Monthly Archives: June 2022

Stranger Things S4: Praise and Predictions

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The length of TV episodes used to be dictated by the strictures of schedulers and advertisers. Netflix and its streaming stable-mates have made these curbs unnecessary, though budgets, production costs and the attention span of the average viewer has kept the length of most dramatic series sitting somewhere between 45 and 60 minutes. That’s probably the sweet-spot, the boundary beyond which you start to bore your audience or reveal your short-comings. Or both, as happened when Kurt Sutter was given free reign with Sons of Anarchy. Not that the show was exactly Shakespeare to begin with. Season four of Stranger Things, however, takes this rule and wipes its hive-minded bum with it. Even at an average length of 90 minutes the episodes still don’t feel long enough, simply because every aspect of the production, from the writing to the acting to the design to the creature effects, is par excellence.

Stranger Things is both a tribute to and a subversion of the sorts of slick, high-concept, high-spectacle, Spielbergian melodramas that wowed cinema-goers in the 1980s. It treads the line perfectly between verisimilitude of setting, and nostalgia safariing, choosing to warmly bathe rather than drown its audience in tropes and pop-culture references. The show’s characters are distinct, rich, well-drawn and entertaining, comprising a symbiotic ensemble that contains few dud pairings or groupings. The show is fast when it needs to be, slow when it needs to be. It seamlessly blends action, adventure, heart, horror, and comedy; tears with laughter. Not many series can run the tone gamut from ET to Nightmare on Elm Street and make it work, but Stranger Things doesn’t just make it work: it makes it look easy. And that’s before we even talk about the perfect pacing; the skilful use of tension; or the way an episode’s separate stories dovetail and interlock in the most satisfying of ways.

Upside down, show you send me…

With the concluding four hours of its fourth season just days from dropping on Netflix, Stranger Things is enjoying the sort of blanket coverage, critical acclaim and mass appeal that once propelled Game of Thrones to its unassailed status (give or take an eighth season) at the top of the pop-culture totem pole. Everyone is talking about the show, even if they’re just asking people to stop talking about the show so much. People are probably going to start calling their kids Nancy, Elle and Jane; Dustin, Lucas and Mike; and possibly even Vecna, and Demi-Gordon. ‘Who or what is Vecna?’, Season 4’s central mystery – more visceral and compelling than the unsolved shootings of any number of prominent Texan oil tycoons – has already been solved, and the relieving news is that Stranger Things avoided becoming another Lost with aplomb. The Massacre at Hawkins Lab not only neatly closes the season’s narrative circle – clearing the decks for the finale’s inevitable confrontation between One and Eleven – but answers questions about the origins of Hawkins’ inter-dimensional trouble we never even knew we wanted to ask. It all makes sense, at least in terms of the rules of its own fictional world. Mercifully, nobody in Stranger Things is doing the equivalent of causing plane crashes above hidden tropical islands to help protect a magic plug-hole from a smoke monster.

On the contrary, Stranger Things‘ writers know exactly what they’re doing, even if our current destination was never the original plan. They’re smart on a smaller scale, too. They know the building blocks they’re working with – the tropes and archetypes – and they’re deft at reassembling them on the hoof to keep things fresh and surprising. And they know that we, the audience, know the building blocks they’re working with, too. Consequently, and cleverly, then, they take great joy in subverting that awareness. Case in point is this season’s mile-high battle between Joyce, Murray and Yuri on a plane somewhere above eastern Russia. All signs point to the disappointing yet strangely comforting realisation that Murray’s martial-art prowess will ultimately only prove effective against child opponents. We fully expect Joyce to emerge from off-camera and incapacitate Yuri herself. However, at the last moment, Murray demonstrates his innate bad-assery, even if his bad-ass-ed-ness is more in spirit than in deed, and more through luck and enthusiasm than skill.

The episode Dear Billy, featuring Max’s near-death at the hands of Vecna, was executed particularly skilfully. Those familiar with the language of television would have been instantly pessimistic about Max’s survival chances on the basis alone that Sadie Sink – whose character Max was an important though hitherto peripheral main character – was getting a meaty chunk of the spotlight to herself, along with more challenging and emotional scenes than she’d ever been given before. That’s often a sign that the writers are giving a character a long goodbye; a last victory lap before forced retirement. It’s such an ingrained trope that I found myself genuinely unsure if Max was going to make it out of the episode alive, and almost rose from the couch and on to my feet in step with the climbing tension.

Kudos, also, for making the Demogorgon scary again. The story-line that follows Enzo and Hopper on monster death-row is part Alien 3, part Prison Break, and all thrilling.

Endgame and beyond

Now that Vecna’s identity and modus operandi have been revealed there’s no direction left for the narrative to travel except straight to the final confrontation between good and evil; it won’t follow a straight line, of course, because there are still dangling plot threads by the dozen, not least of which are the US Military’s El-shaped endgame; Nancy’s mental imprisonment by Vecna; Mike’s mission to find El; Hopper and Co’s escape from Russia; and the murderous intentions of Hawkins’ townsfolk, who have been whipped into satanic panic by jock-cum-avenging-angel Jason Carver.

Still, with no surprises of Vecna’s magnitude left to uncover (though I could be sorely wrong about that) the only truly surprising thing left is to kill off a main character. We’ve been teased with this many times before, through the hanging fates of Will, El, Hopper and, most recently, Max. However, the more times a show teases a major death without following through, the less effective that narrative trick becomes. Keep doing it and you risk alienating your audience, and, worse, making them feel cheated (accusations that were thrown at The Walking Dead during its Dumpster-Gate moment). I truly believe that someone big is about to go six-feet upside down. But which characters are Stranger Things most likely to sacrifice?

Let’s take the long way round. It seems almost certain – to this writer, in any case – that the fifth and final season will take place in Hawkins: the place where it all began, featuring all of the characters we’ve come to know and love, each with an axe to grind. There’s a neatness to that; a feeling of having come full circle. For that to be the case then Joyce, El, Will and Jonathan will have to leave California (possibly – nay, hopefully – with Argylle in tow). Now, sure, if Joyce and Hopper were to hook up – supposing they survive Russia – Joyce might consider returning to Hawkins with her clan to be with Hopper, but she might just as easily decide to convince Hopper to leave behind the Hawkins house of horrors and join them all in the sunshine. So something has to give. I doubt they’d kill Hopper at this point, not so soon after his first ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’. I do, however, think that Joyce is a possible candidate for erasure. Her death would not only force the California gang back home, but also transform Hopper into a molten copper with the safeties off; The Punisher with a supernatural twist. And that would be a sight to behold, grief and sadness notwithstanding.

But even as I write that, I talk myself out of it. Joyce has been through a hell of a time. She suffered the trauma of a missing child, had to help that same child rid himself of inter-dimensional possession, watched her romantic partner die, watched Hopper ‘die’. It would seem rather cruel to cap off her arc with a sad and tragic death. Doesn’t mean they won’t. But, as happened with Dear Billy, the show’s got me racked with doubt. The only certainty, to my mind, is that Hopper will live long enough to overcome his past trauma, and prove his love and parenting credentials through saving El – and I don’t foresee that happening this season.

Something terrible was always going to happen to El. She won’t die, but, by god, she’ll suffer. The particularities of this suffering are legion, but here’s a handful of potential scenarios: El defeats Vecna (possibly by drawing on the inside help of the ‘souls’ Vecna has already absorbed, like happened to Freddy Krueger on Elm Street, and Peter Kay on Doctor Who) but gets trapped in the upside down. El defeats Vecna but takes his place, and gets trapped in the upside down. El defeats Vecna but the force with which they do battle tears a hole in the interdimensional fabric between universes, and the upside down bleeds into and merges with the real world, possibly just affecting Hawkins, but potentially the entire world. I guarantee that whatever happens, Hopper will enter Hell for El in season 5, whether that hell is in another dimension, or here on earth. Which it just might be. Probably the most likely scenario is that the US military, who have been tracking El all season, leaving murder and torture in their wake, will snatch El at the finale, and spend season 5 trying to use her as a weapon. Maybe they’ll combine that with the bleeding of universes. Maybe we’ll see the return of the Mindflayer, but this time it’s the size of Wales.

Dead-pool 2

You can lay easy bets on which part of El’s wounded psyche Vecna is going to try to use to break her (literally and figuratively): her guilt both at releasing Vecna from his powers, and at opening the first portal to the upside down, and all the deaths that flowed from those two events. Maybe to counter this attack El will try to harness her powers from a memory that makes her sad and angry, like the death of Hopper, only to have her burgeoning powers slapped down to nothing once it’s revealed that Hopper is still alive. Maybe the memory that gives El the power to perform a killing strike will be the recent death of Mike? The gangly Ghostbuster is surely in the top tier running for early check-out. The continuation of Mike’s time in the show wouldn’t add a great deal to its overall worth, but his death certainly would. Then it would be El who turned avenging angel. Equally, though, it might make her do a Scarlet Witch and become next season’s big bad.

The smartest money in the great Stranger Things‘ dead-pool, however, is on Steve. He’s a great character, but he’s literally got nowhere left to grow (sic). Yes, there are hints at a rekindling of the romance between Steve and Nancy, and while that story-line certainly has potential, whether Jonathan lived to see it happen or not (because he’s got to be on the chopping block, too), I think the most likely – and possibly powerful and affecting – scenario is that Steve will somehow sacrifice himself to save Nancy. He’ll go out in a way that would have surprised his younger self, and everyone who knew him: a brave and selfless hero.

I hereby announce that Murray, Dustin, Eddie, Argylle and Erica have been awarded indestructible plot armour. They now occupy the same exalted status as Carol and Daryl in season 4 of The Walking Dead. Nobody better muss so much as a hair on their heads. We’re not playing here.

In summary, then, I don’t have a bloody clue what’s going to happen next. But it’s fun gazing into the portal the first volume left in its wake, and wondering just what the hell’s going in there, because the suspense is killing you.

The clock is ticking.

Serfing on a Wave of Royal Jubilation

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What is everyone doing to celebrate the Jubilee? Painting a Union Jack on your pet dog’s face and then sending it to attack foreigners? Donning an Armani cap then fanning wads of cash at your economically disenfranchised neighbours as they die from scurvy before your very eyes? Having a family meal at Pizza Express in Woking? Sending warships to the Falkland Islands? However you choose to celebrate it, just remember – as you stand there snuffling your face into a bowl of Eton Mess or quaffing strawberry-bobbed flutes of Prosecco – that you’re perpetuating an archaic, deeply unfair system of class privilege that’s prevailed for millennia. You’re also teaching children everywhere to venerate wealth and hereditary titles above all else. But still. Wave your wee flag, eh?

Never mind the offensive ridiculousness of subsidising such an obscene occasion from the public purse when many millions have just been thumped below the poverty line like a crooked tent peg: why is the Royal Family still a thing, here in the supposedly enlightened 21st century? The Royal Family is like a sick old farm-dog that no-one quite has the heart to take out into the backyard and blow away with a 12-bore shotgun – which would almost certainly have happened if the owners had been French.

Gawd bless ya, mam

The Queen and I in happier times

I’ve listened to various vox pops and dispatches about the Queen over the last few weeks, and I’ve heard the usual sickening platitudes. Apparently she’s worked hard. She’s a grafter. As if she’d spent 70 years slaving down a mine with a pick-axe and a pit-canary, instead of travelling the world waving at people, and reading out an annual Christmas message to the nation with all the warmth and sincerity of a hostage reading their kidnappers’ demands. I guess, in a way, she is a hostage, trapped inside a high gilded cage, simultaneously looking down upon the stinking masses with a sneer of contempt on her face, as we in turn look up at her and her family like they’re sad, exotic animals in a zoo. It’s tempting to say that we’re all losers in this game, except they’re losers with scores of palaces and a multi-million pound fortune. If the Queen was really struggling with her gas bills they’d probably just let her burn Peckham to the ground.

Apparently the Queen is also like a mother to us all. Someone who’s spent 70 years ‘looking after us’. The people who say these things never cite specifics, mainly because they can’t. They’re just spewing out the sort of candied, bum-tonguing nonsense they feel is expected of them when asked questions about their ‘betters’. I’m being unfair here, though, because Auld Liz has reputedly got the common touch as well. So they say. Although quite what Simon the salt-of-the-earth scaffolder from the East End of London thinks he’s got in common with a nonagenarian who wears a million-pound hat on her head, and spends the year flitting between seven castles, is beyond me. What does he imagine they’d talk about over a few jars down The Queen’s Head?

“Ayl tell you one theeng, Simon. One is ebsolootlee fucked. One’s spent all morning auditioning butlers for Sunday’s dinner with the Danish Royal Family.”

“Bladdy tell me abaht it. We’ve ‘ad it up to eer wiv that showra mugs. Yoo wan’ anuver pint, sweet’art?”

“Meek it a treble vodka. And one has some ching in the Range Rover.”

“Phwoar! Must be amazin’ to snort some Colombian froo your own rolled-up face. Two’s up, darlin’!”

Ah, but I’m forgetting everything the Queen does for tourism, amn’t I? Clearly the UK would be an urban wasteland reminiscent of a deserted North Korean super-city if not for the Queen bringing in those visitors, who absolutely insist on a living Royal Family to complement their sight-seeing trips. After all, since the French murdered their Royal Family not a single foreigner has ever visited Paris. The Grand Canyon, too, suffered a severe drop in foot-fall when prospective visitors discovered that there were precisely zero monarchs living at the bottom of it. And they had to close Edinburgh Castle, because it just wasn’t the same being in a castle without the tantalising prospect of an old woman waving at you from a balcony.

“Do you know, I stood outside that bloody Buckingham Palace for eight hours, EIGHT HOURS, and that snobby old bitch never ONCE came to the window. My mate Kev said he saw her doing juggling and show-tunes over the balcony when he was down here last year, and in 2018 my mate Bruce got a glimpse of her silhouette through the bathroom window as she was nudging out a shit.”

I’ll concede that the Queen does a lot for tourism when I see her handing out flyers for Pirate Island on Blackpool promenade.

Why does one give a shit?

I can understand the fawning obeisance towards the Royals exhibited by the masses back in the middle ages. If they hadn’t cheered for their King or Queen’s birthday they would have had their head lopped from their neck and kicked into a shrubbery. That’s a pretty strong incentive to celebrate. But now? The Royals may have a woolly, wholly symbolic constitutional role in our society, but their days of guillotining are over. For instance, I could dress a hyper-realistic Japanese sex doll up like the Queen and have it greedily fellate me as I sat on a throne made of burning fifty-pound notes, and the worst that would happen to me is that I’d probably get my own Netflix special. So why do people still behave as if they’re 13th century serfs?

I think I get it. I was scrolling through a megaton of flags and Jubilee articles on Facebook when I spied an online commenter, his profile-picture more flag than human, throwing his patriotic weight behind the Queen by charging forth with the rousing comment: ‘May she reign over us for another 50 years!’ I asked him to explain in what manner she reigned over us, and what precisely that reign entailed. Rather than engage with my question, he said: ‘Like her or not she is still your Queen so just be grateful your British.’ (The grammatical error, dear reader, was Mr Flag Face’s) This, I think, strikes at the heart of why so many people seem to deify the Queen. In their minds and hearts her reign is as immutable as it is unquestionable. It’s just something that is, was, and always will be: a holy trinity of traditionalism that fuels the wet dreams of conservatives with a small ‘c’ everywhere, not to mention Conservatives with a big ‘C’ – or C***s as they’re sometimes simply known.

All the pomp and pageantry of the Royal Family is absorbed into the soul of the flag-shagger like Sunday school psalms, or verses from the Quran, and defended just as unblinkingly. Their brain is a swirl of triggers, rituals and symbols, recalled and relayed by rote. For those of us who aren’t Royalists, an occasion such as this can make you feel as though you’ve woken up inside a 1950s sci-fi film, and everyone has been possessed by the tendrils of sinister space pods. What the fuck is everyone doing? Why can’t they see that their passion is misplaced to the point of absurdity; that they’re taking up metaphorical arms for a family who literally wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire?

It’s all so mad, so arbitrary. Like religion. Brain-washing. In some bizarre parallel universe there are crowds of middle-aged men being whipped into a violent frenzy by the unfurling of a giant banner with a picture of a carrot on it. Our universe is no less ridiculous for its grown men and women singing loudly and defiantly at scraps of cloth.

Childhood is where this eerie group-think begins. To paraphrase Aristotle – and indeed that, em, sage philosopher Adolph Hitler – you can inculcate anyone, anywhere, into any mode of thought imaginable, so long as you start them young. That’s why the government has spent £12m securing a boot-licking book on the Queen for every primary-age child, and why most of your kids have spent the last few weeks eating strawberries and colouring in pictures of the Queen’s million-pound crown with a one-pence pencil.

Know One’s Place

The Royal Family, much like death and taxes, appears to be a constant. In a rapidly changing world they’re an anchor to the imagined past, a world where everyone knew their place. You remember the hierarchy. It goes: The Queen; rich white men; rich white women; poor white men; dogs; cats; seahorses; cockroaches; anal warts; poor white women; AIDS; cancer, and, lastly, everyone everywhere else. And then brown and black people.

It’s about time we removed our white-lilly-tinted spectacles, and started to think – really, genuinely think – about the sort of world in which we want to live. The people we want to be, and the things we want to prioritise. Do we want a kinder, fairer society in which we all work to help those less fortunate than ourselves, or do we want to wave flags and throw money at the feet of a family who have enjoyed entitled and protected status since their ancestors first made a career out of executing peasants and looting the nation’s wealth? And who even now think nothing of withdrawing from the Bank of Peasantry to pay-off the victim of an underage sex scandal perpetrated by one of its members?

Happy Platty Joob Joobs everybody.