
At one point, she literally tears a hole in the wall of her house because she hears her son calling to her. Her refusal to give up, even when told by the town’s authorities that they’ve found Will’s body (it turns out to be a fake, which she knows as soon as she sees it), makes her seem crazed at times, even to viewers of the show. Her fierce love for her son is the beating heart of the show. And then in Season 2 there’s Billy’s dad, whose violence towards his son and his son’s mother provides a hereditary blueprint for toxic masculinity that corrupts his son slowly from the inside out.Īmidst all of these broken families and negative father figures is Joyce Byers, Will’s mother (played brilliantly by Winona Ryder). The incongruity of this name is striking, as he subjects her to cruel and dangerous experiments until she escapes at the beginning of Season 1. Dr Brenner, the scientist who separated Eleven from her mother at birth and raised the child in captivity tells her to call him “Papa”. Mr Wheeler, Nancy and Mike’s father, is so passive and disconnected from what’s going on around him that in one scene he is shown literally asleep in an armchair as the action unfolds around him.

There’s Will’s absent dad, who only shows any interest in the fact that his son is missing when he thinks he might be able to claim some financial compensation. Throughout the series, deeply flawed father figures abound. Ultimately, the show’s heart and humour stops it from being a simple gore-fest, transcending the horror genre to become a powerful story about friendship, redemption, and the victory of good against evil. In particular, there is the interplay between the masculine and the feminine also the themes of fatherhood, motherhood, and self-giving love.
#Watch stranger things 3 online full
Eleven, a mysterious girl with telekinetic powers, escapes from a secret lab nearby and decides to help Will’s friends find him, having realised that she may have been unwittingly involved in his disappearance.ĭrawing inspiration from masters of the sci-fi and horror genres like Stephen King, Stephen Spielberg, and John Carpenter, and heavily stylistically influenced by classic ‘80s horror films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, the series is also full of fun references to pop-culture phenomena like Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, The Ghost Busters, and more.įor all of its pillow-clenching moments of horror and sweet '80s nostalgia, though, the deeper appeal of Stranger Things lies in its exploration of relationships. Will, one of the children, goes missing without a trace early on in Season 1. This has torn a rift between worlds and unleashed a powerful evil force from another dimension which the kids call the “Upside Down” (an insight into the nature of evil, right there-but more on this, shortly). The series follows the story of a group of kids around whom strange supernatural events start unfolding, as the result of an illicit science experiment gone wrong. The cult hit series contains certain nightmarish scenes that are hard to forget, and the third season was particularly heavy on the gore and body horror.įor the uninitiated, Stranger Things is a sci-fi horror-drama set in the small fictional American town of Hawkins, Indiana, in the early ‘80s. It has to be said, the series is not for the faint of heart.



The award-winning original Netflix series, Stranger Things, recently had fans glued to their screens when all eight episodes of Season 3 were released online on the Fourth of July 2019. Warning: This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things (Seasons 1-3), now streaming on Netflix.
