Stranger Things Season 3 - A Breakup Letter to Friendship

My thoughts on Stranger Things Season 3. If you haven't watched it, all of the spoilers are ahead. So tread carefully, like a Mind Flayer could be around the corner.

“But I know you're getting older, growing, changing. I guess, if I'm being really honest, that's what scares me. I don't want things to change.” - Jim Hopper

True friendship, at least to the Duffer Brothers, seems defined by finding those people who truly understand you. Who you don’t really need to explain your life to because they already get it.  There’s shared happiness and shared trauma. They are those with whom you speak a common language, who understand what a Mind Flayer or Demogorgon are without explanation. Who can walk into your parents’ basements unannounced. They can get you up on the walkie-talkie at any time for a meetup somewhere on a D&D game, trip to the pool, walk at the mall or take down a secret Russian military base. These are true friends. 

Friendships like these are tough to come by and they don’t always last. But in the moment they mean a connection to each other with all the passion and sometimes provocation that embody what it means to truly understand another person. No one has a more shared sense of this than the Party. They are inextricably linked with knowledge and experience the likes of which will never be recreated. They’ve been the true definition of the closest kind of friends. And that’s beautiful, until it ends. Because make no mistake, at some point it ends. 

Season 3 of Stranger Things gave us a glimpse of these relationships over the spectrum of time. How the rules change as you get older. How friendships can last or change, or die, or maintain, or some combination of everything in between. 

See, most of Hawkins, Indiana woke up July 5, 1985 to the news the Starcourt Mall was going to need some major repairs, a beefcake lifeguard lay impaled in the food court, the town newspaper’s editorial board was missing, the local sheriff dead, the US government had flown in choppers overnight, there may or may not be Russians involved and real estate values were almost certainly plummeting. Hawkins lay in a bevy of shit, now dealing with problems that had seemingly come out of nowhere. For a place that had been able to turn a relative blind eye to even the most obvious problems, this was uncharted ground. 

But while the rest of the town had the (Under)world’s problems basically dropped off at their collective doorsteps out of nowhere, The Party was already trying to pick up the pieces. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will with the late additions of Eleven and Mad Max were dealing with a new reality. The horrors of a terrible night were already well behind them, turned to dust and glop with Mind Flayers defeated and loved ones lost. They’d move on to a greater loss: the true dissolution of their group and the friendships that had bound them from the beginning. 

The group has grown to include Steve and Robin, Nancy and Jonathan with a very late Erica Sinclair add I suppose, but at its core it’s been this group of friends navigating the world of growing up. They are bound by the inexplicable part of life when you come of age, realizing the world around you is more than just what you get up to in your parents' basement. But now, as often happens, one family  (with Eleven in tow) was moving away leaving the others to venture out as a new group, major pieces lost. 

In Dungeons & Dragons, a party sometimes loses characters during a campaign. It can happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they choose to just wander off, called by some side mission. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they just can’t make the game and stop coming.  The remaining participants are then left a choice: roll up new characters to add to the group, quit the campaign all together or forge ahead in a weakened and compromised state. The show left us at the edge of that decision. 

One of the major themes of Season 3 was an extension of the Season 2’s finale when the Party began to pair off, a tough realization for sure. By way of critique, this season spent entirely too much time on the relationship angles, weaving the will-they/ won’t-they narrative into almost every conversation and off moment. I found it to be tedious and tiresome the more the show went on. It was unbelievably annoying and nearly derailed certain narrative arcs. Season 3 had its flaws for sure. 

That being said, it felt most authentic within The Party itself. Will’s insistence on keeping he, Mike, Dustin and Lucas linked to the past within their D&D campaigns, and away from the girls was bittersweet and authentic. Him smashing Castle Byers was a bit melodramatic but it served its purpose. Because aging and maturity aren’t linear even within the same age group, it made sense that a few of them made the *leap* before others. Mike and El working overtime at making out. Lucas and Max already having entered a new realm of couplehood in which they constantly bicker while Dustin worked to convince them of Suzie (I met her at camp) left Will behind. Will’s outside-looking-in posture wasn’t actually too different than his role in Seasons 1 and 2. There he was lost in another world or overtaken by a demonic presence which made him a bit of an *outsider*. This season it was mostly because his hormones hadn’t fully kicked in. 

This fracture defined the best, worst and most authentic piece of Season 3. While the conversations at times delved into the cliched ridiculous (of which I found much to be tongue-in-cheek) the thematic issues were real. With the rest of the Party hanging around in Hawkins, it’s tough to know what becomes of Will whose tether to the world took much of its strength from his friends. I get the overwhelming sense that things won’t end well for him when it’s all said and done. And Eleven, now stripped back to Level 1 powers, or at minimum needing a significant long rest, is a new character almost entirely. 

This is what happens in middle school and high school. Things change, friendships are altered, people grow and grow apart. The Party’s three-season campaign is coming to an end after having shouldered the burden of facing the Big Bad, completed most of the side missions, leveled up, gained things and lost them, dispatched (for now) relentless and unmitigating evil. They’ve closed portals into other dimensions. They’ve handled the town bully once and for all and also took down a secret Russian program intent on destroying the United States without any fanfare, medals or accolades. And now they splinter. 

Like I said before, this season was problematic in a number of different ways. The writers relied much too heavily on the love/ relationship angle for ALL of the characters to the point where I actively thought at one point, “Is Dustin going to cheat on Suzie with Erica?”. (Not a joke)

But the worst part was the Hopper/ Joyce Byers storyline. Outside of pushing along a narrative arc, the “sexual tension” (a 0.0) was borderline unwatchable at times. Hopper’s constant curmudgeon negativity with unending “goddamnits” and snarky responses to Joyce, really just everything that spit out of his mouth until the very end (which we’ll get to momentarily) was a disaster. It essentially ruined a rather layered character who’d worked his way up from the absolute pits of despair by finding/ unearthing enough buried love in his heart to raise a new daughter. So much of this was undone by what the writers did with his character for basically all eight episodes. 

My friend Pac and I were texting about the show leading up into to us finishing the season and I wrote to him: 

“Not finished (with Stranger Things) yet but can easily say Hopper could have died three episodes ago and it would have been a net positive for this season.”

Let me start by saying, I didn’t really mean it. I was more just frustrated with Hop reduced to almost no redeeming traits besides a sense of bringing the Russians to justice and protecting El. Dude was unbearable, right until the end. 

I’m sometimes overly apologetic to flawed shows that happen to just get endings right (something else I’ll get to in a bit), but Hopper’s defeat of the Russian Terminator costing him a chance at escape, trapped behind the forcefield of power was a very sad moment. And I instantly felt bad for wishing him dead. 

For as much as the writers mishandled Sheriff Jim Hopper this season, I have to give them credit though. The dude went out with a bang. Accepting his fate, knowing he’d done the *right thing* and understanding that he’d never meet Joyce at Enzo’s for their date was a crushing moment, made so because we had just enough *real* Hop from previous seasons. This last season alone wouldn’t have gotten us there, but the backstory thankfully gives credence and sadness to his sacrifice. 

And yet, this was nothing compared to Hopper’s real *goodbye*. The letter he’d penned to El, the voiceover that ended the season, was gorgeous television. A look into Hopper’s true self, what had originally made him so flawed, endearing, loving, angry, introspective and human during the course of the first couple of seasons. Here is the transcript of that note: 

“There's something I've been wanting to talk to you both about. I know this is a difficult conversation, but I care about you both very much. And I know that you care about each other very much, and that's why it's important that we set these boundaries moving forward so we can build an environment where we all feel comfortable, trusted, and open to sharing our feelings.

Jesus. The truth is, for so long I'd forgotten what those even were. I've been stuck in one place. In a cave, you might say. A deep, dark cave. And then I left some Eggos out in the woods and you came into my life. For the first time in a long time, I started to feel things again. I started to feel happy. But lately, I guess I've been feeling distant from you. Like you're pulling away from me or something. I miss playing board games every night, making triple decker Eggo extravaganzas at sunrise, watching Westerns together before we doze off.

But I know you're getting older, growing, changing. And I guess, if I'm being really honest, that's what scares me. I don't want things to change. So I think maybe that's why I came in here, to try and maybe stop that change. To turn back the clock. To make things go back to how they were. But I know that's naive. It's just not how life works. It's moving, always moving, whether you like it or not. And yeah, sometimes that’s painful. Sometimes it's sad. And sometimes, it's surprising. Happy.

So you know what? Keep on growing up kid. Don't let me stop you. Make mistakes, learn from 'em. And when life hurts you, because it will, remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you're out of that cave. But, please, if you don't mind, for the sake of your poor old dad, keep the door open three inches.”

This letter could end up being the show’s finest moment. It’s almost certainly its best single piece of writing. This isn’t just a letter to Eleven. This is a letter from parents to their kids. This is a letter about life, a sad missive, wishing for time that isn’t coming back. This is about growing up and moving on. This is about life and love and loss and friendship and everything else from the Real World to the In-Between to the Upside Down, and back. 

This letter is very simple. It’s so simple that it’s gorgeous. I watched this scene in a quiet room with headphones on, my wife and two daughters sleeping quietly nearby. I teared up throughout because I was thinking about them in that moment. If this scene didn’t touch you then, man, I don’t even know. 

And though Hopper’s tortured sadness doesn’t resonate with me, the message about growing up did. El was Hopper’s daughter. He was her father. He didn’t want her to grow up, but at the same time, he did. This was a letter about understanding the true nature of letting go but how he’d be there to protect and watch out for her above all. And just how she’d risked her life twice to save everyone, ultimately he died saving her (and maybe himself). 

Stranger Things is a show named for and about the things that go bump in the night. But this season showed that it’s just as much about the strangeness of growing up and what happens along every step in the path. I wrote last season, that I thought the real threat to the Party was the slow, steady and sad march of time. That the simple act of growing up would do more to separate them than any single thing/ act. In fact, Russians conspiring against the country and unstoppable Mind Flayers not taking “no” for an answer were the kinds of things that actually brought them together. 

On that front I think I was correct, but not in a way I’m necessarily happy about. It’s tough to leave your friends. It’s tough to pass things from your childhood on to the next generation because you don’t *need* them anymore. 

When Hopper mentions “The hurt is good,” there are a lot of ways to take this. The hurt I think, at its core, stems from just loving things too damned much. It’s almost a curse worse than evil at your doorstep. When you love those in your life more than you can explain (because you really don’t even need those kinds of words), it hurts. But it’s a hurt you want to hold on to forever. 

I think for The Party, the hurt is the idea that they’ve had the greatest friends in the world and it’s different now. It’s not dissimilar to the end of Season 2, except in that moment of school dance flux there was no definitive dividing line. At the end of Season 3, there is. The Byers+Eleven leaving Hawkins is the unmistakable tear in the fabric moment. It’s when the scales truly tip. This is the real end. 

Sure, life has a tendency to keep you connected with people. Hell Pac (my good friend from high school) and I are texting each other 23 years later late at night about Stranger Things. You end up staying close with those you’re meant to stay close with. The inevitable can be a blessing when it comes to that. But the son of a bitch is there’s a reality in which we don’t just get a *three months later* tag, but rather a *10 years later* warning and everyone has gone their separate ways. This would be the true scary movie. Because unfortunately it’s all too real. This is what happens when life marches forward. Friends move on, and though you promise you’ll steal Cerebro so much you’ll wear the thing out, we often know this isn’t the case. These are best laid plans but rarely ever come to fruition.

Season 4 will presumably be about that reconnection. And it won’t be the kind where someone misses answering a Code Red or gets home from summer camp to no fanfare. This will be something much different. It will be about the strength of the Party, the power derived from an unending and unflinching bond of friendship with the kind of friends you’d gladly step in front of dark, evil, gooey, gloppy, disgusting traffic for. This is what Stranger Things has been about and Hopper summed it up best:

“Keep on growing up kid. Don't let me stop you.” - Jim Hopper

--- Other thoughts ---

- I didn’t mention it, but I loved the Scoop Troop storyline as they cracked the Russian Code and broke into the underground super fortress. This angle had so many great 80s storylines right down to the typecast Russian army general and doctor, Red Dawn references and much more. It was really awesome. 

I loved Steve’s character all season and his ditzy approach to almost everything. That his character didn’t really *grow* in any meaningful way was just fantastic really. Not everyone needs to have a moment of understanding or transformation. Sometimes bros just basically stay bros. Steve fucking up the video store interview summed it up perfectly. 

We didn’t even really need the tension between him and Robin because, as I said before, the story didn’t need this kind of will they/won’t they angle at every turn. But the Steve, Robin, Dustin, Erica combo was awesome. Erica understanding and believing everything about The Party’s trials and psychokinetic tribulations, but not getting how her dopey brother could be involved was a highlight. 

- What’s the resale downgrade on a house in which a Demogorgon ripped through the plaster? Century 21 Hawkins Realty wants to know when they are trying to figure out the Byers place. That kind of thing is mandatory reporting, right? 

-I really hope that it isn’t Hopper in the Russian cell during the mid-credits scene at the end. I mean I guess I do hope it’s him, but not really from a story perspective. His ending was fitting, it wouldn’t do him justice to bring him back.