Stranger Thingsis a nostalgic trip back to the '80s creature features of yore. You don't have to look much further than the logo, which intentionally riffs on the typography of classic Stephen King cover art.
Nostalgia doesn't carry you very far when there's not strong material to back it up, but Stranger Thingsstarts on good footing. The series breathes in and out around a distinct '80s vibe -- fashion crimes and all -- but it's the questions lurking in the dark shadows that promise to keep you coming back.
SEE ALSO:Netflix's 'Voltron: Legendary Defender' creates new fan group: 'Brotrons'We sat down with the first episode of the new Netflix series to give it a chance -- that's always a good strategy as the influx of quality programming threatens to drown us all -- and walked away with enough questions to want to dig deeper into Stranger Things' eight-episode inaugural season.
Stranger ThingsCredit: NetflixThe opening scene of Stranger Thingsintroduces the U.S. Department of Energy-managed Hawkins National Laboratory, in Hawkins, Ind. Shady things are afoot here, and it seems like a silver-haired Matthew Modine is pulling the strings.
Something contained deep within the lab has escaped, and that something is terrible enough to send a grown adult -- an apparent man of science -- screaming for help.
We know the creature is strong, as seen when -- in a moment reminiscent of Alien-- it lifts the aforementioned scientist up through the ceiling access hatch in an elevator.
The creature is fast as well. When Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) flees from the humanoid figure he spots in the shadows of a moonlit country road, it's almost as if the thing is toying with him. It funnels poor Will into the toolshed where he eventually disappears.
We don't know much about the creature after one episode. Will's encounter suggests it's at least humanoid, with two arms, two legs and a head. The few glimpses we get -- and the residue it seems to have left on a wall at HNL -- suggest something not quite human.
It seems to channel or amp up electrical signals. There's the lightbulb that grows brighter when the creature reveals itself to Will and the jolt that zaps Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) when the creature/Will is on her phone.
We also know the creature "came from" some sort of organic growth on the wall of an HNL containment chamber. The growth in some ways resembles a tree's root system, but it seems more alien -- and more alive -- than that.
What's missing is any indication of intentional malevolence. The creature's apparent "attack" on the HNL scientist could just be the product of a scared and confused being trying to get away. And Will's disappearance, plus the phone call to Ms. Joyce, aren't definitively aggressive acts.
Could the creature simply be misunderstood as we, the viewers, are led to a false understanding of its intentions? That would certainly fit with some of the creature features Stranger Thingsdraws inspiration from.
Stranger ThingsCredit: NetflixWho is Eleven?
The little girl (Millie Bobby Brown) that Modine and his cronies are pursuing -- with prejudice -- is shaping up to be another of the central mysteries in Stranger Things. We know she escaped from HNL, and we know the timing of her escape falls in line with the creature's flight.
Did the creature breaking free create the circumstances that allowed her to escape? Was she kept in the same containment chamber that now houses the organic growth that spawned the creature?
The "011" tattoo on Eleven's suggests two things: that she's some kind of a test subject, and that there are -- or were -- at least 10 others before her.
Eleven doesn't talk much and has trouble with basic syntax when she does, but she seems to understand the things people say to her. What she doesn't evidently grasp is the social mores of civilized living. Has she been locked up all her life?
There's also another important detail we know about Eleven: she has powers.
At one point, plagued by the whine of a squeaky fan, she stares at the thing real hard until it stops dead. Later, when Modine and his goons show up to murder witnesses and take their test subject back to her home, she manages to -- off-camera -- dispatch two armed men blocking her path.
Is it telekinesis? Mind control? A mixture of both? Neither? Eleven can will things to happen. And regardless of the means she relies on to do so, the real question Eleven leaves us with is: Were these powers bestowed upon her by experimentation, or did innate powers earn her a place to stay at HNL?
Stranger ThingsCredit: NetflixThe creature and Eleven both came from HNL, but there's nothing so far to suggest a more direct connection between the two. For all we know right now, they're both beneficiaries of circumstance.
Of course, what we know from the text of the first episode versus what we know of genre norms are two different things. Eleven and the creature very likely areconnected in more ways than just their point of origin.
If the answers come from anywhere, it'll be Modine's crew. They're the only people introduced so far who know anything more than we do about the origins of both the creature and Eleven.
They've also proven that they're willing to kill in situations where lying could work just as well.
When Eleven is taken in by a kindly diner owner who calls for assistance, he's shot dead by the Modine crony posing as a social services official. Why would she kill him when she could have just as easily kept up the charade and whisked the Eleven away?
It's possible that HNL fears -- and maybe doesn't even know the full extent of -- what the young girl is capable of. Two armed agents guarding the rear exit clearly weren't enough to stop her from slipping away. Assuming a more protective stance for the agents of HNL, a "no witnesses" approach makes sense.
We can infer from what we know so far that Modine's crew is the villainous force in this piece. Notions of "good" and "bad" will likely become less black and white as the series wears on, but the HNL squad's willingness to commit casual murder in episode one suggests that whatever concerns they represent are beyond redemption.
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TopicsNetflixStranger Things
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