I watched all four seasons of the sci-fi tween juggernaut known as Stranger Things, but I will say I found it pretty confusing. Apparently there’s some kind of evil force on the loose, which might have been provoked or awakened by the CIA, or the military, or a corporation, or the Russians. This evil entity randomly possesses some people’s souls, or commits murder and mayhem, but without any real discernible pattern. Sometimes it spawns underground, sometimes up in the sky, and once in a while it spins off vicious minions, though no-one’s quite sure how or why any of this happens. I guess that’s part of the point: the world is puzzling, random, and malevolent. But still.
Anyway, there’s this gang of Spy Kids who are trying to beat it. One of the kids is some kind of test tube baby with special powers. And it seems there are other superpowered test tube babies out there in the world too. One day the main kid meets one of them—some kind of emo-goth mind melder chick—but she seems pretty committed to her 9 Inch Nails Chicago lifestyle, so they go their separate ways.
True to the YA sci-fi genre, adults are mostly invisible and powerless. So despite kids getting killed and traumatized and paranormal shit happening all over town, there’s close to zero local or state police presence in the entire series, other than one fat cop who’s always yelling and trying to bang Winona Ryder. Once in a while the feds pop in, but only to act all authoritarian and cover the whole thing up.
In the end you find out that the evil entity is basically just this one superpowered kid gone bad. So maybe it’s an anti-bullying message? Which is good I guess.
However upon reflection, it seems likely that the real underlying purpose of Stranger Things is to sell Coke and Halloween costumes, and also to function as a Hollywood tween superstar mill like the Mickey Mouse Club used to be. I heard all the kids in Stranger Things are now allegedly super hot and stylish, so I guess Mission Accomplished.