Stranger things season 1: When a Board Game comes to life.

I have not played Dungeons and Dragons, I know sacrilege, just like it is a Sacrilege that someone like me hasn't seen Stranger Things this late in the game.

Fucking season 5 is coming out and here I am at 1!

But I guess then I have a unique insight into this, how does this 2016 show hold up in 2025?

Pretty good actually, even if they basically made a horror version of it in IT: Welcome to Derry.

That is what actually triggered me to watch this, and not the fact that there is now a Season 5.

Whoever cares, they say its the Final season, but then I hear whispers of a secret Finale, or something.

I guess since shows like Lucifer ended, it makes sense that some shows do indeed end, but frankly, I don't buy it.

Who knows, maybe I am Detective Hopper not believing Joyce when she was right all along.

In 2025 I have to say with shows such as Stranger things oversaturating the fuck out of everything and everyone, it is refreshing to return to a time when all of this was, somewhat, new.

Also Now that I have seen 11 I finally understand every shaved head girl with Telepathic powers and surprisingly few dialogue lines as a reference to Millie Bobby Brown playing Emo Matilda.

Matilda, for those who do not know is a story by Roald Dahl about a gifted young child born to extremely shitty parents whose talents are begging to come out so hard that when she isn't engaging her brain with appropriate education, her mental powers literally start leaking out as Telepathic abilities.

This along with many other stories later was the beginning of the Idea that super powers are actually just a way for those whose abilities are suppressed to express themselves.

Anyone remember the Shining?

So it makes sense then that eleven or El as Mike Wheeler calls her is actually a thinly veiled metaphor for a gifted child heavily abused by her supposed caregivers.

Believe it or not the white haired man with the machine is supposed to be her "father" or at least She sees him as such.

And he is singlehandedly responsible for most if not all of her trauma.

No see some of it she gets from her frequent nosebleeds whenever she uses her powers.

Which I have a theory as to why that happens, you see, I believe that for very obvious reasons use of psychic powers puts pressure on the Sinusoidal fluid surrounding the brain, and as you know, an infection in the Sinus directly leads to sneezing...

So is it that much of a stretch...

Yeah I'll stop.

Speaking of thinly Veiled metaphors for real life things, has anyone heard of the case of the two boys on the Train tracks?

Wendigoon, you have my eternal Gratitude for this video, without this I would not be able to say half the shit I am about to say in this video while pretending to know everything about the show for some reason.

Allow me to act like an authority on the subject of adapting real life tragedies into shows for a minute.

It is often in poor taste to adapt anything one for one into a fantasy show where you are going to pretend that real life people who disappeared, did so because an interdimensional space deity choose to kidnap them for some reason, thankfully, the show didn't do that.

But they did leave in an easter egg for people like me to figure it out if they so wished, or at least I am going to assume it is that or my theory doesn't work.

On August 23 1987, two kids, 17 year old Kevin Ives and 16 year old Don Henry were found on the path of a Freight Train, the conductor who noticed the boys, did it obviously too late to stop the train and so the Train went over them.

At first everyone involved thought that the Boys were doing it on purpose, while Tragic and unfortunate, this isnt a method that is uncommon, but the first sign of Suspicious activity involved came when the blood was dark, purple and rather coagulated.

Signalling that the Boys were dead already.

The state took over the examination from the local police and appointed an examiner by the name of Doctor Malek who has a history of strange Medical conclusions to Post Mortems, like the time when he thought a Dog ate someone's head and then threw it up later when it was found in a dustbin.

Now there's a face you know you can trust.

He said they had taken 20 Marijuana cigarettes and gotten so high that they forgot to move out of the trains way.

Never mind the deoxigenated blood I guess, and later when separated wounds were found on the boys by other examiners suggesting further fowl play, he just said, dont worry about it.

Yeah so we have the disappearance of two boys later found to be a death and an attempted cover up by the state and every witness connected to the case turning up dead.

The only person fighting for justice being the mother of Kevin Ives called Linda Ives. And everyone including local officials calling her crazy for trying.

Later on when a new investigator Jean Duffy had her investigation naturally go towards the case of the Boys she was chased out as a smear campaign was run against her and I think you are beginning to see the Parallels

Joyce is Linda Ives, Detective Hopper is Jean Duffy and the state is the state, real or fiction they are consistently shit.

Me too Jim, Me too.

What really clued Me into this is obviously Eleven's Biological mother being called Terry Ives.

And I guess Joyce trying to talk to Terry was a way of the show getting her to talk to her inspiration.

But that is one aspect of this story, as I said in the title, this season of the show at least is a classic RPG board game come to life, in the case of Jumanji it was a made up game called Jumanji

In the case of Stranger things its Dungeons & Dragons, Speaking of, did you know that the Demogorgon was originally a mysterious and powerful underworld Entity that evolved from a force of nature into a powerful Demon Lord and was later notably featured in Dungeons and Dragons.

And then, and only then, did this guy come to Kidnap Will Byers.

Speaking of, in season 1 it is not exactly clear that why this supposed upside down world predator immediately killed Barbara but kept Will alive, granted, 4 more seasons exist, but in terms of season 1, one does wonder, what did Barbara do wrong?

#JusticeForBarbara

Barbara's story teaches us, whenever your suburban friend asks you to be their Chaperone friend who makes sure they don't fall for the local hot guy's attempts to get into your pants, say no!

Chances are the friend will invite him into her pants and completely blow you off only for you to be sucked in the pool by a faceless monster and die pointlessly, most likely because the monster decided you are the example it needs.

Okay I am being unfair Tommy H may be a piece of shit but Steve is actually alright, I mean he could have stopped his friend from writing Nancy the Slut in big red letters, but he wiped it off so that's... a step in the right direction?

I see him as a genuinely good person who fell in with the wrong crowd, maybe the wrong crowd is all who would approach him...

The strangest thing about Steve is that as a character he wasn't even supposed to exist, it was just supposed to be Jonathan, who he actually auditioned for, but he didn't quite fit the mold, however, the one holding the audition was so impressed that a character was made all for the actor.

The rest of the season follows pretty much what you would expect from a horror/thriller/mystery show of 2016, the main kid group is obviously massively invested in bringing back their friend and being kids, they are able to have a more open mind about these things and not to mention they have an actual Telepathic god on their side.

And as a result they are able to go a long way ahead of the adults, specifically because Eleven is the one who opened the portal to the Upside down that let the Demogorgon come in and capture Will.

Meanwhile Jonathan and Nancy come closer over their shared loss, Barbara for Nancy and Will for Jonathan, and able to find ways to track is, mostly via the same Christmas lights that Joyce used to communicate with Will.

And Joyce and Hopper take a more direct root to Will via the portal itself.

The show teaches you basic higher dimensional space warping and the concept of wormholes and also what a sensory deprivation pool is and how you should definitely put eleven year old girls in it to help them use their psychic powers better.

Eleven is Eleven right?

That's the age she is at?

I don't know.

All I know is, I had no reason to watch this show, and then I did, and now I am four seasons behind on something that ended over a fucking month ago, and this is giving me anxiety!!!