Review: Stranger Things

Warning: spoilers ahead!

Stranger Things is a series on Netflix that came out in 2016 and now has three seasons.  In the first season, Will Byers goes missing after playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons with Dustin, Lucas, and Mike, while riding their bikes through the woods they find a strange girl. In the second season, Will is back from the upside down, but mentally still is in the upside down and two new kids come to their school, later El finds herself fighting demogorgons. In the third season, the demogorgons and the mind-flayer are back because of a foreign group with suspicious motives, and El and the rest of the group end up battling against them in the Starcourt. Altogether, this series is very mysterious and always leaves you on the edge of your seat. 

In the first season, Will goes missing after he loses to a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Nobody knows where he has gone, so while the whole town is looking for him Dustin, Lucas, and Mike come across a mysterious girl. They find out that the girl has powers and can move objects with her mind and nickname her El short for Eleven. Shortly after they find this out the government finds out El is staying with Mike and goes after her. So Mike, El, Dustin, and Lucas get on their bikes and try to go hide from them but they end up finding them and following them. So El uses her powers to flip the buses over so they don’t get to her. El later finds herself going into the upside down and finding Will alive but unconscious. Then she helps Hopper and Joyce safely rescue Will, while Hopper and Joyce are taking care of Will, El finds trouble. El finds Demogorgons and uses her powers to take them out before they take or hurt someone else. Months later and Will is finally back home with his family, but still is traumatized from being in the upside down. 

In the second season it is months after Will has came back and everything has gone back to normal. Everything except Will, he has started seeing a giant spider around town. Two new kids come to town from California, Max and Billy, the whole crew runs into Max at the arcade and realize she is the one that took over first place in their favorite game. There is new trouble in Hawkins. A farmer’s pumpkin patch is rotten just over night, Hopper gets put on the case to see what is wrong. He finds out that the pumpkins are rotten because of something at Hawkins Lab. El then again finds herself in the upside down battling Demogorgons. She then tears open the door back to Hawkins and ends up living with Hopper in a hidden cabin in the woods. Joyce then shows Hopper the drawing that Will has made of the Spider monster and Hopper finds a map that leads to the pumpkins and finds the tunnels that the monster uses. Hopper then jumps into the tunnels only to find out he gets knocked out by toxic gas. Joyce and Bob then rush to Hawkins Lab to rescue him. While Demo-dog escaped from the upside down. When all of this is going on El is nowhere to be found to help. She is on her way to find her mother just to find out she was taken from her when she was younger to be tortured because of her powers. El then hears about what is going on in Hawkins Lab and rushed back home to help close the gate to the upside down.

In the third season things are back to normal in the beginning. El is trying to act like a normal teenager as much as she can. Dustin has just came back from science camp and he has told everybody about his new girlfriend Suzie. Then at Starcourt mall, Steve who works at an ice cream shop with his coworker Robin find the secret about the mall. They find out that in the mall Russians are trying to open up the gates to the upside down. Meanwhile the gang is now starting to grow up and wanting to do different things when Will still wants to play with Dungeons & Dragons. Will soon realizes that the Mind-Flayer is back in town and someone is trying to open the gates to the upside down again. El and Max start to hang out more and when hanging out El uses her powers to spy on people. El started to spy on Billy, Max’s brother, then he saw her spying on him. El saw that Billy was not acting like himself, he seemed scary. Back at the Mall Robin uses her skills with knowing russian and translates what they are saying. Robin then found a blueprint of the mall and asked Lucas’ sister, Erica, if she would crawl in the vents to see what they were doing with the gates to the upside down. While Steve and Dustin climbed out of the top of the elevator and ended up walking down a long hallway with Erica and Robin. Robin and Steve ended up getting caught by the Russians and got beat up. Meanwhile at the cabin the mind-flayer came and tried to attack El. Max, Lucas, and Mike all helped El fight against the mind-flayer until it left. They then left and went and broke into the grocery store to get things to help El with her injuries and weapon for everyone else to use to help fight the mind-flayer when it comes back. Everyone then went to the starcourt. Jonathan tried to get the piece of the mind-flayer that was stuck in El’s leg out while everyone else explained what was going on to Joyce and Hopper. They then form a plan and try to leave but Billy is waiting in the parking lot for them. So they run back inside as he follows them, everyone runs and he gets ahold of El. El then uses her powers to remind him of his mother so he sacrifices himself to the mind-flayer to help save them. Erica, Dustin, Steve, and Robin all went up to the weathertop to get a code from Suzie to help close the gates to the upside down. They end up closing the gates and Hopper potentially dies. Months later and Will is leaving with his family and El. 

Stranger Things is a very well put together series. There is always something mysterious and strange happening in the small town of Hawkins. Whether it is from people disappearing with demogorgons. To rotten pumpkins in a field leading to a lab  with a hole to the upside down. If you are interested in very mysterious and strange shows I definitely recommend watching Stranger Things.