Stranger Things 3

I just finished watching Stranger Things 3 on Netflix, and while the plot doesn't stand close scrutiny, it was a lot of fun, and the writers and directors and actors did a great job of making me care about them--there were several times I was concerned about their safety, somehow forgetting this was just a TV show.

Back in Hawkins, Indiana, the government lab is closed, but the Russians (this is 1985) have a secret base below a shopping mall (you just have to go with it) and are trying to re-open the gate to the Upside Down. Meanwhile, a creature called the Mind Flayer is stuck on the wrong side of the gate, and is assembling an army of people, Invasion of the Body Snatchers style, to try to get to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who closed the gate in the first place.

I think the key to the whole thing is that Nancy (Natalia Dyer) is frequently called "Nancy Drew" by the men at the newspaper where she interns. Stranger Things 3 owes a lot to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys stories, where the kids know more than the adults and move about with a kind of freedom that most children don't know. The only adults who are constant presences are Hopper, Eleven's adopted father (David Harbour) and the chief of police, and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), who have seen a lot of shit and thus are ready to believe anything.

There are a few new characters, one great and one not so. Maya Hawke (Uma Thurman's daughter--you can see and hear Uma in the performance) plays a cynical girl working at an ice cream shop in the mall, alongside Steve Harrington (Joe Keery). They, along with Dylan (Gaten Matarazzo) crack a Russian code and find the base in tunnels below the mall. She's a great character. On the other hand is Erica (Priah Ferguson) who is a bit too much of the sassy black girl. She is supposed to be about ten years old, so how is it after spending an entire night underground her parents don't declare her missing?

Stranger Things 3 requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, but if you can do that it's a lot of scary fun. The relationship between Harbour and Ryder is built around the "when will they get together" that was Sam and Diane on Cheers (Ryder is seen watching the show) while the other major cultural touchstone is Back To The Future, which is playing at the mall theater while the kids are battling Russians. Other bits of nostalgia are New Coke, Sam Goody, and Rambo, and the atrocious bowl haircuts that a few of the boys wear.

After the last episode is a post-credits scene that indicates there will be a Stranger Things 4. I don't know how long they can go with this cast--these kids are growing up fast. Of course, like one of the inspirations for Stranger Things, Stephen King's It, maybe this thing will haunt them into their adulthood.