Unfortunately for Will, that means Dungeons & Dragons is now a relic of the past, replaced by girlfriends and trips to the mall.
And it’s a promising sign that the series understands that, in order to develop organically, it must grow along with its young cast (especially as the Duffer brothers expect to make at least one more season, possibly two). The loss of childhood innocence and the crumbling of a small sound dispiriting, but these are undeniable facts of life. Starcourt Mall might be the impetus for the change in Hawkins, but you get the impression it was eventually going to happen no matter what. They are ever-evolving, as volatile as a bunch of kids just hitting puberty. And towns-especially ones ravaged by gooey interdimensional monsters and secret government experiments-are never stuck in a time capsule, either. But kids grow up, find new interests, and sometimes even drift apart. The third season could have easily begun with the kids still playing games in a basement as Hawkins continued to thrive as a cute little slice of small town life. While the Season 3 premiere still revels in ’80s references-shout-out to the ill-fated New Coke and George Romero’s Day of the Dead-it also takes a moment to reflect on its own legacy and parse what’s so alluring about nostalgia in the first place. The soul of Hawkins is giving way to a glitzy corporate monolith that caters to nearly every need-similar to how Walmarts across the country have ravaged small towns in America and their floundering mom-and-pop stores, the mall is a convenient, glamorous new alternative, so exciting that no one’s stopped to wonder what the real cost of its arrival is. The opening of Starcourt Mall has effectively drained the downtown area of its small businesses, seen in a brief view of the town’s desolate streets and foreclosure signs. “Why can’t we just play D&D?” he asks at one point.
He wants to hang out and relive the good old days, and displays obvious contempt when everyone else is off focusing on their romantic pursuits. Will Byers, meanwhile, is in the unenviable position of being the seventh wheel. Dustin returns to Hawkins from science camp with his own girlfriend who lives in Utah-though the other kids are skeptical that Suzie’s even real a savage burn-and a giant ham radio for the sole purpose of talking to her. (Can someone say LIFE GOALS?) Lucas and Max are also still dating, though they’re mercifully less attached at the hip. Mike and Eleven are in full Young Love mode and making out incessantly-much to the chagrin of Chief Jim Hopper, who just wants to down beers, eat chips and salsa, and watch Magnum P.I. That’s an obvious byproduct of the young cast growing up in front of our eyes-but with two years of prime adolescence separating the second and third seasons, that contrast is even more stark. Let’s begin with the kids: Uh, they’re not exactly little anymore. In the Season 3 premiere, “Suzie, Do You Copy?” it’s evident a lot has changed in Hawkins.
It’s comforting returning to the confines of Hawkins for a third season, even though supernatural threats are once again conspiring to wipe out the entire town.īut while the Mind Flayer is surely up to no good-and appears to have captured Billy and his magnificent mullet just as he was on his way to a potential motel rendezvous with an astonishingly thirsty Karen Wheeler-the show’s characters have to contend with another frightening concept this season: the inevitable truth that nothing stays the same forever.
When you think of Stranger Things, you also think of the show’s adorable kids playing Dungeons & Dragons in the Wheeler family basement, the creepy Demogorgon, and several other idiosyncrasies that make Hawkins, Indiana, feel like a real place. The nostalgia certainly played a part in its initial buzz, but there also things unique to the series that drew viewers in-namely, a charismatic and talented young cast, along with a slimy alternate dimension full of Lovecraftian monsters. The series is its own undeniable phenomenon, one of Netflix’s biggest breakthroughs in original programming. How Cary Elwes Became the Mayor of ‘Stranger Things’ The Mysterious Scope of ‘Stranger Things’ What Does the Monster in ‘Stranger Things’ Want? The Man Who Was Memed: What’s Next for Steve Harrington on ‘Stranger Things’?īut even though it often seems this way, Stranger Things isn’t just a binge-worthy vehicle for funneling nostalgia and dank synth tracks.