Television’s pop culture icon Stranger Things has just launched its third chapter into the world – to understandably high expectations – following the brilliant sci-fi adventures of season one and season two. We’ve followed our favourite characters through all the drama that’s come their way, and so we were all eagerly awaiting what the next instalment would bring to the table. Stranger Things Season Three succeeds in giving us all that we’ve come to love and expect from the series: brilliant interactions between its many characters, flashy 80’s nostalgia, horrifying demons and unapologetic nerdiness. Despite this however, the latest season doesn’t quite meet the impossibly high mark set by its predecessors, due mainly to some broad narrative decisions and a complicated plot that results in quite possibly the strangest season yet.
Note: While we don’t delve too deep into the finer plot details, we will be discussing key characters and high-level developments. If you’re looking to go into the season completely unaware, make sure you watch it first before reading on.
First things first, season three is intense. With a much darker and horror-focused run of episodes than ever before, this season doesn’t hold back when it comes to violence and gore. While the series has a history of some pretty hostile encounters (such as the finale of season one or the Demodogs of Hawkins’ Lab in season two), expect to see much more blood, beatings and death throughout this one. Horror has always been a key aspect of Stranger Things – the previous seasons were filled with slow-burn, high tension scares – but this time around the horror is far more in-your-face. In keeping with the 80’s charm of films like Nightmare on Elm Street and The Terminator, you’ll find the scares delivered through some nasty looking monsters and relentless chase scenes that aim to keep you on the edge of your seat. This is a refreshing direction for the series as a whole to take, proving that the show is evolving and maturing along with its characters and time period. Our leads are no longer kids playing board games in the basement and we’ve watched as they’ve all grown despite the dangers of the Upside-Down, so it only makes sense that the villains have grown bigger and more sinister as a result.
Speaking of growth, Stranger Things‘ fantastic young cast have come a long way since we last saw them. Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Will (Noah Schnapp), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Max (Sadie Sink) are all firmly in their teens now, and this brings with it a number of changes to the group’s dynamic. Mike and Eleven are continuing where they left off at the close of season two, with their relationship and its effect on those around them being a constant theme throughout the season. Both young actors turn in another set of great performances this time around, with Millie Bobby Brown again delivering another stand-out performance as the complex Eleven. Like Dustin and Steve (Joe Keery) last season, we get a great new pairing between Max and Eleven as the two girls form a strong duo in what was originally an all-boys club.
With even Dustin managing to (apparently) find love while away on summer camp, this all leaves Will feeling isolated and separated from the core group – even more than usual. Schnapp’s character has less of a central role here compared to prior seasons, however he still does great work in showing the audience just how far the group has come while simultaneously longing to gain back the time he’s lost to the Upside-Down. Season three goes hard on the aspect of growing up and moving on, so it makes sense that each of the kids begin forging their own paths – ultimately weakening the tight-knit brotherhood we’ve come to know and love in the process.
Our other Hawkins favourites have also been busy during the break, with some faring better than others. Joyce (Winona Ryder) continues to mourn her loss from the most recent Hawkins’ disaster, managing to keep her mind occupied by looking into some strange occurrences around town during the summer. Ryder is an absolute gem here as always, and is able to deliver some powerful scenes which really highlight her growth over the course of the show. While she does play the curious, conspiracy-theorising single mother well, her character spends a large portion of the season following some highly questionable breadcrumbs and jumping to conclusions that seem far-fetched, even by her standards. While this has been done to keep the plot moving and give her something to do, it’s hard not to notice that Joyce has very little stakes in the game this time around. Without any real motive or genuine urgency, her story arc can almost feel a bit watered-down at times.
Police Chief Hopper (David Harbour) is again along for Joyce’s ride, if only as an excuse to spend more time with his not-so-secret crush. Harbour reprises his role as the iron fist of Hawkins, playing him harder and more aggravated than usual this season, and he spends most of his time taking the law into his own hands and knocking some heads together. Even though he plays something of a brute for majority of the show, Hop does get a chance to show some raw emotion in the scenes he shares with Joyce and his adoptive daughter Eleven. It’s a good thing that both Harbour and Ryder continue to have such great chemistry, as their charm is what carries us through some of the more far-reaching sections of the plot.
While his mother is off with Hopper, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) begins interning at the town’s local newspaper – the Hawkins Post – alongside his now-official girlfriend Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer). Dyer’s character struggles to make a good impression in the male dominated workplace, and this drives an interesting arc for her and Jonathan as they aim to break a big story that will put her critics in their place. It’s all well and good until their plot-line is completely tossed aside when something bigger comes along, and is never spoken of again.
Similarly, Nancy’s mother Karen (Cara Buono) is given much more to do at the start of the season than ever before, looking set to lift her character into a more prominent role alongside the other leading names. However her storyline is also left by the wayside before too long, and her very minimal appearances later in the season have her revert to the oblivious housewife she played in season one. While these characters are still fantastic and a joy to watch throughout, their individual story arcs highlight the general plot issues with this season. While the show has previously managed to organically link the narrative threads of its characters neatly in time for the finale, season three appears happy to cut ties with loose ends in order to hit certain story beats for the central and, quite frankly, farfetched plot-line.
Without spoiling too much, Stranger Things Season Three plays heavily on the 80’s hysteria of the threat of Russian invasion. The show attempts to shake things up by moving away from the usual US government conspiracies, however in doing so it loses much of its plausibility and logic. Whilst a fictional sci-fi adventure riddled with psychic powers, alternate dimensions and nightmarish monsters doesn’t exactly scream believability, Stranger Things has always been grounded when it came to actually delivering these stories. However the Russian angle is never really explained at all, and what the audience is expected to believe has been done by the foreigners in the space of a year is pretty outrageous.
Thankfully the majority of scenes on this side of the plot are carried by the brilliant ongoing pairing of Dustin and Steve, along with a couple of new companions. Steve has recently started working in an ice-cream store in Hawkins’ new Starcourt Mall, alongside former classmate Robin (Maya Hawke). Hawke is a great new addition to the cast, and she plays another strong, smart and layered character that has great chemistry with Keery and Matarazzo. Rounding out this group in season three is the left-field addition of Erica (Priah Ferguson), Lucas’ wildly outspoken younger sister who briefly appeared in previous seasons to spit fire on her brother and his friends. The young Ferguson is great in her role as the no-nonsense character who knows exactly what she wants, and the group of four are more than enough to keep each episode afloat – even when they’re dealing with what may just be the most bumbling and useless military unit we’ve ever seen.
Rounding out the cast of season three is Dacre Montgomery, who returns as Max’s step-brother Billy Hargrove, easily receiving the most development of any of the show’s characters this year. Having relatively minimal screen-time, yet an important role in season two, he becomes centre to many of this season’s events and a person of interest for most of the cast. Montgomery does excellent work in bringing the conflicted Billy to life once again – especially when he’s conveying the fluctuating emotions and actions that his role demands. We’re shown quite a bit more of the troubled character’s motives through some haunting interactions with Eleven, as well as through his relationship with step-sister Max, which has been greatly expanded following season two.
It’s also around Billy that we see much of the show’s phenomenal special effects work and monster designs, with the growing budget and resources being put to good use here. The creatures on show look like modern day adaptations of the ugliest monstrosities from 1982’s The Thing, and the grand finale is just as flashy and explosive as we’ve all come to expect. In ending the season with such a bang – as well as with some reflective and touching closing moments – season three does come some way in redeeming its fairly average central plot, and it helps to remind us that Stranger Things is first and foremost about its brilliant characters, their complex relationships and the bonds that tie them all together.
The third instalment of Stranger Things is ultimately another wild ride with our favourite Hawkins characters, weaving a compelling sci-fi tale while revelling in 80’s nostalgia and monster movie madness. While areas of the plot certainly require some grand leaps of imagination and logic, the darker tone and ongoing relationships between the talented cast have made the Duffer Brother’s latest outing a success. It’s almost certain that we’ll see a fourth chapter in the Stranger Things story, and at this point all we can do is wait and see where the next one will take us. With an ensemble of characters larger than ever before and a willingness to take the series to dark new places, Stranger Things Season Three has proven that it’s not afraid to challenge our expectations – and that it’s still the toughest kid on the block.
Stranger Things Season Three stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Dacre Montgomery, Joe Keery, Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton – streaming now on Netflix.