Netflix's Stranger Things: Season 5 has begun (after an illimitable hiatus). This latest tributary is said to be the saga's finale, which grants it a greater, melodramatic draw.
Stranger Things restarts in 1987, covering the big, dimensional rifts that have swept accursed Hawkins, thanks to heaps of supernatural manipulation, which we suspected would flame all the higher, thanks to the season's plethora of publicity stills and that terrific trailer, tingled by Queen/Highlander's "Who Wants to Live Forever".
Hawkins is also quarantined by the military (kept "under the dome," as it were), and for the sake of planting an anti-establishment cliche, is portrayed as mean and myopic as it searches for the powerful yet misconstrued Eleven, aka Jane Hopper. Meanwhile, our young, Hellfire Club chieftains have decided to hunt down their freaky, Pied Piper-bound foe, Vecna, before he enslaves and/or kills them; it's just a matter of pinpointing where he's burrowed.
By design, the concept instills the required mystery and suspense (for one, that bathtub scene overflowed with pitch-perfect tension), simulating the progressing dread of Stephen King's Salem's Lot and It but with Hellraiser's seductive sadism, The Keep's unlocked ruination and a Gates of Hell-meets-Phantasm-meets-Elm Street undercurrent. That Stranger Things: Season 5 has surfaced while HBO Max's Welcome to Derry holds court is interesting, if not fortuitous, since it (pun intended) complements Derry's allusions.
I can't judge Stranger Things: Season 5 in its entirety since only four parts are now queued (with three to land on Christmas Day and the finale on New Year's Day). All the same, everything seems in proper, atmospheric order with the previous seasons (even sweetened at a point by a nifty, Great Escape angle, per Episode 3, and a little Back to the Future, time travel per Episode 4). However, despite the cozy flow, something bugs me.
I'm referencing the season's publicized contention. As one may know, Millie Bobby Brown lodged a harassment complaint against David Harbour. Though the conflict is said to have been curbed, its aftertaste lingers (perhaps due to the abundant scenes the two have together and those understandable reminders that can't help but creep through). This dents the saga's suspension of disbelief. Maybe I should have shrugged it off, but when the media ballyhoos a situation to such an egregious extent, how could I overstep the baggage? The stain, like Lady Macbeth's damned spot, pervades.
Maybe by the time the final episodes roll, none of the behind-the-scenes discord will matter. However, for now, it seems that whatever the Upside Down spews can't match what ubiquitous materiality has carved. A real shame, too. Save that stuff for reality TV. When it comes to fiction, even the dark and sinister sort, I (and I do believe others) prefer it without the deflecting friction.
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