We have all – or all of us that care – watched the final titanic season of Stranger Things. We have all filled the internet with our opinions on it. It’s flaws are well known. I am not here to complain of the bloated cast, the wheel-spinning plot, the scenes that go on for the length of a congressional hearing, all the tedium. I have already done this, and besides, everyone is on board with me. Even fans acknowledge the show’s flaws, albeit lovingly, like Millennials raised on the Prequels. None of that interests me.

Rather, let’s consider the possibility that, given the cultural climate of current year, the Duffer Brothers knew what they were doing. Let us consider that the flaws of season 5 were the fruition of every decision made in Seasons 2-4 (which it was), and that this was not mere aesthetic collapse but a controlled demolition.

Picture it: The Duffer Brothers, after the triumph of Stranger Things season 1, realizing the task before them, and deciding what they must do. I have chosen to imagine this as a dialogue between the two brothers. I do not know their actual names, so I have decided, for reasons that should be obvious, to dub them Buster and Skipp.

SCENE – INTERIOR – OFFICE – MONKEY MASSACRE PRODUCTIONS

JULY 2016

Buster: Dude, have you seen the numbers?

Skipp: I have. Netflix showed them to me.

Buster: We have a hit, Skipp!

Skipp: We do.

Buster: Why the long face? This is what we wanted.

Skipp: Yeah… So Reed had a sit-down with me…

Buster: and…?

Skipp: …they want another season…

Buster: Outstanding! Dude, we fuckin’ did it!

Skipp: …with the same characters.

Buster: Oh.

Skipp: Yeah. Not an anthology, like American Horror Story. They want Hawkins, Indiana again.

Buster: Okay. Well, we considered doing that. Bringing the characters back later on, like Part 2 of It…

Skipp: No. They want the kids again. The kids are a hit. People love them.

Buster: So like…

Skipp: Yeah.

Buster: They want us to do the same thing again.

Skipp: Just in 1984 this time.

Buster: Same kids, same bad guys, just more?

Skipp: They want Stranger Things 2.

Buster: Damn.

Skipp: Welcome to Television.

Buster: How the fuck do we do this? We killed off Eleven.

Skipp: We bring her back.

Buster: Totally undercutting the power of her sacrifice and the season’s entire arc.

Skipp: Welcome to Television.

Buster: I am … depressed.

Skipp: Yeah…

<PAUSE. SOUND OF PAPERS SHUFFLING.>

B: We can do this.

S: We don’t have a choice.

B: No, I mean it. We can totally make this happen. We can make this amazing.

S: How?

B: We give them. What they want. We give them all of what they want.

S: I don’t get it.

B: Two seasons? We want five.

S: Five?

B: Hear me out…

S: Okay.

B: So obviously, Eleven can’t be dead.

S: The critics would murder us.

B: So we never saw her die, so she must have been saved at the last minute.

S: How?

B: Who cares? Special Effects magic. She wakes up in the Upside-Down, then finds her way back to…

S:…Hopper’s house?

B: Perfect. We can make him hyper-protective guy, redemption for his dead daughter. That’s his thing.

S: We kinda did that already.

B: And? We do it again, more biggerer. Make it stupid.

S:… okay.

B: And we need another character. Another kid.

S: We have four boys. That’s a nice tight friend group.

B: And we mined the drama from that. One was lost and found, one fell in love, one was the skeptic, and the other was a dork. We need more. We need a girl.

S: A girl nerd?

B: No, like a misfit girl. A skater girl. Rough around the edges. Kind of unlikable.

S: Why?

B: Make her a redhead.

S: Dude, Why is she rough around the edges?

B: Um, bad home life?

S: We have beaten dads to death already.

B: You’re right. Older brother?

S: Step-brother.

B: Step-brother! That’s perfect! And make him the new school bully, since we gave Steve a heart of gold. Set up a conflict between them maybe.

S: Steve wasn’t a bully; he was more like a prep jock.

B: Right. This guy needs to be different. He needs to look like an actual bully, the kind who would beat the shit out of you in the parking lot after school. Mullet, moustache, drives a Trans-Am…

S: Lifts weights while smoking and listening to Ratt. A real Billy Badass.

B: That’s his name.

S: Billy Badass?

B: No, just Billy.

S: Billy the Bully.

B: Billy the Bully. And we need like, a handsome actor to play him. Not mean handsome, he needs big expressive eyes, so the girls will think he has a heart in there somewhere.

S: Make him the victim of abuse, too.

B: Naturally.

S: Okay, so we got two new characters now: Redhead skater girl and her handsome bully step-brother.

B: And one of the boys should get with her. Keep that Teen Romance going.

S: Which one though? Mike already got a girl, that would be weird.

B: Yeah, and Dustin…

S: Dustin is not pulling rough skater chicks.

B: And Will’s kind of a pussy, so….

S: Lucas?

B: Lucas gets a white girlfriend. The critics will gargle our balls.

S: We can make Billy a little racist about it…

B: Not too racist, though. We don’t want to make memes for the 4chan crowd.

S: Right… So what about the actual plot?

B: Um…. you remember that tease we did at the end of the last episode? Will pukes up a little monster?

S: Right, that was a cool little final scare.

B: So that little slug, it gets found. Dustin finds it.

S: And he makes a pet out of it, because Dustin.

B: And he ignores that it’s turning into a Demogorgon. He thinks he can have a pet monster.

S: So, another Demogorgon?

B: Hmmm. We need more.

S: We need an army of Demogorgons. Like Aliens.

B: Right. And Dustin’s pet can maybe spare his life at the end or something.

S: Where does the army of Demogorgons come from?

B: Well, obviously the secret Government Army CIA thing is still happening.

S: Obviously.

B: And we put someone in charge of it who seems like a good guy, but is really just a yes-man following orders.

S: Make him seem like he’s doing it for good reasons. Make it seem like he cares.

B: Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

<PAUSE>

B & S: PAUL REISER!

B: Hell yeah! Aliens, my dude!

S: He shouldn’t be as evil as Burke was in Aliens.

B: No, he should be almost a good guy.

S: He can do redemption stuff at the end.

B: He can let Hopper legally adopt Eleven.

S: Nice.

B: But before that, he’s like, giving Will free medical/psych care.

S: Creepy. But Paul Reiser creepy.

B: Maybe he’s dating Joyce?

S: No. We get another employee of the lab for that. Some lovable schmuck who has no idea what’s going on.

B: Perfect.

S: Cause Will is doing weird stuff.

B: He’s drawing things that look freaky.

S: Big shadow lines.

B: He’s still connected to the …

S:… What is the big bad down there?

B: Hmm.

S: Um, something big?

B: Big and shadowy.

S: Something we should pull out of our ass at the end of the season.

B: Something that Dustin pulls out of his ass at the end of the season.

S: Out of a DnD book, in the second-to-last episode!

B: And everyone just like, accepts that’s what it is.

S: That’s what it, in fact, is.

B: The Upside-Down has Monster Manual monsters in it.

S: Do we explain this?

B: Of course not!

S: Why not?

B: Dude, focus. The Big Shadow Monster…

S: Hang on, I’m gonna find something… <flips through Monster Manual>

B: …it’s like, controlling Will, and it’s got Demogorgon-y things making tunnels in Hawkins. Killing plants. Hopper investigates, gets stuck or something. Eleven gets all stir-crazy in Hopper’s cabin, tries to get out and find Will, finds her mom, finds out about other girls like her, goes off in search of her, finds her…

S:… Mind Flayer.

B: What?

S: Mind Flayer. Look. <Shows him book>

B: That… doesn’t really look like it.

S: It has noodly appendages. Close enough.

B: Yeah, close enough.

S: So the whole main plot is about how this thing is controlling Will and using him to trick people into letting the Demogorgons out so they can run wild. Kill people.

B: Kill Joyce’s new dork.

S: Heroic sacrifice, of course.

B: Of course. After which he will never be discussed again.

S: Of course.

B: So Eleven’s on the lamb, Will’s a spy, Lucas is chasing a white girl and getting shit from her bully step-brother, Dustin has a monster pet…

S: What about Nancy and Steve?

B: We break them up again. They’re still boring.

S: Does she get back with Johnathan?

B: Of course.

S: Of course.

B: And now Steve ends up… babysitting Dustin.

S: And everyone else. All reluctant hero and shit.

B: And having a standoff with Billy.

S: Right. Fending off monsters and Billy.

B: And losing his girlfriend to the same guy.

S: Man. We can’t ever kill this guy off.

B: Definitely not.

S: So while the monsters are running amok, killing all the people, et cetera et cetera, where’s Eleven?

B: She is … in Chicago.

S: What the fuck is she doing in Chicago.

B: She’s meeting up with the other girl from the lab who’s like her. Number 8.

S: And what’s she doing?

B: She has a gang of anarchists and they rob banks or armored cars or something.

S: Why?

B: Who cares? It’s Eleven deciding what she cares about: all the people back home in Hawkins.

S: We already knew that.

B: But now we know it.

S: And so she… goes back?

B: Exactly. Right when she’s needed. Right when it’s time for Dustin to pull exposition out of his butt, name the…

S: …Mind Flayer.

B: Right, and figure out how to un-flay Will, and close the opening to the upside down.

S: She did that already.

B: Right, and they opened it again. So she has to close it again.

S: Right.

B: And all of these plot threads come to a head, and she … does the thing.

S: And everything’s fine.

B: Yup.

S: So you’re proposing a season in which all new plot threads fold back into the exactly the same situation, solved in exactly the same way?

B: And then in the third season…

S: Are you… trolling our audience?

B: And Netflix. Mostly Netflix.

S: Who’s going to pay us for this.

B: Lots of money.

S: Will the audience… pick up on it?

B: If they do, then we’ll do something smarter.

S: Will we, though?

B: I mean, eventually.

S: And Netflix?

B: Gets exactly what they asked for.

S: And we get paid.

B: Lots of money.

S: Dude…

B: what?

S: … you’re a genius.

<AND SCENE>