Large chunks of Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2 are exhausting and boring, despite the efforts of the likeable cast, observes Deepa Gahlot.
Stranger Things, with its target audience of teens, has developed a fandom, which is why the helter-skelter Season 5 takes viewers’ loyalty for granted and divides the episodes into two ‘volumes’, with the feature-length grand finale dropping on January 1.
For those who have not seen the earlier seasons of the show, created by the Duffer Brothers, this one will not make sense.
But for fans who have stayed with it for five seasons, the cast has grown since 2016 and there is a familiarity with their lives.
There are too many of them from the small town of Hawkins in the US, fighting scary monsters and the army protecting a rogue secret programme, so there is always some emotional drama going on alongside the big sci-fi action set pieces.
By now, terms like Upside Down, hive mind, shield generator, wormhole are understood.
In this season, the big villain remains the monstrous Vecna, who has unleashed his Demorgons on Hawkins. But more dangerous is his control of minds.
So at any point, the plot moves in multiple dimensions.
There are groups of kids and their parents running about at different locations, trying to stop Vecna’s evil plans and save their town, and the world.
There are some trapped in the awful military lab and trying to escape.
Yet others are in a fantasy world created by the human facade of Vecna, the nerdy-looking Henry (Jamie Campell Bower).
There is a sense of things accelerating towards the inevitable climax — the big bang battle between the courageous residents of Hawkins and Vecna’s army.
There is also a kind of gathering up of loose ends — the love that is articulated, the broken friendships that are mended, misunderstandings sorted.
And, in keeping with today’s inclusive times, a character’s tearful coming out.
The show is set in the 1980s, so back then, for a parent and friends to accept it easily is a big deal.
The way it is written and designed, Stranger Things splutters to life when there is action.
It’s when the characters stop to have long conversations — a lot of it expository — that the dullness sets in.
The young cast is made to speak their lines in a fast, breathless, tense manner, like they are aware they are on television and their worries have to be communicated to audiences who may not be get the urgency of the November 6 deadline, when Vecna will wreak his destruction, unless he is stopped by the teen gang, and a few supportive adults.
Will (now played by Noah Schnapp), with whose disappearance the troubles had started in Hawkins, has the power to get into Vecna’s mind and halt some of his plans.
In Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2, Max (Sadie Sink) and Holly (Nell Fisher) get their own adventure with an escape from Carmazotz, the house in which Henry has housed the kids he has brainwashed.
Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) wander around in a creepy underground space, without looking grossed out by all the slime. When life-threatening things happen all around, they find the time for tearful heart-to-hearts.
Jane or Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and ‘Eight’ Kali (Linnea Berthelson) add to the crowd of youngsters.
There’s Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Robin (Maya Hawke) around too.
There are a lot of names and faces to keep track of, not to mention the helpful adults that include Winona Ryder as Will’s mother.
Large chunks of Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2 are exhausting and boring, despite the efforts of the likeable cast, with the ’80s outfits and big hairstyles that were trendy then, looking earnest and hassled because the fate of the world depends on them.
Episode six ends with the townsfolk banding together because ‘the time has come’.
Dustin, who happened to find a journal belonging to the scientist Brenner (Matthew Modine), who appeared in earlier seasons, is finally able to explain to his pals (and the audience), what has been going on and why.
Now that they know what to expect, they will be better prepared for the do-or-die blowout in episode 7, with which the show will finally bow out.
There is always the change of spin offs; it is difficult to let go of such a popular series.
Stranger Things 5 streams on Netflix.
Stranger Things 5 Review Rediff Rating:
