I think that's where they were going with the little Television show teaser gag towards the end. It pokes fun at the fact that Hawkins is becoming a town reknown for tragedy & scandal, so the world is slowly starting to get bits and pieces of the vast range of the conspiracies. Towards the end of the show I'm sure the struggle to maintain the government cover-up will become a key plot point.
God I hope so. I was just so happy to hear that song, that movie was one of my favorites when I was little. Pretty sure Artax was like the first time a movie ever made me crippling sadness emotional lol. That shit still hurts today.
Billy in the sauna. It wasn’t a big moment that they drew attention to, but it still got a gasp from me.
Okay so we watched 7 and then 8 and whew. I'm pretty spent right now. So much feels. -Steve and Robyn were so cute and I'm being super selfish when I say damn it I really wanted them to get together. But Steve's reaction and their friendship is also super cute and awww I love that Steve has a friend his age now lol. Robyn was a great great character this season -Alexei no! Man I felt bad for him. He was just a young guy scientist who was happy to experience America and I was sad he didn't get to live his life. -Murray is a fucking treasure, so glad we got more of him this year. -Poor Eleven. I really hope she gets her powers back. -Obviously the Hopper shit is hard. That ending monologue, all the kids crying, ugh. I'm going to post my theories down below on next season, and they include Hopper. -I do think there was a little too much "bickering" this season. Mike and Lucas, Mike and Lucas with the girls, Hop and Joyce, etc. I feel like this season was SUPER action packed and we got less time with the characters and it felt like too much of htat time was them yelling at each other or saying stupid goofy things (mike and lucas) and etc. Would have loved more time with the OG crew. I still feel so bad for Will trying to hold onto his youth and the games and the rest of the party being turds. -What this season did great once again, much like Season 1, was have different threads of the story/conspiracy come together. I don't think they did a great job explaining how the Mind Flayer came back, I think we got one flashback that showed the dust in the mill spinning up right at the same time that the Russians activated their machine to open up the gate, so I guess that's it, but, IDK...that part felt a little rushed. But otherwise, having the 4 different groups learning different parts of the story and come together gave me heavy season 1 vibes in the best way possible. -I probably have more to say but I can't think of everything right now. NEVERENDING STOOOORRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. Dustin and Suzie were great and holy shit I love that they not only broke out into that song, but actually let it go on for a minute instead of cutting it off after like 15 seconds. Mike and El saying they love each other was cute, especially the way they had Mike blurt it out without him even realizing it. I'm so sad they're moving . I guess it makes sense but, ugh. Will trying to make new friends makes me nervous for him. Alright, some theories for next season based on spoilers for this season: -So first off, Hopper. I guess you can put me in the he's not dead camp. My guess? Obviously the Russians in the post credits dropping the "no, not the American". But how in the hell could he get to Russia? My guess is: Knowing he was trapped, he only had one exit---to jump through the gate to the Upside Down. We also saw a lot of other Russians who seemingly disappeared (besides the ones that disintegrated when the machine blew up) before the American soldiers could get in there---they went to the Upside Down too, in my theory. And, since the Russians had a demogorgon, I'm guessing that means they were able to open another gate elsewhere: where the Russian soldiers from Starcourt and their new American prisoner, Hopper, were able to escape back into our world. That's my guess, anyway. I guess there's a chance since we didn't Murray afterwords that it could be him, but he was with Joyce when the soldiers got there so I assume it's not. -Eleven and her powers. How does she get them back? They surely can't have a season 4 without Eleven having her powers, right? And if the Russians have indeed opened up another gate, that means the Mind Flayer (or something worse?) will be back. So we're gonna need a powered up Eleven to take it on. Well, enter Dr. Brenner and, possibly, Eight. And maybe 1-7 and 9 and 10?? I don't think for a second that story is totally resolved and I don't think Eight was introduced simply to be a bottle episode to help Eleven's character development in one episode. I think the plan has been for them to return in season 4 (I think I even mentioned somewhere in this thread that I thought it was very possible that we don't hear anything about them in season 3 only for them to come back in season 4, so I'm half right so far!).....so Dr. Brenner gets recruited by the american govt to shut down the Russians and the new gate, and he says he needs eleven, and somehow somewhere they get together and he (and eight? others?) help bring her powers back to the surface. That's my guess.
As it stands my ranking is: 2 > 1 > 3 I feel like 2 felt like a smooth continuation of season 1 but also made sense as a standalone plot. This season just felt a bit too messy and confused, and while it supplied a lot of laughs and was a lot of fun, it relied too heavily on our existing relationships with the characters on the text and as a result didn't standout enough. The Dustin/Robin/Steve/Erica plotline was still done AMAZINGLY and I loved every second of it.
I would honesty love for next season finale to have Hopper and El just bulldoze through a bunch of demagorgons or Russians or literally anything together. That’s what it felt like they were leading to with the ep. 8 cold open so now I feel cheated out of that
Oh I forgot: Billy was not a redemption story I was expecting. That was really sad to see him go. Poor Max too. Ugh.
Oh dear god i just youtubed the theme song to hear it again and it was like a 'tribute video' of the movie and they have the fucking artax scene in the video and I got teary eyed just seeing that. fuckkkk
Loved season 1. Really liked season 2. Thought this season topped them both, easily. It's just a joy to watch so much of this cast interact with each other. The spoopy shit is fun too, but takes a back seat to the joys of stuff like watching El and Max, Robin and Steve, Dustin and Erica, Dustin and Steve, Murry and Alexei... you'd think this was a Mike Schur comedy with how good it is at making random pairings of characters just work really my only complaint with this season was How poorly they treated Hopper's character. Letter stuff made up for it a little, but they made him so unlikable for the first 7.5 episodes I legit did not care when he "died". Wasn't until they showed El that I went "oh yeah guess that is bad for her" and felt a little bad. Also why the fuck was Joyce like "yeah after spending a day with you belittling me and watching you be a racist tool, I think I actually want to go on a date with you"?!?!?!
The Neverending Story bit was amazing, such a great moment right there at the end. DustyBuns made me laugh so hard.
hopper has been so great this season. good bounce back after being pushed to the sideline for much of s2.
I was hoping during that news reel that they would have a quick blurb or snippet about Billy. Hopefully the kids told someone of his heroic death, and his crimes are absolved.