Pioneers and heroes: how "Very strange things" ended
For American content, on the eve of the New Year, for Eurasia, the eighth episode of the fifth season of the TV series "Stranger Things", a record—breaking viewing and iconic pop cultural phenomenon, was released shortly after its onset. The Netflix hit appeared immediately with an official Russian translation, and within hours of its release it could be downloaded and watched for free on the Internet. Izvestia watched the finale with the whole world and talks about its advantages and disadvantages, as well as why "Very Strange Cases" turned out to be so popular. Spoiler alert: It's not about the huge budget at all.
Billions of minutes of "Very Strange things"
Why the Duffer brothers treated us so cruelly is completely incomprehensible. Because of them, dozens, if not hundreds of millions of people in Eurasia and Africa were forced to sleep restlessly on New Year's day, setting alarm clocks for themselves, and jumping up at first light to quickly find out how the "Very strange things" ended. There are no statistics yet, but the first four episodes of the fifth season, which were released at the end of November, set an absolute record in the history of online platforms.
In the week after the premiere, the series recorded 8.46 billion minutes of viewing in the United States alone. We divide it by four and a half hours, that is, by the total duration, and we get about 2 billion views. This is despite the fact that Netflix has only about 300 million subscribers, of which about one third are in the USA! However, these statistics still cover the entire series a week after the premiere, that is, the data from the reputable Nielsen agency formally includes all the other old series. That is, someone watched / reviewed the old seasons as soon as possible in connection with the release of the new one, someone reviewed the new episodes. In addition, a large family can have one account, and everyone watches when it suits them. But it's still a fantastic figure, and Nielsen has no reason to advertise Netflix or overstate the numbers.
Anyway, the hype around the series is absolutely mind-blowing. And on January 1, the final episode was released, lasting more than two hours (the rest were about an hour), and it's hard to say how many people were late for work today where there are no days off. In Russia, where the audience for online video games is also huge, fortunately, it was possible not to skip anything — and, by the way, not to wait for a version with a Russian translation to appear, because it is on Netflix. True, it's not very good, but it's still better to watch the series with subtitles.
What is shown in the finale of "Very strange cases"
We'll do without spoilers, but, in general, there are few surprises here. Back in the seventh episode (episodes 5-7 were released on December 26), we were given a very detailed plan of action for the characters and predicted how the duo of the Torturer of Reason and Vecna, who wants not only to enslave, but radically change our Earth, starting from the tiny fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, would behave. In addition, we were presented with a number of dialogues and monologues that were important for the plot and the development of the characters, which also required their own development.
In this sense, we get exactly what is stated, without surprises. "Very strange Cases" in terms of drama in general seems to be intentionally far from perfect and contains a lot of moments for which negligent students in film schools are scolded. For example, the Duffer brothers adore the "god from the machine" technique, when the rescue of characters in a catastrophic situation comes as if from heaven, some kind of amazing coincidence at the last moment. It happens so often that it's not even funny to the audience. There will be a lot of such "gods" in the final episode, we need to tune in to this.
The mentioned action plan, the implementation of which is shown to us, is also an annoying leitmotif of the series. Over the course of five seasons, the Duffers used this technique a million times, and we listened for a long time to what the characters had come up with, and then watched for even longer as the perfectly worked-out scheme was disrupted at some point, although everything seemed to be worked out on paper to the smallest detail. It was as if the Duffers were showing us a scripted "kitchen": here they create a plot structure, and here they deconstruct it further so that we worry about the characters. And for some reason we weren't very worried, because in this series the characters are practically "immortal" and survive in an amazing way, because the audience loves them, and the Duffers are too lazy to introduce new ones. And even when they do, they don't wrap it up. For example, the charismatic school foul-mouthed Derek, who became the star of the first four episodes, is relegated to the periphery of the action in the remaining episodes, including the final one. Then the characters too often say out loud in detail what the viewer has already understood a long time ago. It's embarrassing. For this reason, such an important monologue by Will, which solemnly concluded the seventh, penultimate episode, could not impress anyone, because we had known his secret for a long time, and now why should we waste our time to hear all this from him? And most importantly, his big secret doesn't really fit into the narrative. Moreover, it even seems that Will is "not like the others," since he was abducted by Vecna, that is, as a result of trauma, and not by himself. And this is completely out of line with the discourse of the series, which we'll talk about next.
These are probably all commonplaces, but I don't want to spoil anyone's viewing pleasure. Let's just say that one would expect these two hours to be a solid action, but in the end we got a seemingly double episode, where a giant piece is served as an epilogue with a somewhat disappointing summary. After watching it, there will be too many unanswered questions, and it may not be, including in the currently announced OSD spin-offs and the just-released spin-off novel "One Way or Another" about Nancy Wheeler. There are no explanations yet where to look for these answers. Although the Duffers will have to answer a lot of these uncomfortable questions from journalists and fans in the near future, which, of course, will be an additional advertisement for the series.
Why is "Stranger Things" so popular?
It's not that easy to explain. When a TV series or movie becomes a cultural phenomenon, it usually has a relatively simple explanation. It should resonate with what concerns the widest audience. For example, the "Squid Game" was about the fact that people were completely driven, that the urgent need for money pushes them to take reckless risks and that there is still a way out of even the most ingenious trap, you just have to go to the end. "Game of Thrones" is about what political life is, who are the people who run the world, how they fight for power and what price they pay for it.
Against this background, "Very Strange Things" may seem like a cozy escapist retro, especially for the Duffers, who are currently forty years old. It's nice to remember my childhood, to see horror stories from that time in reality, to tactilely feel the 1980s, which are in fashion now for a reason. To hide from problems there, to mentally be among the guys who are fighting monsters, and the rest of the time they are friends, quarreling, falling in love, coming up with something. The perfect entertainment room.
Still, this is not a definitive answer at all. The key theme of the series "Stranger Things" is fear. And for five seasons, we analyzed this fear together with the Duffers on different levels, and everywhere it turned out that we could connect to the characters, because in each case this fear was understandable to us, we know it, we most likely live with it. Let's list only the most obvious nightmares of the OSD.
Insecurity even in your own home. Duffers don't just force their characters to experience their scariest moments in their "fortress." An otherworldly monster can get in there, soldiers or police can break in, complete madness can happen in every room behind a half-closed door. It's worth turning away from your interlocutor — and he's gone, or he's in a trance, or something else has happened. Duffers know that this vulnerability is inherent in modern humans, and they maximize it.
Fear of losing a loved one. There are all kinds of things here: dead children, friends sacrificing themselves in front of your eyes, the girl you love, and she's still slipping away from you right in front of your eyes. From the mystical level to the everyday level, there is almost no distance, because the fact of loss is still the same, the Duffers say. This is an 18+ series, so this fear of the target audience is very familiar.
Non-functioning social institutions. The SD seems to be far from politics, and although the action covers the period of Reagan's presidency, and the "Soviet threat" arose in previous seasons, we are unlikely to see obvious signs of his rule. But please note that hospitals, police stations, schools, and other institutions turn out to be places where they can not only help you, but where, on the contrary, it is even more dangerous than at home. What can we say about the army — it is completely discredited here: in the fifth season, the military, without any explanation, occupy the city of Hawkins, engage in arbitrariness, kidnap children, shoot civilians. Without restrictions. And science is engaged in experiments on people. This is a crisis of civilization as a system, and in the fifth season it is already obvious that it is easier to defeat the omnipotent Torturer of reason than the vicious state system, anti-human and cruel.
The fear of admitting to yourself who you are and what you want. It takes place with most of the characters, although some Duffers were "allowed" to free themselves from this oppression relatively early and become free and happy at times. And the related fear is to reveal your true self to others, and not the one that is imposed by existing role models. This will be dealt with in the series until the very end, and who's to say that these fears are completely alien to him?
And the secret of the series is that the Duffers still give the recipe, without leaving the viewer with all these fears alone. Their recipe is to analyze yourself and understand who you really are. Then find the courage to confront those around you, even if it's a painful process. Duffers believe that if you do it sincerely, you will be understood and accepted, because that's what friends and family are for. Moreover, they probably already understood everything about you a long time ago, they just tactfully kept silent. Next, you must dare to act in accordance with the secrets that you have discovered for yourself, and then nothing will stand.
SD is a hymn to the unification of generations. "Fathers" and "children" are often in conflict here, but in the end, through honesty, decency and right actions, they find a way out together. Because they can't do without each other. On the one hand, the series is filled with anxiety for children.: Whoever takes over their heads and hearts will rule the new worlds, the Duffers say. On the other hand, they believe that children already have unlimited inner possibilities that will help them see the lies and draw the right conclusions. And that it is necessary to work especially carefully with childhood traumas, because all evil is actually from there, and it is necessary to spew it out of oneself, like the black powder of a Century.
The Duffers actually finish the imperfect final episode already at the credits. David Bowie's song Heroes is playing there. It was written under the impression of the Berlin Wall, and just in 1989, when the action of the series ends, the cursed symbol of unfreedom was destroyed, destroyed, like the evil that the heroes fought against. And this whole struggle was not without sacrifice, either. This is how faith is established in man, in the inner circle, in the theory of small things that become big and global. And that, as Galich said, "there is no need to be afraid." All these billions of minutes of SD show that people all over the world want to believe it. And the taste, technical and artistic shortcomings of the series — so who is without sin?
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
