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I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.

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Someone had mentioned it earlier but I really thought they tried to give a nod to Indiana Jones with Hopper towards the end. The low voice, hat and some of his entrances into doorways reminded me of Spielberg shots from IJ.

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I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.

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Como?

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I had a number of problems as they were moving through the story. First and foremost, everyone seemed to be fixated on Will and no one except Nancy gave two ****s about Barb, and even she gave up on Barb about halfway through it seemed. I understand she wasn't the "focus" of the story, but her fate seemed cruel, like she was placed there just to show what the "bad result" would be. Which is fine, except, like even the police and the sheriff stopped investigating her and only put their resources into Will.

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Also, the behavior of Mike and Nancy's parents was bizarre. Look, I'm a kid of the 80's and I realize parents were a lot more lax about letting their kids go out and do whatever back then, but their rules about curfew and going out were all over the place. In the beginning of the show they all had tight curfew and the mom was really strict about them not going out. But by the end of the show it seemed like the kids could go where ever the hell they wanted whenever they wanted. Also, the parents seemed completely incapable of worrying about both kids at the same time. They were either concerned about Nancy or Mike, but never both at the same time, despite the fact that both were off running around doing their thing. Like the scene where the mom makes blueberry pancakes. They only care that Nancy has run off, even though Mike just did the exact same thing.

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Then I was hoping for a little more from the ending, like maybe that Elle had been psychically creating the monster as a projection of her fears or something. It was a stretch for me to believe you just happened to have a kid with psychic powers AND a crazy dimension-hopping monster in the same town for reasons that were totally unrelated. I just wanted something that tied the two together a little more or at least explained their existence. It felt very "Lost" to create these supernatural forces in an otherwise normal town, and never explain how they came to be.

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Lastly, I was told by tons of people, "oh this isn't really horror, you'll like it" and that's why I dipped into the show. And I admit it wasn't gory or overly scary. But the thing it had in common with horror, was the crappy ending most characters received. You have Elle and Barb dead, Will is infected with the shadow-plane and coughing up slugs (this part was the worst), even Nancy and Steve got back together. I just would have preferred a more optimistic result I guess.

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I'm just telling you the vibe I got through the whole series is no one gives a crap this other girl went missing, and Mike and Nancy's mom and dad are terrible parents. You can set up the logic behind why that might be the case, but those things bugged the hell out of me.

If you are choking up slugs, I see it as a lot less sci-Fi and a lot more horror. Alien is sci-Fi but it's also horror, because aliens come popping out out of chests. I'm just saying this show wasn't for me, and I was given bad advice. No one was coughing up slugs at the end of ET or Goonies.

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also thought Barb kinda got the shaft. While watching we were joking about 'where was her school assembly?"

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I'm just telling you the vibe I got through the whole series is no one gives a crap this other girl went missing, and Mike and Nancy's mom and dad are terrible parents. You can set up the logic behind why that might be the case, but those things bugged the hell out of me.

If you are choking up slugs, I see it as a lot less sci-Fi and a lot more horror. Alien is sci-Fi but it's also horror, because aliens come popping out out of chests. I'm just saying this show wasn't for me, and I was given bad advice. No one was coughing up slugs at the end of ET or Goonies.

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I enjoyed it for what it was. Not my favorite thing Netflix has done by a long shot. Great mood and style, not so great story and ending.

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Como?

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I had a number of problems as they were moving through the story. First and foremost, everyone seemed to be fixated on Will and no one except Nancy gave two ****s about Barb, and even she gave up on Barb about halfway through it seemed. I understand she wasn't the "focus" of the story, but her fate seemed cruel, like she was placed there just to show what the "bad result" would be. Which is fine, except, like even the police and the sheriff stopped investigating her and only put their resources into Will.

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Only Hopper is aware of the Demogorgan. Barb's car was left at Steve's house, but was relocated to a bus/train station by the government agency prior to the police finding it. They chalked it up to her running away, so the town and the police have no reason to look for her. Barb is seen by Hopper and Joyce in the "Upside Down", so there's no need to keep searching and they can't tell her parents about it, because they'll think they're crazy. Let them think she's a runaway and leave it at that. Nancy shows regret over her death during the hospital scene, and she holds out hope for Barb until the last episode. Her story is resolved, but the central narrative is the monster/research institution. They're not going to follow the rest of the police force tracking down leads for a runaway that the viewer already knows is not a runaway.

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Also, the behavior of Mike and Nancy's parents was bizarre. Look, I'm a kid of the 80's and I realize parents were a lot more lax about letting their kids go out and do whatever back then, but their rules about curfew and going out were all over the place. In the beginning of the show they all had tight curfew and the mom was really strict about them not going out. But by the end of the show it seemed like the kids could go where ever the hell they wanted whenever they wanted. Also, the parents seemed completely incapable of worrying about both kids at the same time. They were either concerned about Nancy or Mike, but never both at the same time, despite the fact that both were off running around doing their thing. Like the scene where the mom makes blueberry pancakes. They only care that Nancy has run off, even though Mike just did the exact same thing.

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Mike was mostly doing his running around during the day after or during school The during school day its chalked up to his friend being missing and ultimately found dead, which answers the other half of "why did the curfew rules change?" Because Will is found dead due to an accident, and Barb is a runaway not a homicide investigation; there's suddenly no reason for them to be hyper strict about the curfew.

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Then I was hoping for a little more from the ending, like maybe that Elle had been psychically creating the monster as a projection of her fears or something. It was a stretch for me to believe you just happened to have a kid with psychic powers AND a crazy dimension-hopping monster in the same town for reasons that were totally unrelated. I just wanted something that tied the two together a little more or at least explained their existence. It felt very "Lost" to create these supernatural forces in an otherwise normal town, and never explain how they came to be.

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The dimension-hopping monster is due to the girl with psychic powers poking around in the dimensional rifts trying to locate Russians to spy on. During her spying activities she comes into contact with the monster, screams and exits the dimensional rift, upon learning of this the head of the research team orders her to make contact with the monster. Upon touching the monster it opens up a dimensional rift between the town and the Upside Down and now you have a psychic girl and a monster raining terror upon the town. It's not a coincidence, it is one thing resulting in the other. Psychic girl comes first, monster follows due to her actions.

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Lastly, I was told by tons of people, "oh this isn't really horror, you'll like it" and that's why I dipped into the show. And I admit it wasn't gory or overly scary. But the thing it had in common with horror, was the crappy ending most characters received. You have Elle and Barb dead, Will is infected with the shadow-plane and coughing up slugs (this part was the worst), even Nancy and Steve got back together. I just would have preferred a more optimistic result I guess.

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The horror genre's primary aim is to scare you, that is not the case with this show. You have a misunderstanding of what horror is. This would be classified more closely with a thriller and sci-fi genre than horror. Barb dies to give weight to the story, otherwise its a kid that The whole point of the slugs coming out of Will is to set up the potential for a continuation of the series if it received a positive reception. Netflix isn't putting money into a series with the intention of it being a one shot deal, unless its a documentary.


Most of the issues you listed were explained through the narrative.

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