Testaments to the Boom Times to Come

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x09

Just like when I did this with the first season, rewatching the second season of Stranger Things was a totally enjoyable exercise in actually taking some time with this show, which I always fly through when the new seasons drop, and appreciate the work that went into making a TV season that is so dang watchable. The balance of action and heart in these two seasons is pretty fantastic, and I think a lot of it comes from the show allowing space for some really sincere and weird and emotional moments. The spooky kids fantasy genre they were working in those first two years in was always an odd and dark one, for all its cozy nostalgic reputation now. I think almost everything about the way the third season landed different with some of the audience has to do with Stranger Things 3 choosing to lean more towards a different genre reference point than it did in the first two seasons, but that’s for another time.

Right now, we’re closing out Stranger Things 2: More Strange More Things, the sequel season that rests only juust behind the first in my heart.

FYI this recap is also longer than the average, but the episode is 62 minutes. There was a lot of material.

Stranger Things 2, Chapter Nine: ‘The Gate’

Reunited at last, a year after she disappeared in the science classroom, Eleven and Mike swing into each other’s arms like a pair of little magnets, aw babies. Mike, v tearful, is Startled to discover that she had heard him having one-way conversations with her every night, but as our girl is also a weirdo she was merely charmed by this behavior. I am charmed by her and Hopper soft-barking “Where have you been” at each other before Hopper wraps her in a dad hug and gratefully smooches the top of her head while she presses into the protecting crook of his arm. These two! Too much! 

But Mike is not charmed, no because Mike is learning that Chief Hopper, who he’d bravely answered over the radio in the bus a year ago, the only one this season he wanted to bring D’Artagnan to, his trustworthy Hopper—has been hiding El from him this whole time. And Mike has had a long day. Mike has had a long week. Mike is at his rope’s end. He gets blisteringly angry. Hopper swiftly hauls him off to have a talk, but Mike wants to have a YELL. He does not agree with Hopper’s viewpoint that this was the best way to keep them all safe, and Hopper’s like that’s FINE, be mad at me if you want to, blame me, and Mike’s like I DOOOOO and launches himself at him in a flurry of limbs. And for the second time in as many episodes, Jim Hopper just wraps his arms around a thrashing, traumatized boy, and lets him tire himself out against him. Again ends up just holding them safely in his arms after they’ve shouted themselves hoarse and limp. He tells Mike it’s okay, you’re okay, “I’m sorry, kid,” as Mike sobs against his coat. Wow wow wow wow, yeah show, yeah! Wow!

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x08

[wellntruly]

This is another episode where I remember a fair deal of my initial experience watching it back in 2017 on Jen’s couch. Or more, I could feel the shape around where this episode was. This one, I could VIVIDLY recall, had been TOO MUCH FOR ME, and I had definitely blacked a lot of it out, deliberately, in self preservation. This was confirmed not only by being repeatedly startled into wails by actually seeing the events that occurred inside the shed I had just marked with “AAAAUUGHH”, but also by being taken ENTIRELY by surprise at the ending, A SECOND TIME. And then I cried.

So alright let’s have some fun!!

“” “f u n !! ! !”” “

Stranger Things 2: Chapter Eight, ‘The Mind Flayer’

If you felt like the last episode was a break in the action, because it was, well hang on because we’re sure gonna be jolted right back into it!!! We’re at Hawkins Lab and all Hell is quite literally breaking loose. I love when scientists tell you that some otherworldly creature can’t get through their defenses. YOU DON’T KNOW THAT POLYCARBONATE WORKS ON DEMOGORGONS, OWENS. Fun fact it doesn’t.

Palm slam that big red alarm button and get the f*ck out of there, we got monsters a’crashing and a’clawing right into your laboratory spaces!!!

Dr. Owens grabs Hopper and pulls him into the stairs with him, savvily surmising that maybe what is true in instances of fire is also true in instances of swift-footed tooth-faced beasties: don’t take the elevators.

It is, the rest of them all get eaten.

Keep reading

[pineapple-split]

Definitely ok for a longer recap - this episode demands it! So much happens! Noah Schnapp has been consistently turning it in with this role, but this episode just dials it all up to eleven, pun intended. My god. Every time I rewatch I’m just transfixed as all this shit goes down in the lab. They really nailed it communicating several things at one - the overt horror of monsters attacking, raising the stakes with the electrical outage, the menace of Will being possessed and heartbreak of his family having to temporarily put him down. The juxtaposition of the monster attack with the human-shaped monsters of Billy and his father and the abuse they inflict (and undergo, in Billy’s case). This is what the show is capable of when it’s firing on all cylinders!!! 

While I cry, I pour one out for Bob Newby, Superhero We hardly knew ye.  (Disturbing side note, but watching Mike watch this all go down I was hit with one of those clarity moments: my god, there’s is a bunch of unaddressed trauma these kids are going to have as they grow up. Can you even imagine?)

Also, Bob founded Hawkins A/V? Kill me. 

Finally, I don’t think I have the words to talk about the scene with Will in the garage. It’s genuinely upsetting and move to see this kid just screaming and Hopper in Dad-mode. And then Joyce and Jonathan and Mike just reminding Will (and us) why they love him. The editing. The shot of Will’s face when you don’t know if it’s him or not. Godddddd. 

[wellntruly]

So much fucking nightmarish shit happens to these poor kids. Like god, I was just about to declare Stranger Things 2 the most upsetting season, but then I starting remembering some of the things that happened back at the beginning, and it’s just been this the whole time hasn’t it!

Honestly at the end of this rewatch of S2, I really think what might stay in my mind the most is Mike’s face watching Joyce and Bob put Will under. That just, gripped me by the collar, emotionally.

Maybe the fourth season will just be like, “The Gang Gets Trauma Counseling”

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x08

This is another episode where I remember a fair deal of my initial experience watching it back in 2017 on Jen’s couch. Or more, I could feel the shape around where this episode was. This one, I could VIVIDLY recall, had been TOO MUCH FOR ME, and I had definitely blacked a lot of it out, deliberately, in self preservation. This was confirmed not only by being repeatedly startled into wails by actually seeing the events that occurred inside the shed I had just marked with “AAAAUUGHH”, but also by being taken ENTIRELY by surprise at the ending, A SECOND TIME. And then I cried.

So alright let’s have some fun!!

“” “f u n !! ! !”” “

Stranger Things 2: Chapter Eight, ‘The Mind Flayer’

If you felt like the last episode was a break in the action, because it was, well hang on because we’re sure gonna be jolted right back into it!!! We’re at Hawkins Lab and all Hell is quite literally breaking loose. I love when scientists tell you that some otherworldly creature can’t get through their defenses. YOU DON’T KNOW THAT POLYCARBONATE WORKS ON DEMOGORGONS, OWENS. Fun fact it doesn’t.

Palm slam that big red alarm button and get the f*ck out of there, we got monsters a’crashing and a’clawing right into your laboratory spaces!!!

Dr. Owens grabs Hopper and pulls him into the stairs with him, savvily surmising that maybe what is true in instances of fire is also true in instances of swift-footed tooth-faced beasties: don’t take the elevators.

It is, the rest of them all get eaten.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x07

My recaps aren’t usually this short, but also Stranger Things isn’t usually ‘The Lost Sister’

Oh dip do you think Kali might be like…her Spiritual (Adv)isor?

Stranger Things 2, Chapter Seven: ‘The Lost Sister’

I don’t remember disliking the Chicago episode when I first watched this season. Admittedly it was in the midst of a binge with Jen and we were really going through it by this point!! I remember thinking it was abstractly interesting that the show stepped away from the rest of the action to follow just one character’s story for a whole episode, and that that story was such a textbook Hero’s Journey. The Hero, our Eleven, must go on a quest alone without her companions, she must cross a threshold into another world, where she will encounter trials, and guides, and choices, and where she will Learn Something, which she will bring back with her to her community when she returns to her world. Beat by beat by beat, it’s all right there.

But I’ll say again: abstractly interesting. It’s interesting in theory that they would pause to do a side-quest episode. At the time, I do not believe I was paying much attention to the execution of it. And this time I was. And it is not great! I’m a nut and have no problem with the swerve on principle, but I do with swerving into something this clunky. There is so little internal logic or emotional cohesion between scenes, nothing to organically lead the characters from what they were just doing to what they are doing now, only the top-down requirement that this moment needs to happen for the episode to accomplish what it wants to accomplish. It ends up feeling like an extended walk-and-talk through an Ikea showroom floor of pre-fab punk set pieces. Wait, why are we now in the scene from X-Men: First Class where Erik tries to move the satellite? Oh that’s just what comes after the kitchen introduction scene—keep moving, please, we have to reach the shoot-out at the end before 8pm.

Again, a lot of what it is they wanted to accomplish here I have no problem with. I like El getting to bond with another girl that went through Dr. Brenner’s experiments. I like that she thinks of her as her sister, so much! And hell I like that this group’s philosophy is so exactly the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants answer to the more Xavier’s School vibe she has with the Party and Hopper, that scene a mirrored reflection where instead of Charles coaching Erik to move through his anger to serenity, Kali is another Erik encouraging El—or Jane now, her Mutant name—to go All Rage All the Way.

However, and again this comes back to execution, the depiction of Kali and her gang of misfits….I feel this could have used another read. It’s quite hackneyed. And while it’s nice to have more characters of color onscreen in Stranger Things, that they are so openly being used to just be The Other, is a bummer.

So, what do we take away from this interlude? One, and most importantly, EL’S BABY-PUNK MAKEOVER. Bitchin’. Hilarious. Two, wow I had completely forgotten that one of the largest mythology reveals of this season is that Dr. Brenner might still be alive?? So we learn THAT.

But third and finally: El realizes that while sometimes they may make her angry or sad, her Hawkins family are still the most important people in her life, and where she wants to be. When El sees Hopper and Mike as we last saw them in the Lab, though now just as isolated pale figures moving through that black panto space, so beset by troubles, I got goosebumps!! We care about them so much, already miss them even though for us it’s barely been one episode, and you can see the same feeling crashing over El. She loves them, and they love her, Hopper’s message over the radio finally making it to her here, sob.

They’re her people, and they are in TROUBLE, they are in danger!

“They cannot save you, Jane,” Kali tells her.
“No,” El agrees. “But I can save them.”

LOVE. PROTECTION. This is such a stronger and healthier driving purpose than Kali’s wrathful revenge.

And so, Hero’s Journey complete, having Learned Something, El sets off back to our world, on another night bus through Indiana. “♫ We gotta get back to Haw-kins!” I sang to myself, loonily, “We gotta get back to schoooooool! ♫”

Man it’s gonna be GOOD to be BACK!

- - - - -

Love Letters to Stranger Things
Stranger Things (2016)
Stranger Things 2: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[pentragons]

STRANGER THINGS 3 (2019)
“Keep on growing up kid. Don’t let me stop you. Make mistakes, learn from ‘em. When life hurts you, because it will, remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you’re out of that cave. But, please, if you don’t mind, for the sake of your poor old dad, keep the door open three inches.”

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x06

[wellntruly]

Somewhat like my rate of trips and events lately, the plot is really picking up speed here! Which in retrospect surely contributed to how rebuffed so many people felt by the complete veer off in the next episode. You got pace problems there, in addition to anything else you might feel about it.

But that’s for later! Right now: Antics & Agony, the Stranger Story. (Love it.)

Stranger Things 2, Chapter Six: ’The Spy’

If you were hoping we’d just skip to the end of our small son being wracked with pain, BAD NEWS. Good news though is that Noah Schnapp has a killer acting reel thanks to this season. He moans and screams and cries, curling in on himself on a stretcher as he’s rushed into Hawkins Lab, the pain continuing unabated despite no visible marks of injury. Eventually they just knock him out with a merciful injection as Joyce sobs.

Wheeeewww. Okay we could use some leavening, yeah? 

How about the new Dream Team of DUSTIN! and! STEEVE! They drive down the road together in silence for a few moments. “Wait a sec, how big?” Steve asks, as if picking up a conversation. God I love this kind of shit every time. Dustin is either an idiot—he’s not—or deliberately undersells how big D’Art is now in his reply. The second option is more likely, and, hilarious. It’s uh, it’s don’t worry about it big, Steve. Just drive.

I propose that the true reason why Steve was* popular (*was. sorry babe, but if it helps you’re only realizing your true form now that you’re Fallen), was not actually his good hair, but his physicality. He has an offhandedly elegant and sure way of moving, like, and I mean this in a good way, a juggler or other street performer. I realized this in the way he pops the trunk of his car, tosses his keys in an arc to Dustin, pulls out his nail-studded bat, and lightly passes it to the other hand before swinging the trunk back down. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Harrington.

Keep reading

[lightfromthelostland]

So I love Steve Harrington with my entire heart, and have since season one in which I just knew, despite all indicators to the contrary that he was going to be awesome. And the thing about Steve is that he is so self-aware. Like the boy be dumb about some things, although I wish people would stop calling him an idiot because I suspect his self-esteem is terrible and he doesn’t need that, but the emotional intelligence!! It exists. He knows what’s up. And that, I think, was also a strong contributing factor in the boy’s popularity, because he knows how to work it. He was exactly what the popular crowd wanted him to be, until he finally got tired of pretending to be someone he’s not. (But also the physicality thing, heck yeah, the way he twirls the bat while fighting the demogorgon in season one, the dive and roll and swing across the hood of the car this season, so good)

And now we get REAL Steve Harrington going full force. Diving into danger to protect people! Doing stupid things because they need to be done! Somehow still being deeply cool in a genuine way, even though yes, he’s no longer cool at school. The way they shoot Joe Kerry is incredible, because yes, that shot with the hair and the bat thrown over his shoulder, recognizing that he didn’t actually save the day even though he would have gone down trying? Possibly the coolest Steve has ever looked.

Also, yes, Steve as perpetual outsider in this group is kind of great, especially contrasted to the reunion scene in season three where suddenly Steve’s an insider explaining things to Robin? My favorite of this is in a couple of episodes when Steve and the kids come out of the woods and Nancy and Jonathan are like, in unison, “STEVE?!?!?!” Part of the reason I like this so much is we get this recurring trope of Steve showing up at exactly the right moment when the world is going to hell. 

On other fronts, Noah Schnapp is incredible, but I also can’t get over Finn Wolfhard in this episode. Like, he honestly barely talks but he’s like, radiating ferocious devotion everywhere at every turn, and I kind of don’t know how to handle it at all. 

And, as usual, Murray is a delight, although we *definitely* love Steve, Murray, you’re wrong.

[wellntruly]

Oh I’m so interested….I feel like I know what you mean about emotional intelligence, because Steve operates much more from the heart than from the head, but I have a somewhat different color on it than you do I think. Because, and I promise this is going to be a compliment, I feel like his emotional understanding doesn’t really have any nuance to it. In S1, it just comes over him all at once that his friends are terrible people, literally announcing in discovery “You’re both assholes, that’s what my problem is!” and then driving off to start making amends to people he’s wronged like someone in a fable. He moves in these simple, broad strokes. When he arrives to apologize to Nancy on that tour, he is immediately distracted by her injured hand and goes into his soft dumbass caretaker mode, as if he can only focus on one emotional vector at a time. And when he gets adopted by Dustin this season, he immediately goes “alright these are my kids now,” and essentially leaves his life behind because Heart Says Do This Now. It’s like Steve can’t really hold two conflicting ideas in his head at once, and in his case that just renders him affable and oddly responsible and straightforward and a little stupid, but also brave. And I heart him.

I actually remember very clearly from my first watch asking for EXACTLY that moment with Nancy and Jonathan running into Heroic Babysitter Steve, which I gloriously got, because this show also understood why it would be so good. But more on that/why when I get there in the recaps!! :D

Re: Finn Wolfhard in this episode – I end up with anywhere between two and nine screenshots on my desktop at the end of each ep, and this was one of the nines, for reasons such as would you look at my son find his light!

BAby, swell job being your own devotional candle!

And also for you I bet:

A Composition In Steve

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x06

[wellntruly]

Somewhat like my rate of trips and events lately, the plot is really picking up speed here! Which in retrospect surely contributed to how rebuffed so many people felt by the complete veer off in the next episode. You got pace problems there, in addition to anything else you might feel about it.

But that’s for later! Right now: Antics & Agony, the Stranger Story. (Love it.)

Stranger Things 2, Chapter Six: ’The Spy’

If you were hoping we’d just skip to the end of our small son being wracked with pain, BAD NEWS. Good news though is that Noah Schnapp has a killer acting reel thanks to this season. He moans and screams and cries, curling in on himself on a stretcher as he’s rushed into Hawkins Lab, the pain continuing unabated despite no visible marks of injury. Eventually they just knock him out with a merciful injection as Joyce sobs.

Wheeeewww. Okay we could use some leavening, yeah? 

How about the new Dream Team of DUSTIN! and! STEEVE! They drive down the road together in silence for a few moments. “Wait a sec, how big?” Steve asks, as if picking up a conversation. God I love this kind of shit every time. Dustin is either an idiot—he’s not—or deliberately undersells how big D’Art is now in his reply. The second option is more likely, and, hilarious. It’s uh, it’s don’t worry about it big, Steve. Just drive.

I propose that the true reason why Steve was* popular (*was. sorry babe, but if it helps you’re only realizing your true form now that you’re Fallen), was not actually his good hair, but his physicality. He has an offhandedly elegant and sure way of moving, like, and I mean this in a good way, a juggler or other street performer. I realized this in the way he pops the trunk of his car, tosses his keys in an arc to Dustin, pulls out his nail-studded bat, and lightly passes it to the other hand before swinging the trunk back down. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Harrington.

Keep reading

[pineapple-split]

Haha, so the first time I watched this episode I was hyperventilating because I was sure I was about to see Steve die as he walked into the basement. My poor heart couldn’t take the suspense. 

Also I have questions about that meat! Did Dustin (or Steve) just take a bunch of uncooked meat from his respective fridge? Did Steve go out and buy several packages of beef cut for stew and smile winningly at the poor cashier who rang him up? What about the salmonella. 

It’s SUPER suspect that Doc Owens doesn’t see fit to share his insights with Joyce - you know, Will’s legal parent and guardian - but men underestimating Joyce Hopper has been a Thing, so…

I love everything about the junkyard scene, not in the least because its one of those instances where a Place that has some Narrative Meaning is revisited and expanded upon. New alliances are forged where friendships were tested the year before. Also Steve with his bat just sauntering out to do battle with D’Artagnan made my heart expand three sizes. Then cue my third hyperventilation of the episode (second was Will). 

[wellntruly]

They each have a BUCKET of meat, I’d assumed Steve just swung by the local Cash&Carry and stocked up on the cheapest cut. Do they have Cash&Carry in Indiana? Well whatever restaurant supplier/Costco-esque equivalent. And low risk for accidentally ingesting food-born bacteria, that’s what the dish gloves are for! Then they can just toss ‘em.

Owens and Hopper having that state of the union on their own really is something I think just came from the mechanics of writing a TV episode and having various boxes they wanted to check. At the time it’s like, What, but Owens clearly isn’t trying to keep this from Joyce as a) he tells her everything and more in the next scene he has with her, and b) he was, perhaps still is, under the impression that Joyce and Hopper are Will’s parents, and surely must presume anything he tells one will be shared with the other. It just scans bad when it’s first happening, if you stop and think about it! Which of course you and I do :)

Season 1 established these really great greenwood settings, such as the junkyard, that I was just ELATED to have come back. They don’t have as much of a presence in Season 3, which is one of the many things that season did differently that are becoming clear to me in rewatching Season 2.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x06

Somewhat like my rate of trips and events lately, the plot is really picking up speed here! Which in retrospect surely contributed to how rebuffed so many people felt by the complete veer off in the next episode. You got pace problems there, in addition to anything else you might feel about it.

But that’s for later! Right now: Antics & Agony, the Stranger Story. (Love it.)

Stranger Things 2, Chapter Six: ‘The Spy’

If you were hoping we’d just skip to the end of our small son being wracked with pain, BAD NEWS. Good news though is that Noah Schnapp has a killer acting reel thanks to this season. He moans and screams and cries, curling in on himself on a stretcher as he’s rushed into Hawkins Lab, the pain continuing unabated despite no visible marks of injury. Eventually they just knock him out with a merciful injection as Joyce sobs.

Wheeeewww. Okay we could use some leavening, yeah? 

How about the new Dream Team of DUSTIN! and! STEEVE! They drive down the road together in silence for a few moments. “Wait a sec, how big?” Steve asks, as if picking up a conversation. God I love this kind of shit every time. Dustin is either an idiot—he’s not—or deliberately undersells how big D’Art is now in his reply. The second option is more likely, and, hilarious. It’s uh, it’s don’t worry about it big, Steve. Just drive.

I propose that the true reason why Steve was* popular (*was. sorry babe, but if it helps you’re only realizing your true form now that you’re Fallen), was not actually his good hair, but his physicality. He has an offhandedly elegant and sure way of moving, like, and I mean this in a good way, a juggler or other street performer. I realized this in the way he pops the trunk of his car, tosses his keys in an arc to Dustin, pulls out his nail-studded bat, and lightly passes it to the other hand before swinging the trunk back down. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Harrington.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x05

[wellntruly]

HEY LOVERS I’M BACK. Apologies for another delay, went out of town, went off the deep end, etc.

But luckily, there are no connections between Stranger Things and The Goldfinch at all.

ALRIGHT DRINK UP YOUR COPYRIGHT-COMPLIANT “SLOTICHNAYA”, HERE WE GO.

Stranger Things 2, Chapter Five: ‘Dig Dug’

There are five storylines running by the time of this episode, but only one of them matters. Two have already become a little tedious if we’re being honest (emotionally repetitive, we’ll get to it), one actually shows some weird promise but is pretty brief, and one you can tell is gonna rule, but it’s only barely begun just yet, hang on.

The main plot is so valid though. It is concerned with 3 + 1 very tired people, and one upbeat confused interloper. Nearly every moment of this is fully hilarious to me in its like, resigned absurdist register. And then the rest of the moments are also hilarious to me because wow is going back to recapping Stranger Things 2 [*singing tunelessly*] noOt gonna heellp meee. oh my god help me

Keep reading

[pineapple-split]

Bob seamlessly joining Team Will The Wise is one of my favorite things about this season. (also, just Bob). It doesn’t even really stretch credibility that he just rolls with the shenanigans, because the show’s taken steps to establish that he is just That Good Guy by this point. Joyce Byers is asking for his help with no questions asked, so that’s what he’s going to provide. Bob. 

Murray, on the other hand, is the kind of character that seems greasy and generally unappealing on every possible level - but the actor playing him has enough charisma to just about sell it. It’s highly upsetting to me. I do love just how casually ruthless Nancy is though. Even in her conversation about waiting for Jonathan, there’s that heavy implication that she was like… calculating her romance options before deciding Steve had the highest probability of short-term gain. Nancy. 

[wellntruly]

Team Will The Wise! Cute. Bob=cute.

I find on round two that I just love Murray. I think he’s my problematic fave. Is it residual fondness from Fleabag? Perhaps. Or maybe that I find his character on Fleabag so much more unappealing that now Murray rises in comparison. Anyway the moral of the story: all hail Brett Gelman.

Well I don’t know about short-term gain, as Jonathan hadn’t told her he just needed more time. It would have just looked like maybe he was never going to make a move, not interested in her enough after all, and she does like Steve, who has made it clear he’d want to be with her. Yeah this really doesn’t seem ruthless to me at all. On other metrics though, yeah Nancy takes no prisoners.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

STRANGER THINGS Recap: 2x05

HEY LOVERS I’M BACK. Apologies for another delay, went out of town, went off the deep end, etc.

But luckily, there are no connections between Stranger Things and The Goldfinch at all.

ALRIGHT DRINK UP YOUR COPYRIGHT-COMPLIANT “SLOTICHNAYA”, HERE WE GO.

Stranger Things 2, Chapter Five: ‘Dig Dug’

There are five storylines running by the time of this episode, but only one of them matters. Two have already become a little tedious if we’re being honest (emotionally repetitive, we’ll get to it), one actually shows some weird promise but is pretty brief, and one you can tell is gonna rule, but it’s only barely begun just yet, hang on.

The main plot is so valid though. It is concerned with 3 + 1 very tired people, and one upbeat confused interloper. Nearly every moment of this is fully hilarious to me in its like, resigned absurdist register. And then the rest of the moments are also hilarious to me because wow is going back to recapping Stranger Things 2 [*singing tunelessly*] noOt gonna heellp meee. oh my god help me