Directed by : 
Matt Duffer/Ross Duffer (14 episodes each, 2016-2019)
Shawn Levy (6 episodes, 2016-2019)
Andrew Stanton (2 episodes, 2017)
Uta Briesewitz (2 episodes, 2019)
Rebecca Thomas (1 episode, 2017)

Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/


Spoilers ahead... 


Season 1 :

Something is coming. Something hungry for blood.

Its November 6, 1983.. at a place called Hawkins where a young boy, 'Will Byers' (Noah Schnapp) suddenly disappears leading to speculations if he is alive or not, while slowly all doubts about what happened to him leads to a government Hawkins Laboratory.  Chief 'Jim Hopper' (David Harbour) starts the search, but at the same time, Will's friends, 'Mike Wheeler' (Finn Wolfhard), 'Lucas Sinclair' (Caleb Mclaughlin) and 'Dustin Henderson' (Gaten Matarazzo) go their own way to find him and end up meeting 'Eleven' (Millie Bobby Brown) who is a mysterious girl and has a past associated with the Hawkins laboratory. While Will's mother 'Joyce Byers' (Winona Ryder) believes Will is alive and is present in a supernatural way trying to communicate from a place called 'Upside Down'.

First season takes time in getting going, took me atleast 3 episodes before I was totally involved with all characters, but one of main reason was the similar plot to 'Dark' i.e a young boy gone missing and everyone slowly discovering the sci-fi behind it. I was happy though that the similarity ended there with no time travel. 

Another reason why I was wanting to see the story pickup pace was because, there was too much of one character believes in some kind of spirit, and rest are in the 'are you out of your mind?' mode. Which is why when Will's elder brother 'Jonathan Byers' (Charlie Heaton) asks Mike's elder sister 'Nancy Wheeler' (Natalia Dyer) if the bear she saw had no face, I knew this is where series going to get the move on and there's literally no stopping from this point.


What I love about season1 is how the characters are not one-note, they are developing on with every episode even if its at a slow pace. At one stage I was thinking how cool it would be if 'Steve Harrington' (Joe Keery) would go and join Jonathan-Nancy in monster killing and it actually happens, and boy what a complicated fun scene that was when Steve out of nowhere learns existence of Demogorgan (creatures from Upside Down).


Joyce is another great character, that unlike everyone else is correct from the start and is willing to go to any extent to find her son, not caring how crazy she will look to others. 

Lovely use of 'Should I stay or Should I go' song. Also, despite not been fan of D&D (I didn't knew it even existed), the dialogues like 'Something is coming, something bad' or 'The Demogorgan, it got me', right at start of season was super writing as we are told in advance what's going to happen to this character. 

Dustin is a fun character, love his interactions with 'Mr Clarke' (Randy Havens), specially when he's getting info out whether its about how to reach Upside Down or creating the sensory thing for Eleven. The 'curiosity door' or pretending to be sad scenes were fun to watch. 


Great choice made on when to show Hopper's past story related to his daughter Sarah, pretty much got me emotional with the parallel cutting of 'breathe in, breathe out' scene. Also, the use of 'Upside Down' theme at many places was very well done, my fav being when Eleven tells Mike and his friends who Will is hiding from. 

Ending on Will still infected reminded me of Insidious Part1 where Patrick also came from a place called 'The Further' along with the spirit attached to him. Despite being slow in pace, the season picks up very well, engaging enough with some interesting characters and also keeps you interested for Season2.






Season 2 : 

Do you wanna be normal ? Do you wanna be just like everyone else ? Being a freak is the best, alright ? I am a freak!


Unlike last season, here the episodes are pacy, with good use of Halloween backdrop in initial episodes. The story of new monster 'Mindflayer' which is linked to Demogorgan, is very smart writing and there were many gem of scenes based on it.

Very much like Steve in S1, it took me time to like the new characters, i.e  'Max Mayfield' (Sadie Sink) and specially her stepbrother, 'Billy Hargove' (Dacre Montgomery), who was irritating to watch. Its still an interesting character that shows off the kind of parenting he got from his dad being the reason behind his abusive behavior towards Max. Chemistry between Lucas-Max is great, and also fun watching how Dustin keeps trying to impress Max through wierd ways. 

There's one major hiccup, which is the entire 'The Lost Sister' episode. The initial introduction of 'Eight'/'Kali' (Linnea Berthelsen) with which the season begins was thrilling because you felt maybe Kali would have a important role to play, then we get nothing at all for next 5 episodes. Finally, they decide to show a whole episode on Kali at such a poor time because the ending of previous episode has most of main characters at Hawkins Lab in a death kind situation. This totally ruins that effect, plus the significance of Kali episode is only that it makes Eleven finally return back to Mike and Hopper to help them out, which she could had done without going to meet Kali. The only takeaway from the episode was the reveal of 'Dr Brenner'/'Papa' (Matthew Modine) being still alive.




Even though Hopper-Eleven plot gets little boring at places, I like the parallel it draws with how Papa treated Eleven at the Lab, and despite being not allowed to go anywhere, Hopper's intentions all the time is to keep Eleven safe. I didn't understand though how Hopper came to know Eleven was alive, or was he keeping those Eggos intentionally there to let Eleven reveal herself ?

Heartbreaking moment ofcourse was watching Bob Newby (Sean Astin) die, it just looked like happening all the time when he decides to help Joyce find Hopper. I was just hoping Eleven would just reach in time and save him but guess you gotta kill few characters as part of getting 'oh no' reactions from us. Why did he have to breathe for a moment, just go out of the door and be fully safe first, sigh! I love his car scene with Will, where he tells his childhood story of being scared of someone. How Will listens to his advice to not run away, and thinking it would help him, it rather ends 
up doing the total opposite as the shadow monster/virus gets hold of Will's body.

One of the key moment of the entire series happens this season when Steve goes to Nancy place mumbling to himself to say sorry to her and then telling himself what the hell I am sorry for, and ends up meeting Dustin which is start of their extremely lovable bonding. 

Love the scene where Joyce does the crazy yet essential thing, making rooms of her house look like a map with all the drawings she uses from Will who is trying to tell everything he can see (a condition he has got now) ever since he returned back from the 'Upside Down'. She did something similar in 1st season too, that time it was the use of bulbs to communicate with Will. Also, great use of Morse Code too, felt like checking what messages Will was saying in S1 with those bulb blinking. The music used in the scene also slightly reminded me of 'The Things' theme whose direct mention they actually had in S1 when Mr Clarke is watching the movie with his wife at home.


Another great addition to the cast, is Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman), who even in the few scenes he gets, shows off his good comic timing. Dr Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) is a tricky new character, you are just never sure for most part if he is really on the side of Joyce-Hopper, or he is another one out of Brenner's camp. 

Nice to see Nancy and Jonathan together, whether it lasts for long or Steve comes into picture again is the question. I didn't like Mike's constant disapproval to not have Max part of the group, specially when he never thought same way about Eleven who was rather more dangerous as a stranger. I do however enjoy how Mike always acts smart, knowing what trouble is approaching like the whole 'The Spy' angle, same for whole group though, which is why its fun to watch this series. 

I can't make up my mind if I liked this season more or not, there are days I will choose S1 and then there will be days when I go with S2. 

From next season, I want Will not to suffer anymore and probably Billy character to become more likeable. Maybe little about Dr Brenner too, how did he survive when we were clearly shown he was attacked by Demogorgan in S1. 


Season 3 : 

Make mistakes, learn from them, and when life hurts you, because it will, remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you are out of that cave. 


Expected this season to be high on struggle when it comes to beating the monster. And there's no disappointment in that regards even though I will admit this version of Mind Flayer (human/rat flesh melting) was very gross and tough to watch of all the monsters so far. The inspiration clearly was 'The Things' and  a direct reference too happens in this season in a very awkward 'Coke' advertisement scene.

Some good new additions again, with Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) and Dr Alexei (Alec Utgoff) standing out. Robin has amazing chemistry with Steve and also would make for a great pairing with Nancy, given her very sharp mind. Alexei on the other hand provides some fun moments, and you do feel bad when he dies, even if it doesn't have same impact like say Bob had. 

It did took me a rewatch of the season to like it, the main issue still remains which is the handling of the Russian starcourt plot. The comic tone puts me off a lot because being trapped in that lift and then trying to find a way out, the situation calls for a desperation and when eventually they would manage to escape without dying it would had made for a great watch. Also, it makes the entire Russians look so silly, as if their army can't even deal with kids. Good thing is, this is just a sub-plot so I tried to dismiss off as much as I could using the famous 'keep your brains away' theory. Also, I totally disliked the Nancy workplace harassment mainly because by now she has become one of bad-ass characters always ready to take the lead and win against monster, so to watch her obeying others orders felt very odd to me.

The Hopper-Eleven-Mike situation is fun, at times it does irritate but overall I enjoyed specially the song 'Hopper' happily hums to, think it was the same song in S2 too when he and Eleven were cleaning the house. Max bonding with Eleven is great to watch, and also I liked what they did with Billy because it was one of very unlikeable characters and in the end you feel for him in his vain effort to defeat the monster but bought the much needed time to save Eleven.


Dustin is again fun to watch, and the addition of Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson), Lucas's sister to the gang provides some good sarcastic fun moments. Hopper-Joyce story expectedly develops well, they make for a great pair, infact personally I prefer them over the much hyped Mike-Eleven pairing. It was good to see Will not suffer this time around, and I could somehow connect to how he felt being sidelined by Mike and group because not everyone likes to grow up fast, Will probably wants to still keep playing the silly D&D games all the time. 

The finale was very good and so were the last 2 episodes leading to it, even the song Dustin sings at a very precarious situation made me laugh despite it being silly. The whole idea of Eleven not strong enough to fight off a stronger monster was very well executed, also leading to a question 'why did she start losing her powers?' 



The final teasing scene is again spot on, brilliant use of 'Upside Down' track to reveal how we maybe getting parallel monster stories, one in Russia and other in Hawkins. I also enjoyed the use of 'Rats remix version' too, which is used first during the cinema blackout and then the field where Dustin is taking gang to talk to his girlfriend Suzie. No mention of Dr Brenner in this season was a surprise and also no part of Kali, maybe we would more on that in Season4.

Overall, this season had flaws but its the power of strong characters that kept me not get bored at any moment.   





My Rating : 7.5/10