Watched Stranger Things season 4
Jul. 7th, 2022 05:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly1. I know that Will's actor is good at playing "distraught" and "sad" and "melancholy" and "obviously and hopelessly in love with Mike" (seriously), but I hope next season they let him express some other emotion. Maybe he can get a boyfriend. Or go to an art school. Or do both these things.
1a. Will is a better brother to El than Mike is a boyfriend to her, and a better friend to both of them than Mike is to either of them.
2. Some people absolutely deserved a roller skate to the face. I do not normally advocate violence against teens, but honestly, there are limits. What the hell did El ever do to her anyway!?
3. Our villain of the season, Vecna, did the impossible and made me wonder if anybody could dislodge Dr. Brenner from "most hated". Upon reflection, no. I'm not really certain that anybody, least of all Brenner, could have actually helped Henry/One/Vecna with his homicidal misanthropy, but I am sure that Brenner didn't try and probably made it worse. I am extremely glad that El did not even pretend to forgive Brenner as he died. Fuck that asshole.
4. But seriously, Vecna is terrible. He's so pretentious! Not to mention arrogant. But despite all his long winded monologuing about the evil of humanity and the superiority of spiders (an insult to spiders, but I'll get to that) and remaking the world in his own image all he really did to the Upside Down is mind control all the wildlife he could get his slimy tentacles on and shape part of it into a half-assed version of Hawkins. I am sure it is no coincidence that his evil death cloud took on the shape of a large virus. He's nothing more than a small-minded blowhard with no artistic sensibility whatsoever.
4a. Also, I don't want to hear one thing about the superiority of spiders and how they inspired him blah blah blah. That's just him wallowing in his own ignorance. Spiders do not go out hunting because they hate flies, or because they believe themselves better than the other spiders. They eat, and they defend themselves, and other than that they don't go out of their way to hurt anything that they don't have to just because they can. They only want to survive, like everything else. Sure, that's probably small comfort to their prey - but geez, can we not? You're not like a spider, Vecna. You're like a human, admittedly one suffering from a deficit of both empathy and ethics - but that doesn't make you special. You're just an asshole human, like lots of other asshole humans.
5. Sometime before the final showdown, Robin took the time to get a beret. This was a good decision, and I admire her priorities. She clearly said "This beret will tie my whole look together" and went with it, and that was the right call.
6. I noticed that in the last scene, the person collecting donations said that if something is in really bad shape, to just toss it. This is just one of the many reasons that cash is better than stuff - cash isn't ever trash just pretending to be charity, and nobody has to sort it.
7. The entire Russia subplot was superfluous and insufficiently connected to the rest of the plot. Plus, I notice we have no resolution on the Good Guard - did he defect to America? Did he go home to his son and hope that somehow the Party just forgot he was a traitor? Ugh. This is gonna bug me.
8. Hopper, did you learn nothing from Vietnam? Weird defoliant is drifting out of the sky. WHY ARE YOU ALL STANDING AROUND STARING? Go inside the house and don't leave again without at least wearing long sleeves, long pants, a hat, and preferably something to cover your mouth and nose.
1a. Will is a better brother to El than Mike is a boyfriend to her, and a better friend to both of them than Mike is to either of them.
2. Some people absolutely deserved a roller skate to the face. I do not normally advocate violence against teens, but honestly, there are limits. What the hell did El ever do to her anyway!?
3. Our villain of the season, Vecna, did the impossible and made me wonder if anybody could dislodge Dr. Brenner from "most hated". Upon reflection, no. I'm not really certain that anybody, least of all Brenner, could have actually helped Henry/One/Vecna with his homicidal misanthropy, but I am sure that Brenner didn't try and probably made it worse. I am extremely glad that El did not even pretend to forgive Brenner as he died. Fuck that asshole.
4. But seriously, Vecna is terrible. He's so pretentious! Not to mention arrogant. But despite all his long winded monologuing about the evil of humanity and the superiority of spiders (an insult to spiders, but I'll get to that) and remaking the world in his own image all he really did to the Upside Down is mind control all the wildlife he could get his slimy tentacles on and shape part of it into a half-assed version of Hawkins. I am sure it is no coincidence that his evil death cloud took on the shape of a large virus. He's nothing more than a small-minded blowhard with no artistic sensibility whatsoever.
4a. Also, I don't want to hear one thing about the superiority of spiders and how they inspired him blah blah blah. That's just him wallowing in his own ignorance. Spiders do not go out hunting because they hate flies, or because they believe themselves better than the other spiders. They eat, and they defend themselves, and other than that they don't go out of their way to hurt anything that they don't have to just because they can. They only want to survive, like everything else. Sure, that's probably small comfort to their prey - but geez, can we not? You're not like a spider, Vecna. You're like a human, admittedly one suffering from a deficit of both empathy and ethics - but that doesn't make you special. You're just an asshole human, like lots of other asshole humans.
5. Sometime before the final showdown, Robin took the time to get a beret. This was a good decision, and I admire her priorities. She clearly said "This beret will tie my whole look together" and went with it, and that was the right call.
6. I noticed that in the last scene, the person collecting donations said that if something is in really bad shape, to just toss it. This is just one of the many reasons that cash is better than stuff - cash isn't ever trash just pretending to be charity, and nobody has to sort it.
7. The entire Russia subplot was superfluous and insufficiently connected to the rest of the plot. Plus, I notice we have no resolution on the Good Guard - did he defect to America? Did he go home to his son and hope that somehow the Party just forgot he was a traitor? Ugh. This is gonna bug me.
8. Hopper, did you learn nothing from Vietnam? Weird defoliant is drifting out of the sky. WHY ARE YOU ALL STANDING AROUND STARING? Go inside the house and don't leave again without at least wearing long sleeves, long pants, a hat, and preferably something to cover your mouth and nose.
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Date: 2022-07-04 12:00 pm (UTC)I hate the Russia subplot a fraction less than I hated the entire last season. It's similar to the spider thing, tbh. People do the things they want to do to survive, not just because of mustache-twirling evil. I like the guard, I hope he's okay.
Vecna is such an incel.
I just want Will to lose it and say "Roll initiative, bitch" before smiting a monster before the story ends. I don't even care if it makes sense, I just want him to have some catharsis.
I mainly care about Robin and the Hellfire plotline.
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Date: 2022-07-04 12:09 pm (UTC)Vecna is such an incel.
God, seriously. But honestly, his lack of any sort of human feeling is so pointed, and from such a young age, that I really wonder if it's right to expect him to have any understanding of normal human ethics. He's obviously missing something very fundamental. Whereas Brenner, that asshole, couldn't be on the screen ten seconds without one or more of us saying "God, I hate him so much". He did know better, he just didn't care. Vecna, for all his flaws and his stupid, boring ranting, at least didn't spend much time trying to convince his victims that he was only acting in their best interests. So Brenner retains top spot in the "most hated villain" list, and Vecna comes in second, followed by El's high school classmates and then, somewhat further down, by the asshole basketballers - I'm grading them on a curve due to the stressful and, to them, wholly unprecedented situation they found themselves in. That doesn't justify how eager they were to cave into their petty bigotries, but I will concede that the events of this season would have put stress on anybody.
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Date: 2022-07-04 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-04 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-04 09:44 pm (UTC)As to 2, El exists. Some people don't need any more provocation (see Vecna?). They probably would have gone after her even if she wasn't awkward as hell. Hopper did her a deep disservice keeping her shut up for a year with no socialization. Although the flashbacks to the lab suggest she had problems before her first "stroke", when she was surrounded by people and allowed to talk to them.
I seriously question Mike being the party's heart - he's an oblivious dick. Very realistically a teenage boy, but ugh. I doubt the pizza freezer was his Steve moment.
I would love for Will to have a plot function now he's not the MacGuffin. Just one thing that isn't looking distressed in the background while everyone else moves the story forward.
The Russia plot was a waste of time. Did they actually accomplish anything? Was killing a demogorgon and a few demodogs any sort of distraction? Or was it just to tie up the Russia thread altogether? Which really shouldn't have been there in the first place. There has to be something better to do with the adults in order to keep the children plot centered.
8 - are we sure the particles are the defoliant? It looked like the plant death was spreading along the ground from the gate, not occurring wherever the ash(?) fell.
I'm most mad about how Steve was nearly disemboweled by bats (demobats?), but not one of them thought to get any sort of body armor before going back into the Upside Down. Dustin picked up that awful ghillie suit just to look cool, but not anything actually protective?
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Date: 2022-07-05 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 01:38 am (UTC)Hopper did her wrong in a lot of ways, and was objectively the worst possible adoptive parent for her during that time for a lot of reasons, but that one year is not enough without some serious speech therapy and remedial education. Neither of which she's getting, and we can forget about her getting the other sort of therapy, which all these kids urgently need.
8 - are we sure the particles are the defoliant? It looked like the plant death was spreading along the ground from the gate, not occurring wherever the ash(?) fell.
Whatever it is, they still should not be standing out in it, gaping.
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Date: 2022-07-05 05:41 am (UTC)The Good guard thing really bugged me too.
I am with you on the defoliant or whatever it is.
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Date: 2022-07-05 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 05:48 am (UTC)Will's perspective is skewed, basically.
That lack of body armour thing confused me too.
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Date: 2022-07-05 06:01 am (UTC)Will's perspective is skewed, basically.
Agreed. And while Mike is generally oblivious, I don't think he's actually *that* oblivious. Will isn't very subtle. I think Mike just doesn't know how to handle this which... actually is kinda fair given his age and the time period.
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Date: 2022-07-06 08:33 am (UTC)Sometimes I look back at the wreckage I left behind when I was learning to date/deal with other people's crushes when I was 15-18, and I think "Dayum!" Seriously, I broke some people. not intentionally, but i did.
I think it's impossible for Mike not to know will was sobbing in the car. I think his awkwardness around things like hugging Will speaks volumes.
He knows, but it's new and confusing and Mike really doesn't have anyone to talk to about it even. Will feels horrible and terribly alone, but at least he has an older brother who really sees him and is willing to open the door to talk when Will is ready. The people who really SEE Mike are Will and Eleven. Will's no go for obvious reasons and Eleven has had minimal socialization and a lot of trauma. she's not in a position to be helpful with a complicated social skills problem even if she weren't busy dealing with monsters, kidnappers, a childhood in a trauma factory, and trying to figure out how to have a relationship with Mike. Dustin, Max, and Lucas are out of contact for most of the season, and even if mike were in contact, I don't see his parents handing issues drama well. Mrs. Byers is on the Alaska/Russia trip and also out of contact most of this season. Would Nancy notice and know how to handle things if her hands weren't full holding everything together in Hawkins? I've no clue. What I do know is that the people in the vehicle after the road trips start aren't the ones Mike would need to help him figure out how to work through things with Will.
I do not want to demonize Mike.
I've been on both sides of this one. I have a lot of empathy for everyone involved. Hell, at fifteen, I basically was Eleven in season one, trying to learn all this at speed.
Sometimes, no one's the bad guy when interpersonal things are fucked up.
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Date: 2022-07-06 10:12 am (UTC)But he's not really a good boyfriend OR a good friend this season, and he needs to get his head out of his ass. (Again, not that pretty much anybody, especially at 14, is good at handling "my best friend is very hopelessly in love with me and I'm very much not there for it", even putting aside the gay thing, but seriously.)
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Date: 2022-07-06 12:12 pm (UTC)