(Welcome to another Ted Talk by Moth. A Moth Talk if you will. Where I complain about media! There are spoilers for Stranger Things S5 here. Shout out to Birdee for ranting about this with me all day.)
My love for Stranger Things has been waning for a while but whatever good will I once had for the show, is dead. I came away from the new season of Stranger Things (or at least the first 4 episodes of it 🙄) with one thought: Stranger Things has a TLOU problem. Now, there are lots of issues with Season 5 (tone, acting, nothing making any god damn sense) but I have TLOU brain rot so I am compelled to discuss the Joel and Ellie of it all (and then some).
If you’ve watched the new episodes of ST, you’d be hard pressed to miss the similarities between the shows. And I really wouldn’t complain about turning Hawkins into a post outbreak au (militarized quarantine zone and all). Nothing is original. I write fic for fuck’s sake I have no issues about borrowing story elements from other media. The problem is, it really doesn’t work for this show.
El and Hopper’s relationship is often compared to Joel and Ellie. I’ve heard tell that they are inspired by Druckman’s characters (I am too lazy to confirm this and it doesn’t matter to me). The show renders this dynamic in the most ham fisted of ways. This season our father/daughter duo are sent on a side quest to the upside down so we can be told over and over again how much they love one another. Maybe Harbor and MBB just don’t have the chemistry. They’re not really given the chance to show not tell. It’s spelled out for us almost any time they share the screen. In case you missed it while you were scrolling on your phone, Hopper cares about El!
And, sure, I guess. But it leaves me feeling nothing. Compare Harbor’s lines about killing anyone who tries to hurt the one person he loves with Pascal’s tearful scene on the porch. There’s weight to the love in TLOU. Stranger Things uses it as an excuse to mow down a squad of NPCs.
There’s been a lot of complaining about Hopper’s action herofication over the past few season and, while I agree with that, what really struck me in season 5 is the violence. In these few episodes, Hop has gunned down at least a dozen people without a second thought. Hell, even El is getting in on the action using her mind powers to snap necks. Remember when this was a show about kids playing D&D?
Sure, ST isn’t interested in reckoning with what we’re willing to do for love, but the disregard for human life is frankly shocking. Each kill took something from Joel and Ellie’s soul. Hopper and El on the other hand are like Rambo and Sarah Conner. It has me questioning who the good guys really are here and, well, this show doesn’t do shades of grey.
It’s not just the family dynamics at play in Stranger Things. My jaw hit the floor when I watched that final battle scene. I was having flashbacks to Kansas City. There were so many beats from the KC bloater battle but, again, I’m not here to cry rip off. It has the camera work from Children of Men, the feel of any first person shooter. Regardless of who they were mimicking, the question I was left with was, is this appropriate for Stranger Things? Sure it looks pretty sick (I mean if you ignore the CGI monsters) but is this Stranger Things? Did we tune in to this show for gritty action and a guy getting his fucking eyeballs impaled?? (And does that even mean anything when El is doing force murder?)
I’m not even sure the show is bought into its own premise. There’s a 7 year old wailing “I don’t want to die!” which is comedy gold (tbh I love Derek) paired with what could be a scene from an Alex Garland movie. It’s one of many tonal inconsistencies in the season and the only conclusion I can come to is that the Duffer Brothers (or Netflix or whoever is flying this plane) are trying to follow in the footsteps of other prestige TV like GOT/HOD or TLOU. Which is a shame because they had a good thing going doing their own thing. Even when Stranger Things was doing insane shit before, I was having fun watching it.
In the end, they’re cribbing from TLOU in the most shallow of ways. It takes the images and ideas without the depth, without the meaning. And what we’re left with is…whatever I just watched.
