Stranger Things: Season 2, Chapter Nine- The Gate

“I’m just curious, you know, why all of a sudden you look like some kind of an MTV punk.”

So, another finale. It really doesn’t feel long at all she nice the last one but for me, well, it really isn’t. Mrs Llamastrangler and I have really been mainlining Stranger Things intravenously, the pure stuff, for the last week and a bit. Soon there will be no more left, and we won’t see our dealer again until next year. Ouch.

We begin by dealing with Eleven’s dramatic return. The truth soon comes out and, well, I think I can say without fear of exaggeration that Mike is not entirely happy with Hopper. But there’s no time to dwell on this as it’s the finale, and so we move swiftly to scenes of, er, Billy flirting outrageously with Mike’s mum, like the slut he is, for information. He’s coming. Yes, he’s coming. But he’s not exactly the biggest threat the gang has to worry about right now, as plans are laid for Eleven to go and close the portal with her awesome powers- but will this kill Will? Joyce and others decide to force the thing out of him by making the environment too hot for it, which seems a bit Seat of the pants; only the rules of dramatic narrative, with this being the finale, make us suspect that the plan will work.

There’s room for quiet character moments, though; Nancy and Steve have a chat in which he gently lets her go, with dignity. For a character who started out as a bit of a dick he’s gradually becoming a likeable and somewhat cool member of the cast. Also, Eleven nearly kisses Mike, but there’s a lovely scene between her and Hopper as they share their honest feelings and make up- he even tells her about Sarah for the first time. It’s a lovely scene and it’s clear that, behind the sometimes authoritarianism born of cluelessness, he would do anything for her.

Billy turns up and gives poor Steve a good kicking but, in a nice touch, it’s Max who beats him by injecting him with the tranquillisers previously used for Billy. So there’s one threat dealt with. Eleven’s turn now, and it’s a dramatic sequence of events as she slowly closes the portal, Hopper defending her from constant attack- and also sparing a moment to insist to the cowering lan boss that she be given a normal life where she can be herself and not just used. All this is juxtaposed with equally dramatic scenes of Will’s, well, exorcism, all brilliantly shot like a horror movie.

So, the monsters are dead- for now- and it’s Christmas again, a month later. Eleven has a fake birth certificate (“Jane Hopper”!) and there’s one of those balls that American schools seem to always be having. Lucas dances with Max, Mike and Jane finally kiss... but poor Dustin is left alone with only a kindly and very lovely Nancy to comfort him.

And, in the last scene, we see the Mind Flayer is still there...

A superb season, obviously, but a very different one- a season that knows it isn’t the only one, where it has the freedom for characters to breathe and develop. I love Stranger Things.

Stranger Things: Season 2, Chapter Eight- The Mind Flayer

”Like the Mind Flayer...”

This is an exciting, action packed, penultimate episode full of thrills, anticipation and edge of one’s seat action. It is also, paradoxically, an episode in which, by Stranger Things’ standards, relatively little happens.

The cliffhanger to Episode Six is resolved pretty damn terrifyingly as hordes upon hordes of Demo-dogs emerge and the whole lab is evacuated- and the stragglers are, well, eaten. And then the electricity goes An the place is in complete darkness. Things are not looking good.

Meanwhile a struggling Will is sedated so the Mind Flayer can be safely kept in ignorance, and we see Billy using a disgraceful amount of hairspray for his mullet, which was sadly legal back then. We also see Billy’s abusive twat of a dad, and how cowed and uncomfortable Max’s poor mum is. Billy is just an example of the cycle of abuse, depressingly manifesting itself once again.  But Billy is sent looking for Max, the slightly less terrifying of this episode’s two main threats. Also, he has a poster of “Kill ‘Em All” which is the only ‘80s Metallica album I just don’t get.

There’s an inevitable row between Dustin and Lucas over the revelation that Dustin kept Dart, but this episode is pretty much streamlined around the escape from the lab, and in particular about the unexpected heroics from Bob- decent man, nerd who gets the girl, massive piece of misdirection after all that talk of moving to Maine, after we have all that suspense about him getting to safety with a Demo-dog trying to get him- and then safety not being so safe as a completely different Demo-dog gets him and kills him anyway. It’s a truly shocking and well executed moment, brilliantly shot to shock and tastefully dwelt upon. Bob will be missed and remembered, and not only because he’s the only non-redshirt to die this season so far.

The episode concludes with everyone in dire straits, desperately trying to think of ways to kill the Mind Flayer (and it does indeed behave like said D&D monster), as everyone slowly uses memories to bring Will back to himself. But slowly the Mind Flayer reasserts control and the house is surrounded. There’s no hope. They’re all going to die and all is lost. It’s all brilliantly built up.

And... oh, there’s Eleven.

Stranger Things: Season 2, Chapter Five- Dig, Dug

”I’m sorry. You ate my cat.”

Lots of scares at the start as something spits at Hopper while he’s underground, in one of those little tunnels from the Upside Down. Worse, the hole he came through closes and there are doubtless lots of deadly beasties down here. He’s up a creek and it’s u certain whether anything he happens to be carrying could constitute a paddle. Fortunately Will is plugged into the baddies and is able to tell Joyce that he’s up said metaphorical creek.

There’s an entirely different awkwardness between Nancy and Jonathan, as the sexual tension has by now reached unbearable levels and they urgently need to get a room. Much cuter is the interaction between the various members of Lucas’ family. We haven’t seen much of them so far but they seem normal and relatable. I like Dustin’s family too, not least because they’re clearly rooting for Walter Mondale in the upcoming election and are thus not evil. But Dustin does have a problem with a fully grown, definitely Demogorgon Dart, who pretty certainly is evil. Dustin hunts and traps it, but the problem is what to do now.

Equally brave is Eleven, who has the guts to visit her mother and aunt and, after a little convincing, is welcomed with open arms. And her catatonic mother, through telepathic darkness, finds a way to communicate and e plain why she says the things she does, in a cycle- we see the birth, and her mother going into the lab to rescue Jane; finding her with another little girl; and deliberately having her sanity taken away. It’s a horrible, horrible fate and a deeply disturbing thing to see.

Meanwhile Nancy and Jonathan visit the private eye investigating Barb’s death, a delightfully eccentric character. I love everything about these sequences in which they show him the dice me and together, with the help of some vodka, work out just how much to water down the truth in exposing what happened and getting justice for Barb. I really love this hippie conspiracy theorist, annoying though such types are in real life, but not as much as I love that Nancy and Jonathan finally do it. Hallelujah.

Meanwhile Lucas tells Max everything and, with depressing realism, is not believed. Fortunately Bob is less sceptical as he is finally brought into things, helps work out from what Will is drawing where Hopper is and, with the help of a bunch of redshirts from the lab, eventually find Hopper so that, against the odds, he lives. Phew. But using fire on the creatures hurts Will...

Obviously, again, I can only say that this is awesome. More please. Now.

Aliens (1986)

“They’re coming out of the walls! They’re coming out of the Goddamn walls! ”

Never has it been more predictable which film I’m going to review next. The next two will be equally predictable. Incidentally, this is the original theatrical version that I’m reviewing.

Much to my surprise, I didn’t remember anything about this film, and I suspect that I may not have seen it in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s as I assumed I had. I’m sure I would have remembered such an excellent film which, it’s immediately obvious, has burrowed its way deep into popular culture.

This is how you do sequels. Yes, it takes elements from the previous films, not least the physical qualities of the aliens. Yes, the suspense is what drives the film, just as is does for Alien. But James Cameron is a very different director from Ridley Scott; he’s much less arty. He doesn’t shoot things to look beautiful. It’s all about the suspense.

Cameron is also the scriptwriter, which gives us a pleasing unity of vision. His script is a little different in that there’s less emphasis on world building (although this is an interstellar future of cigarettes and 1980s style clothes) and an awful lot of emphasis on the US Marine characters. US Marines seem to have been very much in the Hollywood zeitgeist in 1986, the year of Platoon and a year before Full Metal Jacket, and the macho military high jinks of their interactions are so delightfully 1980’s. All the tropes are present and correct: the highly quotable sarge, the inexperienced and panicky lieutenant, the woman who’s more mach than the men, and the annoying one who keeps loudly opining that they’re all going to die.

There’s one minor plot niggle at the start; Ripley’s ship is found, purely by chance, after fifty-seven years. But the chances of this must be infinitesimal! Space is not the sea. It’s unimaginably huge. Also, what’s powering the ship to keep Ripley alive and frozen for all those decades?

Still, let’s handwave these things away. This is a superb, tense thriller, crammed with little moments that make you jump. There’s misdirection; the robot, Bishop, turns out to be a rather heroic chap who’s clearly read his Isaac Asimov (there’s even a semi-direct allusion to the Laws of Robotics), while Carter Burke, the apparently sympathetic company chap, turns out to be this film’s equivalent of Ash. There are plenty of scenes with motion detectors where the aliens turn out to be above the ceiling or below the floor.

But the film is basically about the women. The best soldier is Vasquez, and the most clear-headed and courageous characters are Ripley and her surrogate daughter, Newt. Ripley gets to look much, much cooler in this film. She even gets to wear a badass forklift suit (which looks so, so ‘80s) and fight an alien which is, like, the coolest thing ever. And yet… the first film symbolically had a man get orally raped and impregnated by an alien, where in this film it’s only women who are seen to be threatened by this fate. It seems that perhaps this is the price they have to pay for being so strong.

The aliens are nicely developed, though. It’s Ripley who asks the question that, if the aliens reproduce parasitically, who lays the eggs? Of course, we (and Ripley) see the answer, an end of level boss that is presumably the “queen” of the hive, and it’s gloriously disgusting. Ripley is fantastic; in going back to save Newt she proves herself to be both utterly badass and the perfect mother.

The ending, with its countdown and airlocks, bears certain similarities to the earlier film, but I suspect this is intentional. The ending is surprisingly abrupt, but this is a brilliant film.

Oh, and fellow Doctor Who fans; Tip Tipping is an extra and Stuart Fell is a stuntman!