This is all a symptom of the franchise-ization of everything popular. Sometimes an episode of a show can be random and cool and not have a ton to do with lore or moving the plot forward.* When people start saying shit like "you just had to sit through 2.7 to get back to what matters" you lose me. What matters is you being entertained by the show, not how quickly you can get to the ending haha. *Although I do think the Duffer Bros are cowards and probably would have done more stuff like this if their audience wasn't a bunch of big babies who can't handle a cool, atmospheric detour from world building.
Yea, all that just makes me hate 2.7 more. and I’m not watching the first 8 minutes yet. It’s only a week away.
I could resist. Usually I'm fine with waiting but I haven't had new content of anything I watch in a while (mostly because I've been slacking on starting Moonknight), so I needed to inject this into my veins. GOnna be a fun TV month for me this upcoming month with this, Westworld, annnd...something else is definitely coming out in the may-june area that I'm forgetting at the moment. But this is definitely my most anticipated.
It wasn’t entertaining. It took momentum away from the show. The second season could have been far longer and as long as it was good I wouldn’t mind. This felt like a tacked on episode to purposefully kill time for El so she didn’t come in and end the season too quickly. where as in Breaking Bad, I love the Fly episode. It doesn’t move anything forward in any way but it’s fascinating. 2.7 is not fascinating or entertaining to most people. People who like it are the outliers on this one. And that’s fine. I’m an outlier for other things, it is what it is. 2.7 was an obvious misstep that hopefully they learned from and never go back to.
For a show that owes so much to the nostalgia of the creators, it was such a cool little trip into some of their other influences that wouldn't fit the style of Hawkins.
I can very easily say that I liked 2.7 more than just about anything else in S2, which is handedly my least favorite of the 3. I really don't remember much of 2.
That’s fair. It’s officially released so it’s fair game for people to check it out. I know it’s not tv, but the Chip n Dale movie and Jackass 4.5 came out on streaming today and are both good for very different reasons.
You’re gonna ignore… every… thing… else…. I said? but yes. For the character of El, they needed to somehow fill in her time between the time Hopper last leaves her and she shows up at Will’s at the end of 2.8. They had those days in between that needed filled.
I mean I think I fundamentally disagree with you about what makes art good so I'm going to focus on the more obvious incorrect thing that you said, which is the idea that 2.7 wasn't an intentional stylistic choice but more of them bumbling to fill time. They very clearly had a set atmosphere and aesthetic that they wanted to introduce, and they did it through a bottle episode that they (I would assume) thought would become something much bigger in the lore of the show. But impatient viewers like you can't seem to handle that stylistic/plot shift for an ep, so they threw it out. Because they're cowards
I'd like to believe that when that plotline comes roaring back in the show that people will be like "Oh, now I get why they did that, that's cool", but instead it'll probably be like "slams fist and looks around in indignation and consternation".
You said it’s meant to be entertaining. It absolutely fails that. It’s very bad unentertaining tv. I’m not impatient. The next episode was immediately available. you like bad art. Great. Congrats. That doesn’t make you better. Just own that you like bad stuff like 2.7 and move along.
I truly don’t think the punks are coming back. The Brenner being alive likely will. Beyond that, I don’t think anything from that episode will return.
Sometimes a show takes a big swing and it misses. That's fine. They just need to learn from it and move on
Hmmm...I guess 2 is my least favorite of the 3 seasons so far, but...it's close. I think Season 1 might still be my favorite because of that feeling of being soaked in the 80's nostalgia Goonies esque feel to it and etc, And it was just SO good that it was hard for 2 to match up to it. But I love 2 and 3 for different reasons for sure. I guess I probably lean towards liking 3 more, but so many good things of season 3 got started in season 2 (the Dustin/Steve buddy comedy, Steve Harrington in general expanding as a character, learning about Max and Billy and getting glimpses into who they were, the reuniting of El and Mike, the introduction of the Mind Flayer, etc) that it's hard to me to definitively say I liked 3 more. I'm in serious need of a rewatch.
Season 2 is the weakest season, for sure, not just because of 2.7 or anything, but that’s a big hit. It does have great stuff like Steve and Dustin bonding, that’s become a special part of the show. I liked Nancy a lot, trying to take the lab down and get Justice for Barb and being a strong character who will get her hands dirty. But the rest just isn’t as strong as 1 or 3. I still enjoy 2. I think they have Will some interesting stuff to do, compared to season 1 where he’s largely off screen. I like all of them. It’s all good to great stuff overall.
split is dumb, feature length last episode is dumb, switch to weekly normal-length episodes like everyone else, cowards. (actually, I'm pretty apathetic, just wanted to see what it felt like to write a strongly worded negative opinion.)
I think they see how weekly is keeping up engagement for the Marvel Disney+ shows and wanted to compromise