There are a few ways to watch a show like Stranger Things, the smash Netflix series everyone and their eighties-lovin' brother is binging on: a) You can slouch on the couch, devouring chips Demogorgon-style, and let the show wash over you; b) You can embark on a high-rise jeans/the Bangles/feathered hair nostalgia-thon; c) You can stun (or annoy) your friends with your brilliant uncovering of the Duffer brothers' every homage to Marvel, Spielberg and Stephen King; or d) b and c (arguably quite popular).
Nothing's wasted in ST, so there's plenty of fan fodder. Everything points to something else, either within the series itself--or outside. Watching it this way adds, er, another dimension.
No matter your viewing style, ST is a kick-butt story with kick-butt characters. And who doesn't love being mouth-breather, pee-your-pants scared once in a while? Don't feel bad if you went the sour cream and onion route--it takes time to make a careful study, with lots of going back to previous episodes and analyzing the juxtaposition of scenes, what characters do when no one's looking, whether Winona Ryder's washed her hair or not. I know, some of us have high-pressure jobs and demanding schedules--but 1 a.m. was made for ST.
And ST was made for odd-birds like me to grasp at parallels--not necessarily perfect allegory, but hints and whispers. Here is where I might've chosen the road less traveled, though equally as dorky--and potentially as irritating--as the walking sci-fi encyclopedia approach. I call it the Sunday school method.
From the get go, the show's Eleven (wonderfully acted by 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown) struck me as a savior figure, and I was off to the races. If you can call obsessively pausing and re-watching a race.
Here's a (spoilerific) sampling:
1. Hawkins is a world out of whack. Methinks we're not in the garden anymore. In fact, Israel appears to be under Roman rule, with ST's sleepy Indiana town harboring a malevolent Department of Energy right under its nose.
In addition, everyone, especially the Stand By Me-style band of boys in the basement, is quibbling over things like: Monster, monster in the wall, who's the greatest of us all?
"The Demogorgon is tired of your silly human bickering!" cries Lucas in the first moments of episode 1.
One of my pet ST theories: Some of the more frightening (and unplanned) trips to the other side occur directly after discord: Dustin and Will's bike race ("I'll kill you!" Dustin shouts when Will gets a head start); Barb's pleading for Nancy not to float upstairs with bad boyfriend Steve; Nancy and Jonathan's you're-not-who-I-thought-you-were argument in the woods.
Science teacher Scott Clarke describes the Upside Down in episode 5: "It's a plane out of phase, a world of monsters. It is right next to you and you don't even see it."
Unless, perhaps, you and yours fall into silly human bickering, isolating yourselves from others.
The show's out-of-phase planes (in addition to the spooky, slimy one) include but are not limited to: child vs. adult; cynic vs. believer; geek vs. bully; earnest science teacher vs. unethical experimenters.
And then there's the mess within. ST's characters emotional centers are off kilter like the boys' compasses. Their own stuff--grief, anxiety, jealousy, wanting to be different (or the same)--gets in the way of them doing what we're yelling at our screens for them to do: share information and work together.
Demogorgons and a diabolical government and bullies, oh my! Such situations scream for the buddy rule.
And the whole darn debacle is crying out for a messiah.
2. Enter scene-stealing Eleven, small town savior. My bets were always on El to make the ultimate sacrifice. She is, after all, a girl of sorrows. And those doe eyes!
At first, Eleven doesn't deliver earthly unity. In fact, divisions abound, especially among Mike, Dustin and Doubting Thomas Lucas. Mike's smitten, but Dustin and Lucas label El "weirdo," "freak," "crazy."
El bears being misunderstood and misaligned like a champ. And then there's her sense of right and wrong--from whence does it come, having spent her entire life inside the research center? Certainly not from false father figure Dr. Brenner, the monster in a gray suit, who, among other things, goads El to kill a cat, punishing her cruelly when she refuses.
And so we see El grappling to comprehend concepts her experience failed to teach her--"friend," "promise." And yet she has an innate hold on "bad," a word she utters often, vs. good. It's uncanny--God-given--how flawless her intuition is. If her weapons weren't of last resort, employed less selflessly, El would've busted out of the dreaded lab long before the Clash released "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" Instead, Eleven's anger is righteous, directed toward immediate threats to those she loves.
Except when El needs her some Eggos from the local grocery. Generally, El appears to regret her superpowers--they literally drain her. So why, other than its fun factor, the grab and smash scene at the store? Is El, forsaken and fending for herself in the forest, fed up with the Right-side Up at this point?
Then there's this: El and the monster (their powers--and their healthy appetites--are similar) are inextricably linked. How so is a point of geeky Internet dissention (present company excluded, thank you). My money's on the monster is to El as Satan is to the guy who told the devil in the desert to take his bread and shove it. The Demogorgon is what El encounters when she descends into something like hell, and the two don't exactly hit it off. Rather, El's shrieks of terror shatter the very walls of the lab, creating a portal to the Upside Down and a means for the monster to come and go (and hunt for prey). The regrettable gate is why self-blaming El says "I am the monster," not because she actually is.
(Disqualifier: I'm not going to die--or visit the Upside Down with nothing but a spacesuit and a flashlight--on this hill. Great TV leaves room for debate.)
Is it remotely possible El fears an element of the monster inside? Is the monster an upside down version of Eleven? Only the Christmas lights know for sure...
Either way, Eleven, saves the day in the end. By then, we know that determined look. "No more," she says quietly before she blows into bits that flower-faced ghoul. Surely El and the Demogorgon are polar opposites: How could a house divided against itself be so badass?
So ding-dong, the monster's dead! Or is it? When El defeats the Demogorgon as only El can do, she binds evil, but we all have an uneasiness that it's not eradicated (especially since Season 2-hallelujah--has been announced). Because of El, death has lost its sting--for the moment. There's the egg thingamabob Chief Hopper notices in the Upside Down, and, in the last few moments of the season, the kosher dill pickle-like slug thingamabob Will coughs into the bathroom sink before the Byers' Christmas meal. Peace on earth? I don't think so.
3. Evangelism and an Empty Tomb. After El goes poof! to parts unknown, El's followers three can't stop raving about her. Mike, Dustin and Lucas gush, talking over each other, about her miracles and signs when Will returns. Which, incidentally, occurs Lazarus-style just as substitutionary El exits.
Finally, we watch with a lump in our throats as Mike looks longingly at the makeshift basement fort where El once hid...
Is our heroine really reduced to stardust for the ages? Or will Eleven manage a second coming in season 2?
One can only hope.