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conulyI do hate being left out. I have a bunch of episode-specific nitpicks, and perhaps one real Thought, and they're all jumbled up in no particular order either.
1. How does Nancy not see what a creep Steve is? Seriously. Anybody who's going to make fun of somebody whose brother is missing is scum.
2. Steve got his asshole realization at the worst possible time, but I notice it went so far as to say "Calling the girl I still like a slut is bad" without continuing on to "and I take responsibility for that action". Your jerk friends didn't do that on their own, Stevie-boy. He has room for growth, let's say that.
3. Hoo-boy, those kid bullies are something else.
4. Did kids in the early 80s really say douchebag? Seems like more of a 90s insult. What's the earliest citation on that?
5. If you can see that the derelict school bus is an obvious hiding spot, so can the guys in the helicopter. As soon as the helicopter moves out of range, you should be moving somewhere else. You're safer on the move.
6. How the sheriff got the drop on those guys as they approached the school bus is a question that will never be asked, let alone answered.
7. Here they are, alone in a big old school, another obvious hiding place if I ever saw one. The grown-ups are gone on a mission that may get them captured. The big siblings are gone on a mission that may get them killed. Have these kids learned nothing from the school bus incident? You are safer on the move. There is a reason we talk about sitting ducks! Pick up, go somewhere else. Smart money's on some place that's been searched already but isn't home.
8. God only knows what their science teacher thinks of their questions.
9. If I'm ever in a situation where I'm communicating with a loved one via electric lights, and he says he's "Right here", and I can't see them, I'm hoping that I can keep it together enough to say something like "Geez, that's real helpful, sweetie" or "Okay, but I need more information" or something. It just seems to me that however hard this is on Joyce, it's gotta be harder on Will, and it's the job of the adults to pretend that they're not, in fact, breaking down under the stress. But then, I've been known to go into crying jags over not finding the garlic press, so what do I know?
10. You know, they could've gotten El more than one stuffed animal, and enough crayons to put one picture on the wall. They just didn't want to. Fucking assholes. I want to hug her.
11. So let's look at this from the monster's perspective. It's a predator - but where's the prey? I didn't see many demonic bunnies hopping around the Upside Down. And no surprise. Suburbia isn't really prime territory for wildlife, is it? From the perspective of the denizens of the netherworld here, it's gotta be like their landscape is constantly changing, trees being removed and structures put up and rivers paved over, and they can't do anything about it. Until El made contact, did they even have any way to understand why things happened like that? Not gonna blame a hunting animal for hunting. Humans hunt too, obviously, or else how could they have gotten their hands on those guns and that trap?
1. How does Nancy not see what a creep Steve is? Seriously. Anybody who's going to make fun of somebody whose brother is missing is scum.
2. Steve got his asshole realization at the worst possible time, but I notice it went so far as to say "Calling the girl I still like a slut is bad" without continuing on to "and I take responsibility for that action". Your jerk friends didn't do that on their own, Stevie-boy. He has room for growth, let's say that.
3. Hoo-boy, those kid bullies are something else.
4. Did kids in the early 80s really say douchebag? Seems like more of a 90s insult. What's the earliest citation on that?
5. If you can see that the derelict school bus is an obvious hiding spot, so can the guys in the helicopter. As soon as the helicopter moves out of range, you should be moving somewhere else. You're safer on the move.
6. How the sheriff got the drop on those guys as they approached the school bus is a question that will never be asked, let alone answered.
7. Here they are, alone in a big old school, another obvious hiding place if I ever saw one. The grown-ups are gone on a mission that may get them captured. The big siblings are gone on a mission that may get them killed. Have these kids learned nothing from the school bus incident? You are safer on the move. There is a reason we talk about sitting ducks! Pick up, go somewhere else. Smart money's on some place that's been searched already but isn't home.
8. God only knows what their science teacher thinks of their questions.
9. If I'm ever in a situation where I'm communicating with a loved one via electric lights, and he says he's "Right here", and I can't see them, I'm hoping that I can keep it together enough to say something like "Geez, that's real helpful, sweetie" or "Okay, but I need more information" or something. It just seems to me that however hard this is on Joyce, it's gotta be harder on Will, and it's the job of the adults to pretend that they're not, in fact, breaking down under the stress. But then, I've been known to go into crying jags over not finding the garlic press, so what do I know?
10. You know, they could've gotten El more than one stuffed animal, and enough crayons to put one picture on the wall. They just didn't want to. Fucking assholes. I want to hug her.
11. So let's look at this from the monster's perspective. It's a predator - but where's the prey? I didn't see many demonic bunnies hopping around the Upside Down. And no surprise. Suburbia isn't really prime territory for wildlife, is it? From the perspective of the denizens of the netherworld here, it's gotta be like their landscape is constantly changing, trees being removed and structures put up and rivers paved over, and they can't do anything about it. Until El made contact, did they even have any way to understand why things happened like that? Not gonna blame a hunting animal for hunting. Humans hunt too, obviously, or else how could they have gotten their hands on those guns and that trap?
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Date: 2018-01-04 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-04 08:01 am (UTC)I mean, you've got to be a total asshole for me to sympathize more with creepy photo op stalker shenanigans than with you.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:10 am (UTC)I love how the internet has rallied around Barb. She's definitely who I would have been in high school . . .
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Date: 2018-01-04 10:45 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-01-04 03:12 pm (UTC)It stuck in my mind because that scene in the book is written from the mother's point of view. She doesn't know what the word means and feels embarrassed and old. As I recall, I had no idea what it meant either.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-04 04:26 pm (UTC)I had the same thought about the creature in the upside down--like, does it spend the hours waiting for someone to open up a way into the rightside up? But I guess if you imagine that somehow this dimension is a hellish reflection of humans' own evil (or something like that), then you can go on to say that the monsters spawn in order to prey on their creators. ... In other words, if it's a legit other dimension/other world, with its own ecosystem, etc., then it won't work, but if it's somehow a product of or reflection of something relating to our world, then maybe it could.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-04 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-04 04:42 pm (UTC)All of these are great observations.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-04 07:05 pm (UTC)1 & 2. It's pretty much established that Nancy is desperate to be liked by the cool kid. Steve himself is that typical rich boy alpha dog, so it makes sense that she's willing not to think about this. Plus, Steve's got his own posse that enables this. Once he gets out of the posse, he starts to understand more.
3. Bullies are like that. I think you're the first person I've told this to, but when I was four, some of the older kids in my apartment complex once threatened me with a knife, held me by the collar and everything.
4. https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/you-douche-douchebag-insult.1034153/ It's been around. I think it's been popularized more and more these days though.
5. Agreed, but they're kids so cut them that slack? Technically, if the adults were smarter, they'd also track the radio waves of those walkie talkies.
6. That I agreed on. I honestly thought his big city days were a reference to him actually being a spec ops type of guy, especially when he pushed his way on the head of that facility.
7. This one I think I agree with and will simply pin on it being a budget thing since they needed to recycle a few sets for this show.
8. I think in the "Making of," they talked about how the science teacher was their sort of wikipedia for back then. He was a plot device of sorts, and one that I thought was kind of amusing. I do have to wonder what sort of questions they normally asked him, but then again they're all supernerds, so I can only imagine.
9. I honestly couldn't figure out how Will realized the lighting thing to begin with. We know they're all creative kids, but that was the biggest stretch imo.
10. Agreed.
11. I think it's suggested that the Upside Down isn't so much the creature's original habitat as it was Elle that brought its attention. AFAIK, I honestly assumed the creature lived in another dimension altogether and found some way to get there that way through an easy escape route that doesn't hurt it (which is the Upside Down). I'd go into D&D metaphors here, but I don't want to nerd out that hard on it.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:08 pm (UTC)I think we're supposed to make a connection between that and El shorting out electronics whenever she uses her powers. Will just focused that effect better.
7. This one I think I agree with and will simply pin on it being a budget thing since they needed to recycle a few sets for this show.
I think it's more "If they'd moved, we couldn't have a big confrontation at the end without more explanation".
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:15 pm (UTC)I disagree about the confrontation. If moving, I think they could have done things in different ways.
Example A: they get caught in the streets. Suddenly, demogorgon pops out (let's say it happens not far from the library since we know that's a nest) and it's a firefight. It would resemble the school but less confined so would be harder to fathom the panic of the situation, imo.
Example B: they get caught in the woods where the demogorgon's been stealing bodies for awhile and the demogorgon pops out and start creating chaos Would be a major PITA to shoot well in that sitch, imo, but would make more sense to me as well.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:28 pm (UTC)I didn't mind the kids making kid-mistakes--I sure wanted them to do otherwise, but realistically it's normal for humans (especially baby-humans) to want to stick to the territory they know. They can't be genre-savvy beyond what they've experienced and they're untrained in basically everything except the use of their imaginations. The wide-awake genre-savvy post-apocalyptic YA heroes are still over a decade away. As much as I'm screaming at them to keep running and never look back, I get that I would've been dead or caught in the first 15 minutes, probably! =p
(Oh man, that reminds me of how screwed they would've been without the walkie-talkies; I think the first thing that struck me was how much our world changed when cell phones and 'stranger danger' was a thing and every parent was expected to know exactly where their kid was at all times.)
- By the time we hit the 2nd season tho where some of their choices genuinely had me going "REALLY? Not only are you going back THERE, but how are you NOT running like hell out of that entire state at this point?" But then again, we have entire towns that have burning coal mines under them and towns that are completely poisoned by lead dust from their local mine IRL and there are people that either refuse to or don't have the resources to leave. I hate it but there's precedent.
The adults are definitely not brilliant, but I feel like they're more of a... hmm, more sympathetic update (in some cases anyway), of the incredibly stupid parent stereotypes from the stuff this is drawing on. And I got a little added bonus delight in recognizing a few of the actors, and I like that they layered those references in even if a bunch of their audience may not get it (but hey, shout out to E.T.'s aesthetic and Firestarter's aesthetic and random T.V. horror serials...).
Their constant throwing questions at the science teacher and said teacher's bemusement cracked me up. I don't think I could've resisted naming him a combination of names of the founders of Google and Wikipedia, Larry Wales or Larry Brin, something like that.
I'm not sure how he Will managed it and I'm not sure how Joyce understood it, but I like that there's a mom that is neither super-powered nor hopelessly brain dead, and feels very strongly about her children. And TBF, she's already under a ton of stress in her regular day-to-day life, I'm not surprised she's losing it (I still remember the morning when I thought Mousie had safely gotten on the school bus to 1st grade class (but I hadn't actually SEEN her board for some reason) and then the school's automated system called saying she was absent an hour later. I... was not at all calm, cool, and collected in my response, I'll admit that). I like the portrayal a lot.
Oh man, poor El, I just want to hug that kid to bits. And (as the mess continues) Will. And Joyce. After a point I feel like the entire universe just hates El and Will.
They poke at the predators a bit more in the 2nd season too; the Upside Down comes off as a corrupted ecosystem.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:38 pm (UTC)They're lucky nobody snooped on their transmissions.
I'm not surprised she's losing it
I'm not surprised either, but I still kinda think that part of the unhappy business of being an adult is pretending you're not. But, again, I lose it over stupid little shit all the time.
They poke at the predators a bit more in the 2nd season too; the Upside Down comes off as a corrupted ecosystem.
Gotta watch that.
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Date: 2018-01-04 08:47 pm (UTC)ABSOLUTELY. I would think that the minute the Bad Guys noticed they were using them, they would've tried to tune in.
I'm not surprised either, but I still kinda think that part of the unhappy business of being an adult is pretending you're not. But, again, I lose it over stupid little shit all the time.
Yeah, it is, no argument there, and I like to think I'm really good at it, but I don't know what I'd do under such bizarrely extraordinary circumstances, and running on way too much alcohol and adrenaline and way too little sleep (probably avoid the alcohol until it's OVER, at least. I can't handle being impaired and freaked out.).
Gotta watch that.
*nodnod* Hushing up about that.