I was expecting it to deviate from the Cold War satire of season 3 because they continued having the Soviets as a baddie, but they turned out to be the least sinister problem.
I enjoyed the contrast between Will and Mike’s distant and faltering relationship with Dustin and Steve’s healthy and loving friendship, but I did wish they did a little more with the latter two.
Joyce and Robin are cuties, as usual.
For the most part, I liked how almost everyone had important tasks that contributed to the overall goal. Even when Mike’s crew or Joyce’s crew didn’t get screen time for a long time, I’m still reminded that their jobs are crucial. I wish they had done a little more with Yuri and the prison guard.
Overall, it was alright. If they ever make a season 6, which they probably will because it’s a lucrative franchise, I hope they return to season 1’s conspiracy thriller vibe. Particularly, going back to the 60s and exploring the start of MKULTRA and Paperclip scientists, California cults that dabbled in LSD, and the CIA and FBI meddling of the Black Panthers. It would be funny to see Panthers using Maoist tactics to defeat the monsters.
It's kind of like Bernie, whose brief hints that a better world was possible helped me to look past his sheepdog ass to find theory. Similarly, Bad Stranger Things made me aware of Kate Bush
Imagine if the plot had instead used a historically accurate 1980s Soviet Union (but with tropes from popular Soviet media from the time, combined with the same nostalgia glasses applied to Hawkins) and the Hawkins kids needed to coordinate over ham radio with their counterparts, some young people dealing with Upside Down related stuff in some small town outside Irkutsk or whatever, and both sides couldn't count on the dopey adults at hand without causing international drama.
Not me being frustrated at the internet for recently discovering that Kate Bush became a popular artist because she has had exceptional talent this whole time.
There's a thread here in how Kate Bush, Marxism, chemtrails, and Albert Einstein all tie in together and it's even more crackpot than that sounds.
Marx and Lenin also had exceptional talent this whole time. I just don't have cool friends IRL to show me these things, so grasping at the most faintly anomalous parasocial media straws it is
I'm not mad at anyone over it, just exasperated because people discovered her recently and I'm just here like "What do you mean Kate Bush is good!? She's been good for the last four decades, dammit!!" but honestly I'm just glad that she has had a much-deserved renaissance in recent times.
I feel like this sort of pop singer who is really artsy and out of left field doesn't happen in the mainstream anymore, without being carefully manufactured by big record companies anyway, so it's a throwback to a more interesting time in music imo.
Did you know that Running Up That Hill was quite controversial in its time because the lyrics, where Kate Bush turned the phrase "doing a deal with the devil" on its head into being a deal with God, were deemed to be offensive and blasphemous? That's kinda wild to think.
This would have been so much better, holy shit.