The show is still crammed with all the things that made it popular in the first place
In 1983, the worst thing to have happened in years in the sleepy little town of Hawkins, Indiana, was when an owl attacked Eleanor Gillespie. So said police chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) in the very first episode of Stranger Things.
The neighbourhood has really gone to the dogs since then.
Over four seasons of the retro science fiction hit our teenage heroes have had to see off repeated incursions by murderous monsters from another dimension, while at the same time dealing with sinister government scientists and scheming Russians. And at the end of the previous series, it looked as though the hellish “Upside Down” might be seeping through to our world permanently.
Now it is 1987, and the fifth and final season.
Hawkins is sealed off and under occupation by the military, which has a misguided interest in those creatures from another world.
The gang of four geeks – Will (Noah Schnapp), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard – and their pal with telekinetic powers, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who are at the heart of the show are still trying to destroy the main monster, Vecna, aided and abetted by their friends and siblings.
They’re like the resistance in this occupied town. Their clandestine activities are coordinated through coded messages broadcast by pirate radio DJ Rockin’ Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) and her producer and friend, Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington (Joe Keery).
Eleven is endeavouring to keep herself battle fit by training on a makeshift assault course. Hopper has told her that when she completes it in a certain time, she can join him on the “crawls” he periodically takes through the Upside Down, smuggling himself in by hiding in a military patrol.
Max (Sadie Sink), meanwhile, is still in a coma. Lucas visits her in hospital all the time, playing her her favourite song – Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush – in the hope of bringing her back to consciousness.
After some scene-setting, the action properly gets under way when one of Hopper’s crawls goes inevitably wrong and, at the same time, a demogorgon from the Upside Down stages a Hawkins home invasion.
It’s difficult to overstate just how popular Stranger Things is and has been since the release of the first season in 2016. It has made stars of Millie Bobby Brown and Sadie Sink (and this season will do the same for relative newcomer Nell Fisher who plays Mike’s younger sister Holly). It has turbo-charged the careers of Maya Hawke, David Harbour and Winona Ryder. It propelled Running Up That Hill to the top of the charts in several countries, introducing Kate Bush to a whole new generation of fans. It made Dungeons & Dragons cool.
All the elements that have made it so popular are still present and correct. As ever, it’s crammed with nods to the 80s pop culture that the Stranger Things creators, the Duffer Brothers, so admire. Robin plays the Psychedelic Furs’s Pretty in Pink on her show. There’s a great Aliens movie reference in the second episode. Cult hit The Company of Wolves gets a hat tip in the third.
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The scary monsters and the action thrills are there but so are the more important components – bags of charm, humour, characters you want to hang out with and quieter moments. There’s a lovely scene in episode one when Mike comforts Holly, telling her that when he feels scared, he thinks of his Dungeons and Dragons alter ego, Mike the Brave. He dubs her Holly the Heroic and presents her with a little D&D figurine he’s been saving. Holly the Heroic eh? File that one away.
The obvious aging of the younger members of the cast does present a bit of a problem. Mike and Lucas in particular are meant to be dorky teens but look as though they could go 12 rounds with the Terminator. And the plot? Well, let’s not get hung up on that. It’s rarely made a great deal of sense and nor have the rules of the Upside Down. When a show is this much fun, it doesn’t seem to matter. I already can’t wait to see the promised spin-off series.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things season five are available now
