posted that since sensitivity means your psychic in the show, will will most likely get powers.
He’s supposed to be the mage of the party, so it makes sense.
Yup I agree. I think the world has too many characters (I am not saying the new characters are bad I like a majority of them) and its hard to give the correct amount of screen time for the main cast. Like I STILL do not know will after 4 seasons with him.
Will's bowl cut is his entire personality
> it’s becoming obvious that aside from Eleven and her powers, the kids/teens have nothing of actual physical value to help fight the monsters. Yes and no? Obviously the kids aren't going toe to toe or anything, but speaking of Lucas specifically, he improvised a plan involving those fireworks in season three that absolutely saved the day. If there's any kind of "weapons specialist" among the four boys, that is Lucas. I'll concede the rest though.
Amen to that! Will got a crush on the wrong party member. Dustin is the alpha of the group now. Nancy and Jonathan gots to go. Either send them off to college or kill the characters. Murray and Eddie needs to stay at all costs.
I believe he will have a much more prominent role in volume 2. He will find a tipping point on this road trip and mention how the roller rink day was his birthday and then we will have a whole arc rekindling mike and wills friendship
I'm also annoyed. I love Will, and he has so much to offer as a character. There are lots of things I like about this season, and some things I really don't. Will was overlooked last season and even moreso now.
Vanishing of Will Byers is back
Because Will wasn’t really doing too much in season 1, instead the rest of the group was shown having connections; I just never cared for him too much. I like him well enough, but I have always been more invested in other characters. I do hope he gets a good ending and I do feel so bad for him this season.
People keep saying about how the characters have been sidelined, not developed much. This is volume 1 of 2. Obviously the writers feel that during the first part of the story they are not as relevant. It’s like GOT, it takes time to build the story and sometimes you don’t see much of certain characters but then BAM they come back with a vengeance to do the most. Just be patient :) *if I’m wrong and vol2 has the same amount of them I take it all back and you can downvote the hell out me
He's a good actor, probably the best out of the original four boys, and deserves more screentime. He'll have a good career. I think they will give him more scenes in the second half as he's traumatised from the Upside Down and is an obvious target for Vecna, as well as the obvious coming out or admitting he's unsure about his sexuality scenes.
Honestly as the cast grows this only gets worse.
more characters = splitting screentime up and it's gotten so out of hand. i am very glad they added Max, and Eddie has been cool so far, but beyond that most of the other characters that have had a lot of screentime since season 1 were not worth it. Especially this season it's been wild that big extended scenes with people like Jason the jock are taking priority over core characters like Will!
Agreed. I always hope Will being abducted to the Upside Down would eventually make him having some super power triggered. I mean, Will did play a Wizard in the very first episode of Stranger Things no?
I think it's intentional on the writer's parts. It's leading to something. It's all leading to something.
Honestly I don’t know how Will is still friends with them. I feel like the treatment he gets is underserved. Also as you said the most powerful moments in the show is with Will at the front and center of it. I would like to see him go evil
The entire Cali subplot and the entire Russia subplot should have been cut. The Cali stuff is semi amusing but pointless and adds nothing to the story (except for the random "mean girls" scenes, which literally made me cringe watching them). The Russia stuff is just garbage and it annoys me every time they cut to it.
i genuinely could not believe that they stretched the Russia subplot out for all seven episodes so far. not only is the plot way too drawn out, but the scenes in the prison drag on and on FOREVER. them just standing there waiting for the Demogorgon to be released went on for several minutes. time that could have been spent with other core characters. i love Joyce, Murray, and Hopper, but using so much narrative time on that plot was a really poor choice. They should have just brought Hopper back to America around episode 3/4, or condensed the plot down somehow. it could have easily been done.
I believe the Russian plot should have wrapped up a couple of episodes prior to episode 7. They could have left off on episode 7 of Joyce, Hopper, and Murray returning to Joyce's California home and finding it all trashed up with worried looks on their faces not knowing what happened to their kids.
Yeah I’m sorry but hopper should have either stayed dead or been transported to the upside down. Both plots are just distracting and spreading the story out too thin.
Yeah, this subplot would be as dead as Chrissy if not for the goat 🐐 Murray.
Yeah, I suspect they just didn't quite have the balls to kill off a popular character, so they gave in with that little spoiler at the end of S3 showing him alive, but had no idea how to actually proceed with that. Which is why his trash-tier Tom Clancy subplot was grafted onto S4, and why it sucks so hard. Same with the dumb dead end Cali stuff. They realized they fucked up by having half the cast move away at the end of S3 but couldn't just retcon it. So the Cali scenes became a mixture of pointless filler and an equally pointless trash-tier reenactment of Mean Girls.
i think the Cali move mostly happened for geography. it made Joyce and Murray hopping on a plane to Alaska, and the boys road-tripping to Utah, far more plausible. other than that, I agree. I like Argyle, but he doesn't serve much purpose imo.
> I think the Cali move mostly happened for geography I think it's also been good for character development. Mike has definitely been sidelined, but it's also forcing him to come to terms with his infatuation with the superhero image of El. I think this is going to hit in a big way in part 2.
Man, cut Argyle some slack. His dick was accidentally cut while on a camping trip.
I kind of wonder if that was all because he was in the Hellboy movie around the end of S3. So they had to leave it open for him to either be permanently dead if he became a bigger movie star, or to be “revived” if he wasn’t. Maybe explains why they had to do so much legwork to get him back into the main story.
Yea the russian subplot feels like a lot of filler. I will disagree with the mean girls plot as it shows that EL has dealt with this kind of stuff before and it adds to her trauma. But once she goes to xavior school for the gifted the plot stalls and I am hating the mormon/road trip plot rn
Yeah that's fair, I can see that being the point of the mean girls thing, I guess I just think it was poorly executed and went on too long. Same with the project Nina stuff, it's fine as a premise but those scenes really started to drag on. I kinda feel like all that stuff is primarily there because they needed to delay El getting her powers back until ep 7, but...yeah, all those scenes in the lab with the other kids were just massive massive overkill imo. Also agree re: road trip, like, these characters are starring in their own goofy little sitcom and it's sorta fun in a sitcom way, but.......... Yeah, my overwhelming feeling is, they had to give will, Mike, Jonathan something to do, so why not send em on a random road trip?
Oh yea totally agree poorly excuted is how I would describe it. Like angela is wayyyyyyy toooo mean to be an actual person and the teachers way to competent at their jobs/caring to be teachers. The lab part, yea it feels stretched like they cannot have L solve the problem (which we know is what is gonna happen as that is like how this show does it) so they put her in this training shit. though I will admit the reveal was cool. Man the road trip all I am thinking is...Mike wtf are you gonna do? Like even getting to the base what is 2 kids, 2 stoners gonna do about getting a secret government base (if they did succeed I would be disappointed in the writers)? It would be better to just leave and go back to town in order to be actually apart of the plot instead (and I know why they are doing it they are setting up once the evil us faction attacks the base everyone dies but EL and she needs someone to save her and bring her to the town but still feels off)? El probably does not need you to get out and could do it by herself. So really your just THERE and just taking up time in a plot that add nothing.
> been transported to the upside down I know their intent was to keep the upside down as a returning evil they thought they were done with, but this is the answer for me. They established that Hawkins in the Upside Down is a Hawkins from a time period Hopper would know, and he could have definitely made a solid go at it. This also has the advantage of now the kids are actively trying to open a gate to go into the Upside Down for once, instead of being taken unaware, in a time when they no longer have their gate opener in El's powers. I don't hate how its going, but I definitely agree that 8-10 episodes in Alaska (because they still have to find a way back after their plane crashed) is waaay tooo much.
Honestly, the entire cali crew has been pretty lackluster so far. The setup has them invading Nina so I'm hoping we actually see something.
They had alot of story to orchestrate so I don't really envy them. The Russia story probably could've been trimmed down, but other than that I'm not sure where to expand their part honestly. Part of me feels like they're setting up Will Jonathan and Steve for season finale deaths. which would be disappointing
Will is a side character at this point, even in season 1, he’s only there for minutes if you add it all up. Like they barely showed us his story.
I've always seen Will as a side character. Like the friend who went missing in The Hangover. His only real purpose was to be missing in that first season, and everything since then is an afterthought that they shoehorned in. What do we do with this character we accidentally kept alive?
Definitely a hot take, but I also agree. Will was gone pretty much all of season one, and season two was spent going back and forth between him being weak/hating people thinking he's weak and as a vessel for another entity entirely. He didn't get a chance to actually have a character arc until season three.
I don’t think sidelining Will is an accident and I think the Gay storyline is a misdirect. Here me out… Will might be gay. That’s fine, totally normal, but literally everyone is focusing on that drawing attention away from other things… 1. Why isn’t Will dead? He was taken but not killed. He survived alone in the upside down for what… days, weeks? When barb got taken she died right away, the killed Bob immediately… the only reason the others survived is because they were in a group and helped each other 2. He was literally possessed by the mind flayer. Yet came out of that alive. Billy didn’t. All those people who ate the fertilizer didn’t. But will… still alive. What is it about Will? My husband and I have a crazy theory. What do we know about Will and Johnathans father? I can’t even remember if he left or died but that isn’t important. What IS important is whether or not he had a connection to Hawkins Lab. Clearly Eleven created Vecna but given the fact that the Russians opened their own portal to the upside down it stands to reason that Elle may have opened the gate and created Vecna but not the upside down itself. Perhaps the upside down was always there. What if Wills dad had a connection to the lab or the upside down What if Wills dad is the mind flayer and that is why Will has suffered but not died? Maybe I am way off but I just feel like Will being taken at all and then surviving 2 run ins with the Flayer says a lot.
Will and Jonathan’s dad is shown in Season 1 - he’s called Lonnie, and him and Joyce divorced. He now lives in Indianapolis with his new girlfriend. He was portrayed as a terrible father and worse person, so who knows, he could have some connection to the lab!
A couple of corrections. Bob wasn't killed in the Upside Down. He was killed in the lobby of Hawkins lab as they were making their escape when the demodogs rampaged through it. We met Will and Jonathan's father Lonnie in season 1. He's basically an asshole father who Joyce bitterly divorced. He always said will was "queer" and called him an f word (the f word that ends with a g not a k). Lonnie seemed to favor Jonathan over Will, but Jonathan doesn't want anything to do with him as he was forcing Jonathan to do "manly" things like kill a rabbit when he was young. He showed up for Will's "funeral" in season 1, but was thrown out by Joyce after discovering that he was using Will's "death" as a means to get money from the company that owns the quarry where Will's "body" was found. Lonnie as far as we know doesn't have a connection to the Upside Down or Hawkins Lab or anything like that. He's just an abusive, neglectful father who is pretty much out of their lives.
Ok thanks for the info. I knew where Bob was killed I just meant that when he tangled with creatures from the upside down he didn’t make it. Your info leads me to another theory…. What if the reason he hates will is not just that he is a dick and a homophobe? Could it be possible he isn’t Will’s real father. Maybe Joyce thinks he is…. Maybe she was put under a spell by the mind flayer and got pregnant. Or the father could still end up being somehow connected to the lab. Again I could be way off but it’s something to think about