Will Byers’ Hero Moment Was Worth the Five Season Wait
The following article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 5.
They say that good things come to those who wait. And, at least in the case of Stranger Things’final season, it turns out they were right. Sure, the first batch of episodes was probably too long, more than a little bit repetitive, and often straight-up self-indulgent, but that’s probably to be expected when any show of its size (and cultural prominence) is trying to figure out the best way to wrap things up for good. But despite its flaws, season 5 volume 1 absolutely nails the most important moment in its four-episode run, putting Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) firmly back at the center of the story the show is telling and giving him the sort of Big Damn Hero moment that rewrites almost everything we can expect from the series’ conclusion. Yes, we had to wait an awful long time (maybe too long) to see Will take center stage in this way, but, wow, was it ever satisfying to watch.
Despite his initial disappearance serving as the inciting incident for pretty much every bizarre, weirdo event that has taken place in Hawkins since the show started, Will hasn’t been a particularly central character in Stranger Things’ recent seasons. Sure, he’s hovered around the show’s edges, clearly affected by his time in the Upside Down and trying to figure out a way to move past what happened to him. But his coming-of-age journey has largely been overshadowed by Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown), his screentime reduced to serve popular (and, at the time, often more interesting) newcomers like Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) or Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn). At least, until now.
Stranger Things season 5 not only remembers that Will exists as a character in his own right, but it gives him a pivotal role at the very center of everything in these final episodes. His visions and strange behavior become evidence of his ongoing connection to Vecna and the hive mind within the Upside Down; his longstanding struggle with his own misery is suddenly the key to not just his understanding and self-acceptance but to unlocking the power that has seemingly lain dormant in him for so long. (Or, his ability to manipulate the power that Vecna has unwittingly given him access to. We’re not entirely sure on this point.)
No matter where said power is coming from, there’s really no more triumphant moment in this season — possibly in the entire series, if we’re honest — than Will standing amidst the flaming wreckage of the Hawkins military base, holding back horrific monsters from those he loves with little more than the power of his own mind. That nosebleed? Iconic. And so earned. Will Byers has officially leveled up. And for what may well be the first time in Stranger Things history, we’re all eager to see what’s next for him. (Don’t believe me? There are already a metric ton of fan edits on TikTok and X, racking up millions of views. Will’s time to shine is here.)
For much of Stranger Things’ run, we’ve only really gotten to see Will be reactive to the many bonkers and unexplained things that have happened to him. In season 5, that’s not what’s happening. He’s making his own choices — the second most satisfying moment of the season might have been his decision to finally get out from under Joyce’s (Winona Ryder) particularly smothering brand of parenting — and deciding for himself not just who he is, but who he wants to become. Whether that means acknowledging his clearly less-than-platonic feelings for his BFF Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) or rejecting the idea that the things that have happened to him somehow mean he’s weak, Will’s big moment isn’t just about kicking some serious demogorgon ass, Will is finally figuring out how to accept himself and let go of the fear that he’s been carrying pretty much since the show started.
Where the character goes from here is anyone’s guess, and given everything we’ve seen so far, it could certainly involve everything from a fight to the death with Vecna himself to a face-off with one of his own friends after his connection to the hive mind gets too strong. But season 5 has already proven Will’s hero’s journey is one that’s worth following, even if we might have all forgotten that fact for far too long.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5 are available to stream on Netflix now.
Stranger Things: Is That Returning Character Really Eleven’s Kryptonite?
The following article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 5.
A lot happens in the first four episodes of Stranger Things’ final season. Vecna’s back to his old, overly complicated tricks, rounding up a gang of (now even younger!) kids in the service of some nefarious plan to remake the world. Max is still in a coma, but her mind is hiding in a cave in the midst of Henry Creel’s memories. Will finally gets his big hero moment, tapping into the Upside Down’s hive mind, literally crushing his enemies with his newfound powers, and wiping blood off his nose, Eleven-style. And of course, there’s a surprise return — though it’s probably not one that anyone was really hoping for.
Season 5 reveals that Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) and her fellow military scientists have developed some sort of weapon that seems to weaken Eleven and neutralize her powers. Hopper refers to it as her “kryptonite,” because this show is nothing if not obsessed with pop culture references, but no one’s really sure what it is or how it works. As the dad-daughter duo infiltrate Kay’s military base in the Upside Down, El steals a glimpse from a soldier’s mind that something — someone — powerful is being kept behind a locked door. She assume’s it’s Vecna, and that he must have something to do with the supposed kryptonite that renders her helpless almost as son as she enters the mysterious lab.
But it’s not Vecna waiting for her behind that super secret door. Instead, she discovers Kali Prasad (Linnea Berthelsen), otherwise known as “Eight,” one of her fellow experiments from the Hawkins lab that El had always viewed as her sister. Sporting a shaved head and hooked up to a bunch of ominous-looking medical equipment, the girl definitely doesn’t look like she’s been living her best life since the last time we saw her back in season 2.
For those who don’t remember — which I have to assume is probably most viewers at this point, thank god for the quick flashback that reminded us all who this kid even is – Kali was introduced back in season 2 episode “The Lost Sister.” Like Eleven, she was one of the many psychic children taken by Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), with the unique ability to project illusions and cause people to see what’s not there. She eventually broke out of the Hawkins lab, ending up as the leader of a gang of teen misfits and eager to take revenge on those who wronged her. Though she helped her adopted sister learn to use her own rage and trauma to tap into her powers — and her introduction foreshadowed many aspects of Vecna’s origins — Kali wasn’t interested in helping Eleven save her friends back in Hawkins, and the two parted ways. We haven’t heard from (or about) her since.
How she fits into the series’ endgame is… well, let’s just call it an open question. On some level, Eight’s return makes sense. The Duffer brothers have been insistent that this final installment of the series is all about going back to the beginning — closing loops, answering lingering questions, filling in all the gaps they’ve left for viewers to speculate over along the way. But while almost everyone is certainly eager to find out the answers to things like “why Will Byers was taken in the first place,” or “is Max ever going to wake up,” it’s hard to imagine that anyone was all that eager to see Kali again, given that the episode in which she originally appeared is almost universally considered to be one of the series’ worst.
It also doesn’t help that the whole “kryptonite” angle really doesn’t make any sense. Sure, Kay and her goons appear to have some sort of… something that can neutralize Eleven’s powers, but it’s not entirely clear what it actually is. Is it Kali herself? Is Kay using the girl’s abilities to somehow suppress Eleven’s? Or was Eight simply experimented on so much that the military finally hit on some kind of universal psychic suppressant? And why does any of this require Kali to be strung up in a sealed room in a position that so deliberately mirrors Vecna’s pose in the Upside Down last season?
It seems likely that Eight is going to have a fairly key role to play in the series’ final episodes — whether we want her to or not. Is she the kryptonite that can stop Vecna? Who will somehow neutralize Will’s newfound, vaguely dark abilities when they go too far? We’ll have to wait for Christmas to find out.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5 are available to stream on Netflix now.
How Stranger Things: The First Shadow Fleshes Out That Season 5 Flashback
This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 5 and Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
Early in “Sorcerer,” the fourth episode of Stranger Things‘ fifth season, viewers get a familiar sight: Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), digitally de-aged to look like she did when she nearly died fighting Vecna at the end of season four. As part of a flashback explaining how her mind lives trapped in Vecna’s memories while her body remains comatose in a Hawkins hospital, Max takes us to another location, at once familiar and slightly off. Max walks out of a darkened high school gym into a busy hallway, where people she knows as adults are now high school students, including future Mrs. Byers, Joyce Maldonado (Birdy).
The scene lasts only a couple of seconds, and exists just to establish that Max is in the mind of Henry Creel, who will later become Vecna. But for those who saw the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, the flashback is a chilling reminder of how Vecna came to be, and the tragedy of the boy called Henry.
Written by Kate Trefry and directed by Tony winner Stephen Daldry (based on a story by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer and Jack Thorne), The First Shadow takes place in 1959, back when Joyce was just a high schooler hoping to get out of Hawkins, Jim Hopper’s only sleuthing involved animal killings (alongside Joyce’s future boyfriend Bob Newby), and Henry Creel was the new kid in school.
Even more than the occasional flashbacks in the series, The First Shadow shows how Henry was a normal kid who began to change after finding abandoned technology in a Nevada cave. Left there by Russian spies, who were stealing from the Nevada Project established by Dr. Brenner (portrayed by Matthew Modine on the show), the technology sends the young Henry to what the U.S. government called Dimension X, but what we know as the Upside Down.
Gifted with psychic powers, but disturbed by his interactions with the Mind Flayer in the Upside Down, Henry tries to live a normal life when he moves with his family to Hawkins. There, he manages to befriend Bob’s sister Patty, and even gets a part in the production of The Dark Side of the Moon that Joyce stages. But he’s constantly under attack by the Mind Flayer and pursued by Brenner, whose own father was changed after a visit to Dimension X in World War II.
By the end of the play, Henry has killed his mother and sister—murders blamed on his father Victor—and is taken to Brenner’s lab. From there, Brenner transfers Henry’s blood into young test subjects, most notably the girl known as Eleven.
But the real focus of The First Shadow is on the way Henry is treated. Despite the monster that he’ll become, Henry is not pure evil. He was a troubled kid who had some bad things happen to him, things made worse by the way people feared and judged him. Max’s trip through these memories only touches on the events that shaped Henry, but they may be enough to help her, an oft-misunderstood kid herself, escape his fate.
The same may not be true of Max’s friend Will, the boy at the center of the entire show. “Sorcerer” ends with Will standing up to Vecna and taking control of the demogorgons attacking Hawkins. Voiceover replaying Robin’s monologue about coming out frames Will’s control as a good thing, as if he’s finally becoming the person he’s supposed to be. But the actual imagery—Will’s eyes glazing over with white and the strange contortions he makes with his body—suggest something more sinister.
Is Will like Henry, a boy who went to the Upside Down at a young age and was changed for the worse? Or will Will’s friends be able to save him from becoming the next Vecna? We’ll have to wait for the last four episodes of Stranger Things to know for sure, but The First Shadow sure doesn’t fill us with hope.
Episodes one through four of Stranger Things season 5 are now streaming on Netflix.
Stranger Things Season 5’s A Wrinkle in Time Connections Explained
This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 5.
At the end of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 sci-fi fantasy novelA Wrinkle in Time, the witch/interdimensional being called Mrs. Whatsit compares human life to a sonnet, the poetic form defined by its strict 14-line structure. The correlation annoys Calvin, a teen from a troubled family who finds meaning in an adventure across time and space with neighbor Meg Murry and her family. When Calvin takes exception to having such restrictions on his life, Mrs. Whatsit offers an explanation. “You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself,” she points out. “What you say is completely up to you.”
In its fifth and final season, what Stranger Things wants to say comes from A Wrinkle in Time, at least in part. In the season premiere, we see the novel in the hands of Holly Wheeler, younger sister to Nancy and Mike. As the Wheeler family comes under the attack of Vecna’s forces, Holly uses references to A Wrinkle in Time to make sense of what’s happening to her. To fans of the novel, Holly’s A Wrinkle in Time talk might point to some of the plot points and themes that Stranger Things plans to explore as it says goodbye.
Who Is Mr. Whatsit?
The most obvious A Wrinkle in Time nod comes in the name that Holly gives her imaginary friend. In the first few episodes, Holly talks about Mr. Whatsit, a person that others dismiss as just her way of dealing with familial tensions, but we viewers understand as real. Although we cannot initially see his face, we see Mr. Whatsit, nattily-dressed in a tan suit, visiting Holly and treating her kindly. Later episodes reveal that Mr. Whatsit has visited several children in Hawkins, offering to take them to someplace kind and loving.
Given his odd but reassuring demeanor, it’s easy to see why Holly dubbed this man Mr. Whatsit. The Mrs. Whatsit of the novel can sometimes frighten Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and Calvin—the novel literally begins with the lines “It was a dark and stormy night” to describe the storm in which Mrs. Whatsit arrives—but she radiates kindness. Moreover, Mrs. Whatsit is the conduit through which Meg finds her missing father, a scientist who learned to travel across time and space via a process called tessering, and also helps she and her friends see their worth.
Mr. Whatsit, it seems, is something very different. Eventually, we learn that he is in fact Henry Creel, the man who will become Vecna, and may be Vecna presenting himself to Holly in a kinder, more welcoming form. During a demogorgon attack on the Wheeler home, Holly is kidnapped and taken into the Upside Down, where she exists in a reality based on Creel’s past, an apparently warm and welcoming house where she can do anything she wants, except go into the woods.
On the surface, Holly’s comparison of Creel and Mrs. Whatsit seems like a fatal mistake on the little girl’s part. Her insistance on seeing a kind magical creature based on a character she loves, instead of seeing a monster, may have horrific consequences.
However, previous seasons of Stranger Things have suggested that Creel and Vecna may be different personalities within the same person, and that some goodness may still reside in the Creel identity. Could it be that Holly recognizes that goodness within the Creel who comes to visit her? Could she be calling forth that goodness by naming Creel after another powerful, odd, but ultimately good figure, dubbing him Mr. Whatsit?
The fact other children who have seen Creel also call him Mr. Whatsit could undermine that theory, especially given Vecna’s claim that he hunts children because they’re easy to manipulate. But if Mrs. Whatsit taught Meg anything, it’s that children can stand up to the forces of darkness. That’s a lesson Holly will need to keep in mind.
What Is Camazotz?
Eventually, Holly does go into the woods that Mr. Whatsit prohibited, and reunites there with Max Mayfield. Max explains to Holly about how Vecna controls the Upside Down and this reality, forcing everything in his own image. Max’s explanation makes perfect sense to Holly, because it reminds her of a location in A Wrinkle in Time: Camazotz.
Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace find Camazotz in the novel’s climax. At first, Camazotz appears as a sedate, if dull, suburb. Apropos of the 1960s milieu in which L’Engle wrote, the suburb was the height of conformity, all identical houses and indistinct lawns. But the children soon notice something darker lurking within the perfect houses, signaled by the fact that every house has a child in front, each bouncing a red rubber ball in exact perfect rhythm.
As the children investigate further, they realize that the rhythm matches that of IT, the novel’s primary antagonist. IT exists only as a pulsating brain at the center of a bland office building in the middle of Camazotz. It communicates either via possession, taking over Charles Wallace at one point, or through his servant, known only as the Man With Red Eyes. Everything within Camazotz conforms to IT, moving at the same rhythm that IT pulsates.
A Christian mystic writing in the period of America’s post-World War II ascendency, L’Engle associated IT with everything saw as wrong and evil in the world. In particular, IT represented oppressive conformity, which choked out the beauty and individuality of creation. Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin make such good warriors against IT precisely because they’re outcasts who cannot conform to the world.
By identifying Vecna’s worlds as Camazotz, Holly acknowledges the monster’s desire to corrupt the world until it’s like him. But the connection also has deeper thematic ties, as Stranger Things‘s final season is deeply concerned with teens learning to accept themselves. The first episodes most obviously outline that theme in Robin’s monologue about coming out to herself and falling for Vickie. She describes the realization as something akin to flying, a metaphor that stands out to A Wrinkle in Time readers, given a memorable passage in which Mrs. Whatsit transforms into a winged creature to carry the children across the sky.
Like Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin, the kids of Hawkins resist Vecna best when they’re simply allowed to be themselves.
Speaking Within the Form
Then again, the Wrinkle in Time references may be just that: references to culture popular in the 1980s. Stranger Things certainly has no problem winking to movies and television shows that creators the Duffer Brothers like. Certainly, those references sometimes have significant plot and theme relevance, as with the Dungeons & Dragons language that has been a mainstay of the series since season one. Other times, it’s a Kate Bush needle drop or an Evil Dead poster on the wall, little more than set dressing.
And that’s okay. Anyone who tried to slavishly recreate A Wrinkle in Time would have missed the point of the novel, following the logic of IT more than Mrs. Whatsit or her sisters.
After all, Madeleine L’Engle simply provided a form for fantasy science fiction. What anyone says with it is completely up to them.
Stranger Things season 5 episodes one through four are now streaming on Netflix.
A Divisive Cult Horror Movie May Hold the Key to the Stranger Things Finale
This article contains spoilers for the first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5.
After a three-year gap, Stranger Things has finally returned for its fifth and final season on Netflix.
The first four episodes of season 5 see the town of Hawkins under heavy military lockdown while our intrepid gang investigates eerie phenomena tied to the villainous Vecna, who seems to be lying low after the events of season 4. As Will Byers’ original connection to Vecna and the hive mind is explored, little Holly Wheeler is abducted from her home by the human face of Vecna, Henry Creel, and transported to his surreal mindscape, where Max has been hiding out for a long time, unable to escape the deadly psychic prison.
Trapped in this place between life and death, Max is able to observe Vecna’s twisted memories, but not influence them. Nevertheless, she has gained important insight into how Vecna’s brain works and has even found a place inside it that he fears to tread. This feels inexplicable to us because on the surface, it’s a peaceful cave with a lovely vista. It’s a sanctuary for Max, but it’s also a place that Henry has built an impenetrable wall around for reasons we aren’t yet privy to.
The “getting inside the mind of a killer” trope has been used many times in TV and film, but Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer have confirmed that one movie specifically has loomed large when crafting this part of season 5’s story.
“I can’t tell you how many hours are spent in the writers’ room discussing the movie The Cell, the Jennifer Lopez/Tarsem movie.” Matt Duffer told Variety. “It’s such a great concept, because they enter the mind of a serial killer. It was the closest thing we could think of that parallels what we were doing. Our serial killer mindscape ends up being pretty different, but it’s probably why we ended up having a desert in there. A lot of desert sequences in The Cell.”
The Cell, which was a commercial success but divided critics, has since become a cult classic. It follows Lopez’s child psychotherapist, Catherine Deane, who uses an experimental technology to enter the minds of comatose patients. After serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) falls into a coma just after kidnapping his latest victim, Catherine agrees to try and find out where he’s stashed them before they meet a grisly end.
When Catherine is inside Carl’s mind, she encounters a nightmarish landscape littered with his trauma and violence that shifts between beauty and horror, much like the inside of Vecna’s mind. If the rest of season 5 continues to pay homage to the movie, we might see the comatose Max become a key player in taking down Vecna from the inside.
This may also prove fatal for Max. The deeper Catherine went in Carl’s mind, the more dangerous his projections became. Catherine nearly loses her own grip on reality while trapped there, and the climax of the movie sees her not only struggle to extract vital clues to the latest victim’s location but also discover the sympathetic, abused child inside Carl’s mind. Catherine is compassionate to Carl’s inner child, but must choose between saving that innocent part of him or stopping the monster. In the end, he convinces her to kill him out of mercy.
Stranger Things season 5 has laid out the puzzle pieces of Vecna’s plan to use the town’s children to reshape the world into a nightmare of his creation. But with The Cell being the closest parallel to The Duffer Brothers’ vision for their series and the stage play The First Shadow exploring Henry’s innocent childhood before he was irrevocably altered by a trip to an alternate dimension, we might find that the only way to stop him is for someone to make a sincere connection with a younger version of him.
Whether it’s Max who makes that connection remains to be seen, as Will is also revealed to have a deep link to the hive mind by the end of episode four. Eleven has also discovered her sister, Eight, captured by the military. Both were shaped by Henry’s abilities and could potentially get through to him. Meanwhile, Dustin, often described as the heart of the series, might be the linchpin of the whole campaign.
There are lots of players on the board going into the final four episodes of Season 5. Taking Vecna down from the inside might require a group effort.
The Rest of Stranger Things 5 Is Coming Out at the Best and Worst Possible Time
If you’ve just finished watching the first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5, you might be sitting there thinking, “ok, where’s the rest?” and the answer is that you don’t have to wait a long time for the final chapters to drop on Netflix. At least, not comparatively, when you consider that the gap between season 4 and 5 was more than three years.
There are four more episodes arriving in December, with three on December 25 at 8 p.m. ET and the very final one streaming on December 31 at 8 p.m. ET. Yes, those dates are indeed Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, so depending on how busy you are over the holiday period, this might be wonderful or terrible news.
There may be trouble ahead, as Irving Berlin once wrote, because cramming three episodes of Stranger Things in on December 25 might be awkward, considering how long they usually are. Three of the first four in Season 5 were over an hour long, with episode four clocking in at 1 hour 23 minutes. So, to be safe, you’ll want to allow yourself between four and six hours to watch the next three.
If you’re a die-hard fan of the show, you probably know exactly why you’d want to watch the episodes as soon as they’re released. You’ve waited a long time to see the end of all this, and there are spoilers everywhere. However, if you can’t make time on December 25 because of other commitments, that’s perfectly understandable. You might be working or be with family members who aren’t interested in Stranger Things, and catching up a blissfully unaware grampa on why you’re a Stancy shipper on Christmas afternoon before you hit play is going to be quite the gauntlet, so give it some thought.
But if you do want to jump on new episodes right away and have plenty of room to fit in three on December 25, this release plan is much better news. Things tend to slow down on that day, so setting aside a big block of time to find out what happens next could be feasible.
The New Year’s Day finale might also be tricky, because we could expect that episode to be longer than the rest of Season 5’s installments. The show’s finales have only grown longer since season 1’s 55 minutes, with Season 4’s finale clocking in at two hours and 22 minutes. The concluding episode of Stranger Things may end up being at least the length of a typical feature film (and it will indeed be screened in theaters). Plan accordingly!
David Harbour’s Best Roles Before and After Stranger Things
Finn Wolfhard. Maya Hawke. Sadie Sink. Joe Keery.
Stranger Things has provided a treasure trove of new young talent, introducing the world to the next generation of stars. But the most interesting breakout may not be one of the kids we first met in Hawkins, Indiana. Rather, it’s a guy who was in his 40s when the first season aired, who had more than two decades of experience before getting the part.
I’m referring to David Harbour, whose performance as Jim Hopper transformed him from a reliable that guy to a beloved character actor. Harbour brings a gruff likability and a blue collar charm to his roles before and after Hopper, so let’s take a look at some of his best work beyond Stranger Things.
Randall Malone, Brokeback Mountain (2005)
One of Harbour’s first film roles came in the powerful romantic Western Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee and written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, based on the short story by Annie Proulx. Harbour plays Randall Malone, a closeted gay man who seems to have everything that Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) wants: a wife, respectability, and a way to meet other like-minded men in Mexico.
Harbour has limited screen time as Malone, but the way he shifts from gregariousness in public to sublime sadness when alone with Jack underscores the central tragedy of the film. Randall may seem like he’s got it all figured out, but even he isn’t happy in the limited life society allows him.
Shep Campbell, Revolutionary Road (2008)
Based on the novel by Richard Yates, Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road was promoted as a reunion for Titanic lovers Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. However, writer Justin Haythe contrast the tragic, timeless love of that film with suburban ennui, casting the stars as perpetual unhappy postwar couple Frank and April Wheeler.
As the Wheelers seek satisfaction beyond their green lawns, they are joined by neighbors Shep and Milly Campbell, played by Harbour and Kathryn Hahn. The Campbells represent both a possibility and escape and a reminder of the Wheeler’s stultifying existence, which gives Harbour and Hahn some room to play dark comedy, despite the bleak tone that Mendes emphasizes.
Gregg Beam, Quantum of Solace (2008)
Quantum of Solace has the unenviable task of following up the excellent James Bond reboot Casino Royale, a task made harder by studios driving writers to go on strike. The result is a mess of a film, terribly directed by Marc Forster, which squanders the energy of Daniel Craig‘s first outing as 007.
One thing that does work is Harbour’s small role as Gregg Beam, a colleague of Bond’s CIA counterpart Felix Leiter. Where much of Craig’s James Bond run put pathos over humor, Harbour brought levity to Beam. His sarcastic line deliveries make Quantum of Solace briefly fun, a rare oasis of pleasure in a pretty dire flick.
Roger Anderson, Pan Am (2011-2012)
Harbour must have taken notes during Quantum of Solace, because a few years later, he got to play a British spy in the swingin’ sixties. ABC’s Temu Mad Men show Pan Am focused on the pilots and stewardesses of a plane operated by the titular airline. Amongst the many unlikely plot lines in the series’ first and only season were those involving special agent Roger Anderson, played by Harbour.
Let’s be completely honest here. Harbour does not play a convincing English superspy, and is only marginally more believable when Anderson is revealed to be a KGB agent. But Harbour wears the miscasting well, somehow still having fun with the goofy plot, even if some of the laughs come at his character’s expense.
Elliot Hirsch, The Newsroom (2012-2014)
After The West Wing, the excellent show about smug centrist liberals doing the most important job ever, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a terrible show about smug centrist liberals doing the most important job ever, Aaron Sorkin created The Newsroom, a series about smug centrist liberals working on a nightly network news show, the most important job ever. Where most of the show follows principled maverick Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) and his staff, Harbour has a reoccuring guest role as McAvoy’s former co-anchor Elliott Hirsch.
With McAvoy speaking for/at the people, Hirsch often feels like a simple foil, the guy who chooses the status quo instead of the truth. And the series does put Hirsch through the wringer, including a storyline in which he gets beat up outside his hotel room. But Harbour knows how to keep the audience on the side of his stuffed shirt of a character, even when the show wishes we weren’t.
Hellboy, Hellboy (2019)
Okay, let’s get this out of the way up top: the 2019 Hellboy is very bad. Worse, it casts Harbour in the title role instead of bringing back a pitch-perfect Ron Perlman for a third outing. But here’s the thing: Harbour’s just as good as Hellboy, bringing a different take to Mike Mignolia’s Right Hand of the Apocalypse/working stiff.
Where Perlman played Anung un Rama as perpetually tired of anything that wasn’t a cat or a pancake or Liz Sherman, Harbour’s Hellboy has a bit more youth and spark. That doesn’t mean he’s thrilled to deal with a pig fairy or the Baba Yaga. But he’s quicker with a biting remark and more ready for action, allowing Harbour’s version to stand alongside the fan favorite portrayed by Perlman, despite being in a much weaker movie.
Santa Claus, Violent Night (2022)
Like Hellboy, Violent Night doesn’t work as a movie, but gets a lot of help by casting Harbour in the lead. Here, Harbour plays Viking warrior Nicomund the Red, forced to atone for his cruelty by spending eternity giving gifts and spreading joy as Santa Claus. Santa does his job well, but when a group of burglars (lead by John Leguizamo as “Scrooge”) break into a house and threaten a young girl named Trudy (Leah Brady), he recovers his brutal tendencies to save the day.
Violent Night is a fun romp whenever it lets Harbour smack around baddies by using Yultide magic. However, director Tommy Wirkola and writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller devote way too much screentime to cute little moppet Trudy and Scrooge’s crew, dragging down the film. But none of that takes away from Harbour’s infectuous performance at the center.
Eric Frankenstein, Creature Commandos (2024)
As this list demonstrates, Harbour excels at getting the audience to sympathize with unlikable characters. By that measure, his greatest accomplishment might be winning the viewers over to one of fiction’s greatest monsters, reimagined as Eric Frankenstein in James Gunn‘s animated DCU series Creature Commandos.
Like Mary Shelley’s creation, Eric just wants his maker Victor Frankenstein (Peter Serafinowicz) to give him a mate. But when the Bride (Indira Varma) rejects him, Eric doesn’t destroy the lab like in Bride of Frankenstein, nor does he take the hint and go away. Instead, he endlessly pursues the Bride over generations, and eventually to the world of superheroes when his beloved becomes a member of Task Force M. Harbour doesn’t paper over the fact that Eric is essentially an unkillable incel, neither does he downplay any of the character’s hilariously pathetic lines, making him one of the more complicated parts on this list.
Red Guardian, Thunderbolts* (2025)
Delightful as he is as Eric Frankenstein, Harbour’s best superhero role remains the one he plays for the Marvelous competition, Alexei Shostakov better known as the Soviet super soldier Red Guardian. First introduced in Black Widow, Alexei is an utter buffoon, a gregarious man too in love with his own legend to fully accept that his government betrayed him and put him in a gulag, let alone the harm he’s done to his pseudo-family.
Unsurprisingly, Harbour plays Alexei’s lovable goofball side with ease. But in Thunderbolts*, he discovers the sadness that dwells under the character’s lovable exterior. Paired with an excellent Florence Pugh as his daughter Yelena, Harbour makes Alexei more than a big dumb idiot, turning the Red Guardian into a full-realized person.
Steve Harrington Should Be Stranger Things’ Final Girl
There are lots of questions that the final season of Stranger Thingsneeds to answer. What, exactly, is the Upside Down? Why was Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) taken in the first place? Will Max (Sadie Sink) ever wake up from her coma? How does Eleven’s (Millie Bobbie Brown) mysterious sister Eight (Linnea Berthelsen) fit into all this — if she even still does? But the thing most viewers are most immediately concerned with is likely to be the question of who will manage to survive until the end.
Stranger Things hasn’t shied away from dark storytelling, and its world full of monsters, Mind Flayers, and shadowy government agents has already come with a body count. (R.I.P. forever faves Barb Holland and Eddie Munson.) But while its core cast of charismatic young teens has managed to dodge some serious bullets over the series’ four seasons to date, it seems more than likely that they won’t all be able to do so forever, if only to raise the stakes for the gang’s final encounter with the monstrous Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). But maybe the better question is who should be left — not alive necessarily (although also that), but who’s truly earned the chance to make a final stand against the darkness at the heart of Hawkins.
From the very beginning, it’s Eleven who’s been the linchpin around which much of the series’s larger narrative turns. From the secrets surrounding her origins and the depth of the trauma she’s endured to her steadily growing, occasionally near-magical psychokinetic abilities, she’s always been the designated superhero of this story, the Chosen One who must eventually face off against the encroaching forces of evil. But in the world of the show, she’s treated as a puzzle to solve as often as she is a real person, and while the mystery surrounding her origins can certainly be thrilling to watch, hers is not actually Stranger Things’ most satisfying narrative journey. That honor belongs to one Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), who deserves to only to survive whatever horrors are waiting at the end of this story, but to conquer them.
Steve’s admittedly something of a strange choice for Stranger Things’ ultimate Final Girl. He’s a guy, for starters, which isn’t exactly what you might call traditional. He also begins the series as a complete d-bag, slut shaming his own girlfriend and bullying those he considers beneath him. He’s essentially the sort of selfish, self-centered jerk that often exists solely to be cannon fodder in stories like this, a cautionary tale for other characters meant to inspire them to do better, be smarter, or change in some way. This initially tracks, given that the the Duffer Brothers have been fairly forthright about the fact that they originally intended to kill the character back in season 1, but that’s mercifully not what happens.
Instead, Steve survives. Not just monster attacks (of which there are many!) but the person he used to be, recognizing and confronting his own flaws in a way that allows him to both learn and grow from them. Where many of the core Stranger Things characters are forged into heroes by virtue of being forced to face actual demonic threats, Steve does so by first being asked to confront the monsters within himself.
In a world full of pointless Russian sidequests, government psychobabble, and extended power training montages, Steve’s journey is Stranger Things at its most deeply human. His redemptive transformation is so enjoyable to watch precisely because it is the show’s most realistic, the one thing that could actually maybe happen in the world we all live in. Of course, someone like Eleven turns out to be a hero. She’s got superpowers. It’s precisely what we expect her character to do. Steve… not so much. It’s one thing to face off against monsters when you can fly or break their bones or throw a car at them with the power of your mind. All Steve has, essentially, is a baseball bat and a dream. And yet he still steps up, in a way that none of us would have ever initially expected.
Most importantly, Steve’s rehabilitation isn’t sudden or immediate. It’s earned, through countless moments of selflessness and self-awareness across seasons’ worth of story, as he becomes Dustin’s (Gaten Matarazzo) babysitter (and protector), Robin’s (Maya Hawke) best friend, and the group’s most reluctant of leaders. He becomes a genuine ally and friend to those he’d have previously dismissed as not worth his time, learns to listen and learn from those he’s harmed, and thoughtfully considers what it means to want a future of his own choosing. That, as the kids say, is growth.
Season four went a long way to establishing Steve’s Final Girl bona fides. The de facto leader of the Hawkins contingent that’s left to try and thwart Vecna’s small-town murder spree, he’s at the center of the season’s most intense story arc, and fully comes into his own as a result. Eager to stretch himself beyond the role of designated babysitter, he’s grappling his feelings for Nancy and yearning for a genuine connection in a way we’ve not really gotten the chance to see before. No matter how you feel about the potential rightness of the two for one another, romantically speaking — and I will go to my grave insisting that Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) is genuinely terrible boyfriend material — it adds a sweet and complicated new layer to their relationship. (And one that’s completely down to the fact that Steve has remade himself into excellent boyfriend material.)
While it may seem crazy on the surface, Steve’s evolution from toxic jerk to reluctantly fierce mother hen and surprisingly lovable hero puts him in a unique position to triumph. Or, admittedly, also to sacrifice himself in the name of saving the kids who’ve come to mean so much to him. But he’s earned a better ending than that — and he more than deserves the chance to shine.
Walmart’s Best Black Friday Collectible Finds
This article is presented in partnership with Walmart.
Black Friday can be an exciting time to get ahead of some early winter holiday shopping or just a little extra self-love for yourself. Everyone loves to take advantage of a great sale, but there can be so many Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in the mix that it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
Thankfully, Walmart has worked hard to cultivate an impressive collection of Black Friday deals that are guaranteed to delight the pop culture fans in your life. Walmart has your Black Friday needs covered, whether it’s LEGO, Funko, Trading Card Games, Marvel/DC, Star Wars, and everything in between!
Want to do a deeper dive for yourself? Check out the shelf links below for Walmart’s full Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals!
The 52 Omnibus is frequently praised as one of the best DC stories of the 2020s. Set after the seismic events of Infinite Crisis, The 52 Omnibus explores a fractured DC Universe that tries to make sense of itself without its heroic trinity—Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The 52 Omnibus is over 1,200 pages of challenging superhero subversions by Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, and Greg Rucka. It should be mandatory reading for not just any superhero or DC fan, but anyone who is interested in engrossing sagas that attempt to demystify legends. This gorgeous hardcover edition from 2022 has basically had its price slashed in half, dropping from $150.00 to $75.51, a deal that’s hard to beat. BUY HERE
DC Comics
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow the Deluxe Edition (Hardcover)
$34.65 $23.70
Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is an eight-issue series that initially made waves when it was first published back in 2021. Woman of Tomorrow was a necessary step forward in a new direction that helped redefine Kara Zor-El. This iconic DC text has found even greater respect and adoration after James Gunn cited it as the central influence on the DCU’s upcoming Supergirl feature film. This hardcover deluxe edition of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow compiles all eight issues into a singular 272-page epic. Marked down more than $10 for Black Friday, this is a great steal for one of the best stories to have come out of DC Comics in the last decade. BUY HERE
Marvel Comics
Avengers #1 (2023) – CGC 9.8 Comic Book
$87.00 $78.00
Regardless of whether you believe that superhero fatigue is real or not, there’s still endless appreciation for the comics that made these icons famous in the first place. Walmart has an abundance of comics on its shelves, but there are also professionally graded and even autographed comics available. Walmart has already done the hard part of grading when it comes to this Avengers #1 (2023) comic with a CGC rating of 9.8. This celebrated issue of 2023’s Avengers run by Jed MacKay and C.F. Villa is the perfect Black Friday purchase for those who just cannot wait for the MCU’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars. The only thing better than a CGC 9.8-rated version of Avengers #1 is one that’s been marked down from $87.00 to $78.00. BUY HERE
Marvel Comics
Silver Surfer Rebirth: Legacy #1 – CGC 9.8 Comic Book
$98.00 $88.00
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Fantastic Four: First Steps gave audiences a taste of Shalla-Bal and anyone who is hungry for more Silver Surfer stories owe it to themselves to dig deeper into Norrin Radd’s extended comic catalogue. Silver Surfer Rebirth: Legacy #1 marks the start of Ron Marz, Ron Lim, and Don Ho’s formative Silver Surfer series. Legacy #1 is a great entry point for both seasoned Silver Surfer fans and complete newcomers. This issue also has a near-perfect CGC rating of 9.8. Walmart’s Black Friday sale knocks $10 off the collector’s item, making it $88.00! BUY HERE
LEGO
LEGO
LEGO Creator 3 in 1 White Rabbit Animal Toy Building Set
$27.00 $21.96
LEGO has always been a toy that celebrates creativity, and it’s been exciting to see how much these building blocks have evolved in the past few decades. This 3 in 1 White Rabbit Animal Toy Building Set from the LEGO Creator line is designed for STEM kids, but it’s detailed and cute enough to keep adults entertained too. This 258-piece kit can become either a white rabbit, cockatoo parrot, or a white seal, all of which have interactive and posable body parts, plus additional environmental items that contribute to these animal scenes. All three of these creatures will keep kids busy and expand their minds. There’s plenty of fun to be had with IP-branded LEGO sets, but the LEGO Creator series is a testament to LEGO’s versatility. BUY HERE
LEGO
LEGO Star Wars Jango Fett’s Firespray-Class Starship
$299.99 $269.99
Star Wars fans and LEGO enthusiasts may not be willing to shell out close to $1000 for an intricate Millennium Falcon set, but Jango Fett’s Firespray-Class Starship for under $300 may be more up your alley. Marked down to $269.99 for Black Friday, the 2,970-piece Star Wars-branded set recreates one of the Star Warsuniverse’smost unique starships. This LEGO set from the Ultimate Collectors Series also includes Jango and Boba Fett mini-figures who can pose alongside their starship while fans recreate their favorite scenes from Attack of the Clones. The Firespray-Class Starship has a detailed interior and can be positioned either upright or in landing mode. BUY HERE
Mighty Jaxx has become one of the most credible and creative leading names in the action figure and toy industry. Not only do they deliver accurate and passionate products but they strive for outside-the-box designs and figures that do something different. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy lines, but Jaxx’s Cowa-BOO-nga! Remixx series is especially playful. This Remixx version of Donatello sees the Ninja Turtle dressed up as the insectile antagonist, Baxter Stockman, as his Halloween costume. The well-articulated toy measures at 5.65-inches and is a creative celebration of the TMNT universe. The Ninja Turtles have been having a banger year, and this toy is a great way to highlight one’s turtle power. BUY HERE
McFarlane Toys are responsible for some of the most gorgeous comic book action figures and their McFarlane Cover Recreations series creatively blurs the lines between comic cover and action figure. Each toy in the McFarlane Cover Recreations series chooses an iconic comic cover that’s faithfully recreated with an ultra-articulated action figure and deluxe base and backdrop that creates the illusion of a comic book. Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come remains a deeply enlightening, and thought-provoking DC Multiverse story. This seven-inch scale figure recreates the iconic “Kingdom Come Special Superman Cover #1,” and even includes extra hands and attachable smoke effects to add extra intensity to the tableaux. BUY HERE
Poppy Playtime – Minifigure Collector Set – Series 3 Smiling Critters Catnap
$49.99 $39.99
PhatMojo’s Poppy Playtime series offers an adorable mix of animal friends that are sure to become any kid’s favorite holiday treat. This Minifigure Collector Set includes ten of the three-inch-tall minifigures from Series 3 of the Smiling Critters line, which features lovable characters like CatNap, DogDay, Bubba Bubbaphant, and Kickin Chickin. Three of the ten Smiling Critters are also mystery figures, which makes every set different! Not only is this set marked down $10 for Black Friday, but it also comes in the perfect CatNap-shaped carrying case so Smiling Critters clean-up is a breeze. BUY HERE
Mighty Jaxx Kwistal Fwenz My Little Pony Series 3 (Gala Edition) | Blind Box Toy Collectible Figurines
$29.99$23.99
My Little Pony has been around for nearly 45 years and it’s still going strong as a genuine phenomenon. Mighty Jaxx wisely added My Little Pony to their line-up of properties and they haven’t disappointed the franchise’s fans. For several series now, Mighty Jaxx’s Kwistal Fwenz line of My Little Pony toys has been a constant source of joy. Series 3 (Gala Edition) focuses on My Little Pony‘s Grand Galloping Gala, where each Pony is dressed to the nines. Kwistal Fwenz Series 3 introduces seven new figures, each three inches tall, with one of the seven — Rarity, Magic Night Edition — being an ultra-rare addition to the stables. This Black Friday sale is for just a singular Blind Box Toy Collectible Figurine, but the price has been reduced by a full third, shifting from $14.99 to $9.99. BUY HERE
Five Nights at Freddy’s – Faz’s Fizzy Station Grab N’ Go Bundle 2-Pack
$14.99 $11.99
The Five Nights at Freddy’s sensation is at an all-time high with the sequel to its successful Blumhouse horror movie set to be one of the biggest films to close out the year. The Five Night’s at Freddy’s Faz’s Fizzy Station Grab N’Go! 2-Pack Bundle is a fun way to celebrate the unhinged horror franchise without breaking the bank. Each Grab N’ Go! Bundle includes three mystery figures, one trading card, one sticker, and a display base. This two-pack means this all gets doubled, and yet it only comes in at $11.99. This collection features 20 possible figures and trading cards, and 17 stickers, including rare exclusive glow-in-the-dark or golden figure variants. The Faz’s Fizzy Station Grab N’ Go is a great gift for any Five Nights at Freddy’s fan that delivers a lot of bang for your buck. BUY HERE
FUNKO
FUNKO Bitty POP!: Game of Thrones – Tyrion 4-Pack
$13.42
Funko’s Bitty POP! line distills some of pop culture’s most beloved characters into tiny, adorable collector’s items that measure at around 0.9-inches tall! Walmart’s Game of Thrones 4-Pack is the perfect Black Friday gift for all the George R. R. Martin fans out there who are eagerly anticipating House of the Dragon’s return. This four-pack includes Tyrion Lannister, Cersei Lannister, the Hound, and one mystery Bitty POP! figure that has the potential to be a Hyper Rare figure, such as Daenerys Targaryen (with Dragon). This Black Friday deal clocks in at under $13.50—that’s less than $3.50 per Bitty POP!—and even includes a stackable display shelf for the proudest of collectors. BUY HERE
CCG/GAMES
Wizards of the Coast
3 Packs Magic the Gathering Play Booster Pack Lot MTG Marvel’s Spider-Man
$24.99 $20.99
Magic: The Gathering has taken some major strides to reinvent itself through crossover expansions that embrace all sorts of popular IP while giving them a classic Magic makeover. Among these titles are Final Fantasy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Marvel’s Spider-Man. Walmart’s Black Friday Deal on three packs of the Spider-Man expansion is a great way for Magic: The Gathering and Spider-Man fans alike to celebrate the series. Each booster pack contains 14 cards, which include 1-4 cards of a Rare rarity or higher. It’s a lot of fun to see classic Spider-Man characters reinvented through Magic: The Gathering’s rules, which becomes a surprisingly natural fit. BUY HERE
Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Phantasmal Flames Booster Bundle
$69.95 $53.99
Each Pokémon Trading Card Game expansion set offers something different to gaming. The Mega Evolution – Phantasmal Flames expansion adds 120 cards to the Pokémon TCG experience. All the Mega Evolution expansions celebrate big, bold Mega Evolutions, with the Phantasmal Flames set specializing in Dark- and Ghost-Type creatures, such as Mega Gengar ex, Mega Heracross ex, and Mega Lopunny ex. This Booster Bundle set collects six booster packs, each of which contain ten cards. Marked down from $70, Walmart’s Black Friday sale is one of the cheapest ways to build out your Mega Evolution – Phantasmal Flames deck! BUY HERE
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast D&D Stranger Things Welcome to the Hellfire Club
$44.95 $39.98
Dungeons & Dragons has never disappeared from the public consciousness but it’s regrouped with a vengeance through pop culture-coded expansions. Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons are a natural fit, but Welcome to the Hellfire Club goes above and beyond with this official Stranger Things/D&D crossover. Welcome to the Hellfire Club includes four adventure booklet scenarios for short, hour-long sessions that allow multiple games to be played in a single night. This Dungeons & Dragons set includes everything that’s needed for a full gaming experience, including cards, tokens, character sheets, a combat tracker, dice, a Dungeon Master’s screen, and more. It’s the perfect way to celebrate Stranger Things before the final season concludes. BUY HERE
Pokémon TCG: Destined Rivals Build and Battle Box
$38.65
Pokémon continues to dominate as one of the highest-grossing multimedia franchises in the world. Pokémon’s Trading Card Game has been going strong for decades and continues to be one of the top TCG/CCG experiences for dedicated gamers. There are many expansion sets and different ways to celebrate the Pokémon TCG. Pokémon TCG: Destined Rivals is the 10th and final expansion of the Scarlet & Violet Series. It adds 182 regular cards and more than 240 total cards after secret cards are thrown into the mix. This Build and Battle Box is a great way for any lapsed gamers to get back into the TCG scene. This set includes a 40-card deck that’s ready-to-play, along with four booster packs that add further Destined Rivals cards to the mix so that players can fine-tune their deck and build alternates. These boxes, while ideal for deck-building and getting into the TCG scene, also include one of four possible unique foil promo cards. BUY HERE
Stranger Things’ Scariest Moments Ranked
If there’s one thing Stranger Things does better than Eddie Munson wailing on an electric guitar, it’s scaring the absolute crap out of us. From creepy monsters to psychic showdowns, the hit Netflix series has delivered some of the scariest TV moments of the last decade
But with the show wrapping up and heading to spinoff town, it’s time to grab your walkie-talkie, crank up some Limahl, and join us as we look back at some of the most terrifying Stranger Things scenes to date.
7. RIP Barb
Season 1 Episodes 3 and 4 “The Weirdo on Maple Street” and “Holly, Jolly”
While her best friend was getting down to business with a handsome boy, Barb (Shannon Purser) chilled at the pool during a house party and played it cool. But while your standard horror slasher would kill off the girl who dared to have sex and have the more reserved best friend make it out alive, Stranger Things clearly had no intention of playing by the horror rulebook, shockingly killing off Barb in a Demogorgon attack by season one’s halfway point. At the time, people were so upset by her grim fate that they were inspired to start the “Justice for Barb” movement to give the character some closure in season two.
6. Billy on a Rampage
Season 3 Episode 4 “The Sauna Test”
Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery) is young, bad, and dangerous as hell. We know this because we’ve seen some of his uniquely brutal reactions by this point in the series, but when Billy gets possessed by the Mind Flayer, the kids have to trap him in a sauna to confirm just how dangerous he is. We soon find out when he snaps and gives us one of the show’s most distressing moments. Shifting from pleading to a violent rage in a heartbeat, he smashes through the sauna door with terrifying superhuman strength. The claustrophobic atmosphere of Billy’s test, combined with his innate unpredictability, has this season three moment dialing our fear up to eleven.
5. Joyce and the Demogorgon
Season 1 Episode 2 “The Weirdo on Maple Street”
One of the most successful tactics in the horror genre is to keep your monster hidden for as long as possible. An unseen threat is way more effective than one you can actually physically process, and season one experiments with this tactic by having Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) come very close to real contact with the Demogorgon in the perceived safety of her home. As her wallpaper bulges and ripples and the Demogorgon stretches reality, Joyce understands that something is nearly breaking through from the Upside Down, and that, really, she’s not safe anywhere. And neither are we.
4. Shadow Monster
Season 2 Episode 3 “The Pollywog”
In one of season two’s rather rare standout moments, Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) encounters part of his monster in a field after glomming onto advice from his mom’s new boyfriend, Bob, who thinks he should confront it. The monster appears to him as a swirling black smoke tendril (if you’re a Lost fan, you know how deadly that can be!) and then envelops him, entering his body as he screams.
Sweet, broken Will is once again in danger. He’s now a vessel for a horrifying entity. No longer being fully in control of our bodies is a very relatable psychological scare, and one that Stranger Things does very well in season two.
3. Body Melt Hospital Attack
Season 3 Episode 5 “The Flayed”
Who could forget this absolutely gross body horror moment in season three, when Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) confront two Flayed guys at Hawkins Hospital? The duo think they have enough on their plate when they start scrapping with Tom and Bruce, only for their bodies to turn into disgusting piles of gore before merging into a single monstrous creature that does the Mind Flayer’s bidding. The fluorescent hospital lighting makes this one even more stomach-churning and sickening. Hospitals are creepy anyway, so this was overkill of the best kind.
2. Max in the Graveyard
Season 4 Episode 4 “Dear Billy”
Arguably, one of the most iconic moments of the series is also one of its most upsetting. As her friends in the real world try to save her in a graveyard, Max (Sadie Sink) remains trapped and strangled by the villainous Vecna in his nightmare territory. Max’s desperate struggle and frantic run to the portal is set to the strains of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”, while we understand that at any second, she could end up just like poor Chrissy. Speaking of Chrissy…
1. Chrissy Dies in Eddie’s Trailer
Season 4 Episode 1 “The Hellfire Club”
Chrissy’s death is the most upsetting Stranger Things moment, in our humble opinion. It really set the bar for season four by introducing a new character in troubled cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham, only to kill her by the end of episode one.
When Chrissy follows up with drug-dealing metalhead Eddie Munson in his trailer in an attempt to quell some disturbing hallucinations she’s been having, she ends up being killed by Vecna, who levitates her body and breaks her arms, legs, and jaw, all while Eddie tries to frantically help her snap out of her trance. Yep, this one truly established Vecna as the ultimate big bad of Hawkins, and Chrissy’s horrid death still gives us the shudders.
Eternity Review: A Return of the Type of Rom-Com ‘They Don’t Make Anymore’
Joan has a problem. Despite experiencing what is by all accounts an idyllic lifetime of memories and love with her husband Larry these past 65 years, this grandmother and great-grandmother has lived long enough to see Larry pass away—and herself as well in the span of a week. That was the easy part though. The tricky bit came afterward when, upon reaching the other side, she discovered Larry waiting for her… as well as her first husband who died 67 years earlier, Luke.
Such is the disarmingly quirky high-concept of David Freyne’s Eternity, a romantic comedy the likes of which we regularly lament they don’t make anymore. Indeed, with its afterlife shenanigans and screwball flirtations, Eternity feels like a deliberate throwback to the romances of yesteryear that Joan, Luke, and Larry might have all seen in their halcyon youth (not together, of course). Freyne and his co-writer Patrick Cuanne appear determined to channel the gentler rom-com stylings of films like Ernst Lubitsch’s Heaven Can Wait or Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Ghost and Mrs. Muir with this one, which is impressive since the core theme remains (ahem) fairly eternal: can you have more than one love of your life? And if so, what counts more, passion or longevity?
These are the questions which confront Eternity’s central love triangle of a wife and her surplus of spouses. In truth, the film is told primarily from the second husband’s point-of-view—or “the current husband” as Larry defensively insists on being called. While played with bemusing crankiness by Barry Primus in Eternity’s opening scene (opposite the Betty Buckley as Joan), Lar spends the rest of the movie looking a whole lot like Miles Teller. His AC (afterlife coordinator) Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) explains this is because when we die, we revert to the self-image we had when we were the happiest in life. It’s why there are a whole lot of little boys on the other side, but as Anna drolly notes, “not a lot of teenagers.”
It is also why Joan becomes Elizabeth Olsen. For both Larry and Joan, death is a chance of being restored to the spritely bodies they used to take for granted, and a chance for Olsen and Teller to both practice the cognitive dissonance inherent with portraying old souls in young bodies. However, in the case of Luke, the long lost war hero husband played by a hunky Callum Turner, it is a different scenario. He is a young man permanently frozen in time during his death in his early 20s, and a moment when he was a newlywed shipped off to Korea.
He presents Joan with the first part of the aforementioned difficult choice(s). Because in addition to having ostensibly the two loves of her life expecting her to spend eternity with them, Joan must also pick what that eternity will look like beyond the plus one. As it turns out, death is neither pearly gates or fire and brimstone; it’s a way station surrounded by the recently deceased and bureaucratic coordinators who hurriedly attempt to rush folks off to the most convenient “eternity” for them. That might be an alleged paradise in the mountains, as is Luke and maybe Joan’s wont, or it could be the more popular seaside eternity at the beach (which sounds great to Larry). The trick, however, is that whatever “eternity” you pick, you must stay there. Forever.
From front to back, Eternity is unapologetically a love triangle that begins and ends with which husband (if indeed either) Joan will select to spend countless lifetimes with. There’s even an amusing irony that it could be conceived as a spiritual sequel to the most famous movie romance of the last 30 years: Titanic. (Remember, Rose went and had a life with children and grandchildren after Jack, but runs right back to the boy she knew for three days in 1912 after she dies.)
Yet the appeal of the movie is the far more human and communal aspects with which it considers what it means to be alive, or in love. The contrast between Luke and Larry is the difference between young love’s passion and a perhaps more practical but tested connection that can span years and decades. On a certain level, this makes Larry the easier character to root for, despite the movie effectively casting Teller against type as a nebbish square who favors sweater vests (which conveniently make it easier to hide six-pack abs). Turner’s Luke, by comparison, is a matinee idol who looks as if he stepped out of a Times Square VJ Day photograph.
Freyne and Cuanne’s screenplay recognizes the juxtaposition, but never sinks to making Luke an antagonist, or certainly a cad, nor Larry a punching bag. The story in fact likes to poke holes in the memory of the “one that got away” when audiences discover how Luke spent 67 years at a glorified airport. However, there is sympathy for both parties, and even more so for Joan. In this way, it is really Olsen’s movie, and she gives a quiet dignity to Joan’s predicament, avoiding anything that could be mistaken for sketch comedy arch or outrageous.
For some, Eternity’s refusal to heighten the jokes with gags or caricature (at least among the core triangle) could be a detriment, but it reminded me of a simpler more character-based understanding of humor, as well as of life. And it also allows Eternity to go big in the margins, whether that is via Randolph’s afterlife coordinator having her own curious tension with the AC repping Joan, or the fact that this bureaucratic vision of death looks as if Beetlejuice’s afterlife had been designed by Ken Adam.
The way that the film also introduces alternative visions of niche “eternities” you could select from—including names like “Satanism World,” “No Men World,” and “Weimar Germany with 100% Less Nazis!”—lets Eternity’s funny flag fly, all while the film keeps mostly a sympathetic eye toward a lose-lose scenario for Joan.
It is thus not a spoiler to say the third act of Eternity takes some twists that turn toward the dramatic and bittersweet. But the movie never loses its affection for all parties involved, and in the process makes for an affectionate throwback to the type of rom-coms that reward a revisit.
Eternity is in theaters now.
Macaulay Culkin Pitches Home Alone Legacy Sequel
Thirty-five years ago, Kevin McCallister made his family disappear. Then, two years later, he made his family disappear again. But now, in 2025, Kevin’s ready to make his family reappear. At least, that’s what star Macaulay Culkin has in mind.
As part of his Nostalgia Night with Macaulay Culkin tour (via Variety), the former child actor pitched a new Home Alone sequel, this one staring himself as an adult Kevin. “I’m either a widower or a divorcee. I’m raising a kid and all that stuff,” he mused. “I’m working really hard and I’m not really paying enough attention and the kid is kind of getting miffed at me and then I get locked out. [Kevin’s son] won’t let me in… and he’s the one setting traps for me.”
On first glance, that’s a pretty dark approach for a movie that’s become an undisputed holiday classic. The McCallisters certainly had their problems, but neither of the original movies by Chris Columbus and John Hughes really dealt with suburban ennui gripping the parents. Even the threat of two burglars who threaten to kill Kevin, either in his home or on the streets of New York, is played for slapstick laughs instead of actual terror.
But that’s because Home Alone is a kid’s movie, made for children who want to watch bad guys get bashed in the head without thinking about the consequences. Like Culkin himself, those kids are now grown, and thus approach Home Alone film from a different perspective. Adult viewers take notice of how much the McCallisters gripe at and insult each other, and how an income that allows for a gigantic house in the Chicago suburbs and regular family vacations doesn’t soothe the bitterness they all clearly feel.
In other words, a third sequel about Kevin as a disappointed adult trying to connect with his kid makes a lot of sense for the character we met back in the early 1990s. At least, it makes more sense than any of the actual Home Alone sequels that you may or may not know actually exist. Four additional Home Alone movies were released after Culkin left the franchise, including a third movie that featurs a pre-teen Scarlett Johansson in its cast, a fourth movie that recasts Kevin with a different young actor, and the 2021 direct-to-Disney+ entry Home Sweet Home Alone.
These movies have many, many problems. But for Culkin, the main issue may be how they misunderstand the central theme of the first two films, a theme he’d emphasize in the sequel he pitches. “The house is some sort of metaphor for our relationship,” he explained, making the adult Kevin’s attempts to get inside a “‘get let back into son’s heart’ kind of deal.” Even allowing that his idea is the “closest elevator pitch that I have,” Culkin allowed that he’s “not completely allergic to [a Home Alone sequel],” if it’s “the right thing.”
That all sounds good, but if there’s one thing that the original Home Alone movies taught us as kids, it’s that we should be very careful what we wish for—at least, when we’re wishing that our family would disappear.
Daredevil Star Shoots Down Fan Theory About Beloved Character’s Return
No one can lie to Matt Murdock. Thanks to the enhanced senses he developed to make up for the sight he lost during an accident he experienced as a child, Murdock has hearing so refined that he can listen to someone’s heartbeat across a room. Murdock usually employs those skills as Daredevil, the diabolically-themed vigilante he becomes each night. But he also uses them in his day job as a defense attorney, sussing out when someone is lying.
But even Matt Murdock would have trouble making sense of a statement delivered by the man who plays him, Charlie Cox. Speaking at a convention in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, this past weekend, Cox smiled as he rejected a popular fan theory that Murdock’s best friend Foggy Nelson may still be alive. “But Daredevil heard his heart stop,” responded the grinning Cox. “He’s dead.”
Charlie Cox was asked what he thinks of the theory that Foggy Nelson is alive in the MCU"
"I'm sorry, I'm very sad. I love that theory, but it's wrong" he said while grinning from ear to ear 😄pic.twitter.com/ThCsbdkV9I
Played Elden Henson in the Netflix series Daredevil, Foggy Nelson is Matt’s oldest friend and his partner in the struggling law firm they established. After the original plan for the Disney+ revival series Daredevil: Born Again did away with Foggy and Karen Page (Deborah Ann-Woll), fans were elated to learn that the characters were brought back when the series underwent massive reshoots and gained a new showrunner. Yet, that joy turned to anguish almost immediately, as Foggy gets killed at the start of the premiere episode, gunned down by the assassin Bullseye (Wilson Bethel).
In most of the gritty crime shows that Daredevil emulates, dead is dead. But Daredevil and Foggy are first and foremost comic book characters, and in the pages of Marvel Comics, nobody stays dead, especially Foggy Nelson. Debuting alongside Matt and Karen in 1964’s Daredevil #1, penciled by Bill Everett and written by Stan Lee, Foggy long served the bumbling best friend role, which often led to brushes with death. The end seemed to finally come for him during “The Devil in Cell-Block D,” the excellent 2006 storyline by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark, in which Foggy gets stabbed by an assassin. However, we later learn that he was in witness protection, and he soon reunites with his old pal.
More recently, Foggy was diagnosed with cancer and seemed to expire, only to later be revealed to have faked his death to escape the villain Leap Frog. Even more recently, Foggy went to Hell because of some magical shenanigans with the Hand ninjas, forcing Daredevil to travel into the underworld to retrieve his pal.
All of which is a long way of saying that Foggy Nelson has stared death in the face before, and he’s never blinked. There’s good reason for fans to expect to see him again in season two of Daredevil: Born Again, especially since Henson himself has confirmed his participation on the show. While that could mean that Foggy will appear in flashbacks, the high stakes battle of season two, in which Daredevil assembles an army of vigilantes to take on New York City Mayor Wilson Fisk, give us reason to believe that maybe Foggy’s alive and in hiding.
That belief has to come against Cox’s statements at the convention. “I love that theory, but it’s wrong,” he told the attendees. But is he telling the truth? Sadly, we don’t have Matt Murdock’s enhanced senses, so we’ll just have to wait until Daredevil: Born Again season 2 to learn the truth.
Daredevil: Born Again season 2 comes to Disney+ on March 4, 2026.
Stranger Things Star Fires Back at Criticisms About Her Look
Honestly, it’s hard not to talk about the appearances of the Stranger Things cast. Even though just a few years have passed between the show’s season one premiere and the fifth season, nearly a full decade has passed in the real world, and the kids who make up the main characters certainly wear every one of those years. The people who are supposed to be portraying high schoolers are in fact grown adults in their twenties, some married with children.
But if there’s one Stranger Things cast member whose appearance does not deserve any criticism or scrutiny, it’s that of Linda Hamilton, who plays new character Dr. Kay on the show. Like everyone else at age 69, Hamilton has wrinkles on her face, and she doesn’t hide them, even on screen. Speaking with AARP’s Movies for Grownups (via Hollywood Reporter), Hamilton defended that decision. “I do not spend a moment trying to look younger on any level, ever,” she declared. “I have just completely surrendered to the fact that this is the face that I’ve earned.”
Stranger Things isn’t the first time that Hamilton’s appearance has been a topic of conversation. The star famously impressed viewers when she revealed her muscled body for Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Yet, even then, it was an appearance she earned, working hard to truthly portray Sarah Connor in that moment of the character’s life. After the events of the first Terminator film, in which she had to survive an attack by a robot from the future (Arnold Schwarzenegger) come to kill her, Sarah can no longer be the carefree waitress she was. Whether captured in an insane asylum or hiding in the Mexican desert, she has become a warrior, ready to do whatever is needed to stop Judgement Day.
Sarah Connor may be Hamilton’s most famous genre role, but it’s hardly the last. In addition to appearances in the Stephen King movie Children of the Corn and the disaster flick Dante’s Peak, Hamilton earned praise for her portrayal of Catherine Chandler in the television series Beauty and the Beast, alongside Ron Perlman as a gentle monster. Since then, Hamilton has been a pleasant surprise in numerous genre shows ready to pay homage to her excellent work, putting in guest appearances on Chuck and Resident Alien.
Hamilton’s Stranger Things part stems from that impressive resume. She joins the show for its fifth and final season, which means that we still know little about her part. But from the trailers, we can tell that Dr. Kay will be involved with the government research into the Upside Down being done in Hawkins, which likely means that she’ll be facing down Vecna.
To stay fit for the part, Hamilton said she goes to the gym three times a week. “It was Pilates, it was yoga, a lot of free weights, machines, cables, everything,” she explained. “And I kind of love that: to go in and not have a chest and back day, but just have a ‘what do you need to loosen up and stretch out today.’”
In short, Linda Hamilton looks amazing and clearly works hard to look that way, and only a fool would disagree.
Stranger Things season 5 debuts on Netflix at 8 p.m. ET on November 26.
Wonder Man Teaser Digs Into the Mind of Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery
Trevor Slattery knows how fickle fame can be. Fans cheered when they initially saw him in the first trailer for Iron Man 3, and that excitement continued throughout the front half of that movie. But midway through Iron Man 3, fans turned on Trevor, routinely citing him as one of the most disappointing characters in the MCU. Of course, that opinion changed with the revelation that Sir Ben Kingsley was not playing the Mandarin, Tony Stark‘s arch-enemy from the comics, but rather he was playing a bufoonish actor hired by the true villain of Iron Man 3 to portray a terrorist threat.
Where most actors would be hurt by the shifting tides of public opinion, Slattery takes it as proof that he’s mastered his craft. He achieved that mastery through what he calls the Slattery Method, and now he’s ready to share it with the next generation of thespians, as revealed in a new promo video… which is actually a marketing clip for the upcoming Marvel series Wonder Man.
“Acting isn’t a job. It’s a calling,” he declares in the opening of the video, staring at the camera with a self-importance matched by the stock orchestral music playing on the soundtrack. To entice viewers to sign up for his Slattery Method class, which he promises will help actors become “the next Trevor Slattery,” the master previews some of the techniques he’ll use. “Let’s start by taking control of our breathing and counting to four… thousand,” he advises, before displaying a number interested parties can call.
Surely, one of those interested parts will be Simon Williams, a struggling actor portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. As seen in the first teaser for Wonder Man, Williams learns about the acclaimed but eccentric director Von Kovak’s (Zlatko Burić) plan to make a modern film adaptation of the Wonder Man movie that he loved as a kid. Even beyond the training he receives from Slattery, Williams will likely somehow gain the ionic powers of his comic book counterpart, allowing him to be a true hero.
This play of reality and fiction makes Slattery a perfect fit for Wonder Man, even if it’s surprising to see him pop up again. Fans hated the reveal that Kingsley was playing a doofus actor instead of Iron Man’s greatest enemy from the comics, even though the Mandarin character is deeply rooted in racist tropes. Slattery had something of a redemption in the eyes of fans when he returned for a supporting part in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which also introduced the “real” Mandarin, played with depth and power by the great Tony Leung.
With Wonder Man, Slattery actually has a chance to step out of the shadow of the Mandarin debacle and become a character who stands on his own. At least, until he and Simon Williams get into a whole new set of hijinks. But then again, rolling with changes and giving a good performance is all part of the Slattery Method.
Wonder Man debuts on Disney+ on January 27, 2026.
Peacemaker Production Designer Talks Earth-X Easter Eggs, Gotham City, and More
In the canon of DC Comics, the multiverse includes worlds in which talking animals are superheroes and multiple realities ruled by evil Superman. But we’re just getting to know the multiverse of the DCU, which makes its first appearance in season two of the series Peacemaker. How do you visualize dimensions beyond the superhero-filled reality of the DCU?
For production designer Kalina Ivanov, it all comes down to having the right tone. “I approach it as a comedy,” Ivanov tells Den of Geek in an exclusive interview. Calling herself the “the coincidental superhero designer,” Ivanov confesses, “That’s one genre I never intended to do.” And yet, she couldn’t pass up the chance to work with James Gunn (“He’s a pleasure,” she enthused), collaborating with the DC Studios co-head to bring to life to new universe’s multiverse.
Ivanov comes to the project with her own multifaceted set of credits. Her work can be found in everything from Smoke and Blue in the Face, two gritty New York movies that bring together indie director Wayne Wang and author Paul Auster, to rom coms Uptown Girls and Made of Honor, to the more heightened worlds of the HBO series Lovecraft Country and The Penguin. HBO is also where Ivanov found her greatest success, earning a Primetime Emmy award for her work on the 2009 biopic Grey Gardens.
Varied as those experiences were, only Peacemaker presented a unique challenge. In the show’s second season, Peacemaker Chris Smith (John Cena) enters a doorway to another world, in which he’s loved by his father Auggie (Robert Patrick) and accepted as a superhero. Late in the season, both Chris and the viewers discover that his perfect world, dubbed Earth-X, is actually controlled by Nazis. The revelation gets worse when intelligence organization ARGUS sends Chris’s friend Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and others to explore the alternate realities, sometimes with horrific results.
To bring the worlds to life, Ivanov had a task much less dangerous, but no less difficult. She had to create sets that fit in with a Nazi world, but she could not include obvious tells, keeping the swastika flags and even a giant Hitler mural off screen.
“In Auggie’s mansion in the alternate world, we used German things for the set decoration, such as German furniture and German mugs,” she reveals. “But it wasn’t overt or in your face.” The challenge for Ivanov was acknowledging the reality of a world conquered by Nazis without letting the story get too heavy.
“I looked at it like we were making The Producers,” Ivanov says, drawing a comparison to the Mel Brooks farce about Broadway grifters staging an intentionally bad musical about Hitler. “There’s a Nazi here, but it’s funny!”
Ivanov could also rely upon guidance from James Gunn, who included all of the set details in the script. “It was all scripted, and we only executed that,” Ivanov explained. But she did point out one details in the alternate world about which Gunn was particularly concerned, which appears in the other Chris’s bedroom.
“The posters of the bands were very important to James,” emphasizes Ivanov. In addition to making sure that the group Hanoi Rocks spelled their name “Hanoi Roxx,” Ivanov points out that Gunn really cared about the Def Leppard poster. “That one we did with “Def” spelled ‘D-E-A-F’ and we wrote “Pour some honey on me” versus “Pour some sugar on me.’ But the rest of them he left up to me, so I went to town on the others, the Scorpions, the Cruel Intentions,” she says with a smile. “We had a lot of fun.”
“Fun” is a word that Ivanov uses a lot to describe the process of making Peacemaker, even when Gunn’s script calls for something difficult to imagine. To make the brightly-colored reality in which Harcourt and other ARGUS agents get attacked by imps, Ivanov needed to do some extra research.
“The first thing I had to do was get the game Candyland, but then James showed me his design for the imps. He has these very interesting sketches that he does, they’re really scratches, but they’re very evocative. He said, ‘It’s a six inch creature and I want it to run through the grass. You don’t see it at first, but when you do, it’s cute at first and suddenly it’s awful.”
Based on those two sources of inspiration, Ivanov and her team created the imp world by building a practical set and augmenting it with CGI. “We had a lot of samples of grass for James, and we went through a lot of pinks to find the exact shade of pink he wanted,” she pointed out.
As much she emphasizes Gunn’s involvement and control in the creation of Peacemaker, Ivanov also points out that he’s open to collaborating with his team. For example, when the script for episode three required Chris to enter a building by jumping from a rooftop, Ivanov pitched the idea of having him jump off of a nearby billboard. “James loved it, and he made it a rock band [The Mighty Crabjoys from Superman]. It was a tiny detail, but it was really personal.”
Likewise, the zombie world that the ARGUS agents find was “originally designed to be an open road,” Ivanov points out. “But then we found an old village modeled after the 16th century that was built for another movie, so we made that the zombieland.” Although the change required her to throw out everything she had initially designed, Ivanov insists that it’s “always a joy” to go through the creative process. “As long as we end up with the right decision, everything is up for grabs.”
It’s that type of openness to experimentation that makes Ivanov such a good fit for Gunn’s universe. But it also allowed her to bring to life another corner of the DC world, one not part of the mainline universe.
Opposed to the open greens and well-lit office buildings of Peacemaker is the Gotham City of The Penguin, which Ivanov designed for the spinoff of The Batman. Set after the Riddler’s attack in that film, The Penguin features a particularly run-down version of Gotham City. Drawing from her own memories of living in New York City after Hurricane Sandy, Ivanov grounded the comic book metropolis in real destruction.
“The Penguin is about a city in decay, a city that’s been left by the rich people,” Ivanov points out. “They all live in the suburbs and the city is left to the poor, and the have-nots. To make a city in disrepair, “we brought in forty tons of dirt to create the destruction.”
With Gunn, Ivanov has to prepare for another type of destruction, the mayhem of the fight scenes he stages. “James will be the first to tell you this, but he considers himself a stunt director,” she points out. “Once you know that, you know that the stunts will be the most important part of the episode.”
For Ivanov, that meant she didn’t have to match Gunn’s knowledge of the comics, or even study the comics themselves. “I mostly approached Peacemaker a comedy, but I considered Peacemaker a real character, and I even fought for the Art Directors Guild to classify the show as contemporary [for their annual Excellence in Production Design Awards], even thought they listed it as a fantasy.”
Thanks to Ivanov’s work, we viewers see Peacemaker as something real, even when Chris’s adventures take him to other realities.
Every episode of Peacemaker is now streaming on HBO Max.
Return to Oz Is Dark Wizard of Oz Done Right
Thanks to the release of Wicked: For Good, thousands of moviegoers are learning what Broadway fans have long known and book readers have known even longer: Wicked is an incredibly dark take on The Wizard of Oz. Starting with Gregory Maguire’s 1995 revisionist novel, continuing through the smash hit musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and now to the pair of films directed by Jon M. Chu, Wicked builds sympathy for the Wicked Witch Elphaba (until it suddenly doesn’t) by making Glinda a shallow backstabber, the Wizard an autocrat, and Dorothy’s friends victims of body horror.
Wicked is hardly the first or last story to cast a shadow of the world of Oz, as even Baum’s work had darker tones than anything in the 1939 musical. But few have done it better than 1985’s Return to Oz, the infamous Wizard of Oz sequel that scarred an entire generation of ’80s kids. Return to Oz often feels more like horror than it does a MGM musical, which is ironic since the ’85 film was produced by Disney during a low point, but the follow-up nonetheless achieves that tone without ever sacrificing the fundamental decency of its main characters.
A Worthy Return
The sole directorial credit for legendary editor Walter Murch, who worked on The Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now for Francis Ford Coppola, Return to Oz stars Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale, who once returned to 1930s Kansas cannot stop talking about her adventures in Oz. Worried that the cyclone left her delusional, Auntie Em (Piper Laurie of Carrie and Twin Peaks fame) and Uncle Henry (Matt Clark) send Dorothy to an institution for a little “helpful” electroshock therapy, but a fellow patient helps the child escape via the random chicken coop floating on a nearby river.
Dorothy wakes from this unlikely respite back in an Oz that has been changed for the worse. Not only have her friends the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion been turn to stone, but the Emerald City is in shambles and the Scarecrow has been captured. With the help of the robotic Tik-Tok (voiced by Sean Barrett and performed by Timothy D. Rose and Michael Sundin) and the valiant Jack Pumpkinhead (Brian Henson), Dorothy escapes the clutches of a dastardly gang of Wheelers and evades the wicked Princess Mombi (Jean Marsh) to confront the Nome King (Nicol Williamson). All this to save the Scarecrow and restore Oz.
Anyone who has never seen Return to Oz will read that synopsis and imagine a rousing adventure, which it certainly is. While Murch and his producers convinced Disney to pay MGM for the rights to use the iconic ruby slippers, a new creation for The Wizard of Oz and thus not available to those with rights to just the Baum novels, very few of the production or character designs resembled the 1939 movie. As a result, even familiar characters like the Scarecrow received new and vibrant looks.
Moreover, new heroes like Jack Pumpkinhead and Tik-Tok benefited from state-of-the-art special effects, at least for 1985, immersing the viewer in a totally new world of fantasy. Of particular note is the Gump, a moose head creature mixed with random pieces of furniture and given sentience by the magical Powder of Life that Dorothy frees from Mombi. Thanks to these characters, much of Return to Oz feels like the stuff of childhood fantasies.
The Wonderful Nightmares
Wonderful as those moments are, the rest of Return to Oz feels like it sprung from children’s nightmares. There’s always been a scary side to The Wizard of Oz, most famously the flying monkeys or the surly trees who punish Dorothy for picking their apples. But even Baum’s novels contained moments of peril, as befitting the story of a little girl constantly beset by threats.
Between Murch’s direction, the excellent character designs, and the film’s high-quality special effects, even the most outlandish figure from Baum’s imagination comes to life on the screen in Return. In theory, the Wheelers shouldn’t be so scary; they’re people who ride around with skates on their hands and feet, and masks on the tops of their heads. In practice, the Wheelers are uncanny to a disturbing degree, their inefficient mode of transportation making them all the creepier.
Even the Gump, who is a lovable figure, is terrifying when you stop to think about it. Why does furniture have life all of a sudden? What goes through its mind when it realizes that its head has no real connection to its body?
Easily the worst of them all is Mombi, the primary antagonist of the film. Mombi is a vain woman who cuts off the heads of women who are more beautiful than her and, using the Powder of Life, replaces her head with theirs. That’s troubling enough, especially when she decides that Dorothy—looking far more vulnerable than her 1939 predecessor, as Balk was younger than Judy Garland when she wore the ruby slippers—will provide her next head. And the scene in which Mombi demonstrates to Dorothy and the viewers how she replaces heads is utterly terrifying.
But the worst of all is the reprise when Dorothy returns to the head closet to steal the Powder of Life. A wide shot captures Dorothy as she walks into the closet, the sounds of the snoring heads filling the soundtrack. A sharp music sting overtakes the snores when Dorothy opens the central cupboard to reveal not just the bottle of Powder, but also one of the heads sleeping next to it. Dorothy reaches for the bottle but knocks over another in the process, waking up the head in the process.
“Dorothy Gale!” shouts the head, and the others all awaken too, screaming and calling her name. As Dorothy runs from the cabinet and out of the closet, Mombi’s headless body arises and lumbers toward her at the command of the still screaming severed heads.
It’s absolutely horrifying stuff, and so bad that every Millennial who read the above will have nightmares tonight. And yet, at the end of the movie, Dorothy’s safe and sound, her old friends the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion are restored, and she has new friends like Tik-Tok and Jack Pumpkinhead. Everything is right.
Scary, Not Wicked
Return to Oz works better than Wicked because it highlights the darkness present in the world but it doesn’t embrace that darkness. Like countless comic books of the 1980s and ’90s, which reimagined four-color characters created for kids as murderous psychopaths in an empty bid for sophistication, Wicked refuses to let a children’s story be a children’s story. Its cynical worldview insists that Dorothy must be a dupe, the Tin Man must do a hate crime, and the only moral act is perpetuating a convenient lie.
Return to Oz is scary, as outlined above. But it remains fundamentally for children. It doesn’t snatch away the fantasy that Dorothy’s a good kid who can save the world with the help of her friends. It doesn’t need to wedge ill-conceived and poorly understood political theories in the hopes of achieving relevancy. Return to Oz frightens kids, but does so in a way that empowers them to face the worst parts of the real world. And for that reason, it remains far more powerful than any modern attempts to make The Wizard of Oz cool by going for empty provocation.
New Resident Evil Movie May Give Fans of the Games What They’ve Always Wanted
Production is now underway on another Resident Evil movie, this time with Zach Cregger at the helm, but the Weapons and Barbarian director is hoping to bring something new to his forthcoming adaptation, aiming for a stripped-down approach that avoids the twists and turns of the movies he’s become celebrated for.
“The movie… has no big twists,” Cregger confirmed on Deadline’s Crew Call podcast (via ThePlaylist). “It’s not a narrative balancing act. It is a pretty straightforward thing. It follows one character from point A to point B. That’s it. And it’s kind of refreshing, you know. I get to kind of just reset and just like play.”
Playing in the Resident Evil movie sandbox also gives Cregger a chance to explore the video game origins of the franchise in a way that fans have always craved, but never quite managed to get in the Paul W.S. Anderson era or the Welcome to Raccoon City reboot. He intends to create the kind of compelling, immersive horror atmosphere that has remained weirdly out of reach throughout all seven movie franchise installments.
Cregger says the games are “inherently cinematic” and deeply appreciates their pacing and dread, but despite his love of the franchise, he won’t be reusing characters or plots. He plans to tell an original story and hopes to capture the core spirit of the Resident Evil games: the slow-burn dread and claustrophobic tension that keeps fans coming back for more.
“There’s something about the structure of those games and the pacing of those games that is so thrilling to me,” he said. “I’ve never seen a movie that really leans in to what those games offer. I love the slow creeping dread that these games naturally kind of exist in. The idea of being able to make a narrative film with the video game structure… I can’t believe it hasn’t happened yet. It feels like this movie should have been made a really long time ago, so I’m kind of excited that I get to do it.”
The director thinks his movie might have a chance to reflect how an average Resident Evil player actually experiences the games, plumbing a descent “deeper and deeper into hell”. Though he hasn’t ruled out returning to the twisted narrative style that originally made him stand out, it’s clear that right now he’s focused on making a Resident Evil adaptation that can give fans of the games something they’ve always wanted to experience at the movies.
Study Finds Batman Is Weirdly Good at Making People Polite
Holy altruism, Batman! A new study suggests that when someone dressed as the Dark Knight enters the monotony of our day-to-day lives, we start acting better toward the people around us.
Researchers in Milan recently conducted an experiment on the city’s subway, tracking 138 rides. In a control scenario, a visibly pregnant woman boarded a busy carriage with an observer, and the team noted whether passengers offered her a seat. They then performed the same scenario with a superhero twist, adding a man dressed as Batman who entered from another door. The difference was dramatic: when Batman was present, about 67.21% of passengers offered a seat, but without him, only around 37.66% did.
Interestingly, nearly half (44%) of the people who gave up their seat in the Batman scenario later said they hadn’t even noticed he was there. This adds a neat twist to the study by hinting that a boost in kindness doesn’t necessarily depend on any conscious awareness of Batman. Just a brief disruption to routine seems to be enough to alter some people’s behaviour.
The researchers behind the study, led by Francesco Pagnini of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, propose that the “Batman effect” takes hold because unexpected events interrupt people’s autopilot state, drawing attention to the present moment and heightening sensitivity to social cues. This appears to track with separate findings in mindfulness research, where increased awareness of the present moment often creates greater compassion and prosocial behavior.
These findings are still thought to have real-world applications, though. Even small interventions or unexpected cues that break up our daily monotony may help encourage more kindness and cooperation in public spaces. People might start being kinder, even if they don’t know why.
And hey, though it doesn’t seem to matter if Batman specifically rouses people out of their autopilot funk, we’d rather like to see what happens to the numbers when you stick Homelander in there instead.
Wednesday Fans Should Check Out Eva Green in Penny Dreadful Now
The Wednesdaycasting department just does not miss. After featuring former Wednesday Addams, Christina Ricci, as well as former Doctor Who companion Billie Piper, and Game of Thrones alum Gwendoline Christie, the series is set to add another iconic genre actress to its ranks: Eva Green. The star of such projects as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Dark Shadows, and Camelot, Green has made a name for herself playing complex, strange, and even slightly unhinged roles, a talent that will almost certainly come in handy on this show. (Which, as we all know, is full to bursting with precisely those sorts of characters.)
Green will be taking on the role of Ophelia Frump, the troubled Addams Family member seen only from the back in Wednesday’s season 2 finale. Morticia’s missing sister and a Raven like her niece, Ophelia was committed to Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital before vanishing completely. But if the final moments of the season are anything to go by, she’s likely much closer (and more dangerous) than anyone thinks. Green will undoubtedly be excellent in the part — who isn’t already contemplating the fun of her facing off with Joanna Lumley and Catherine Zeta Jones? — but if you want to see the true extent of what she’s capable of as an actress, you don’t have to wait for Wednesday season 3 to arrive.
Green also starred in Penny Dreadful, an indulgent, atmospheric Gothic horror series that ran for three seasons on Showtime and never really received the more widespread public acclaim it deserved. A fascinating depiction of dark literary characters brought to weird and terrible life in a beautifully bleak Victorian London, Penny Dreadful is nothing if not unique. It’s the sort of risky, genre-defying prestige show that was all the rage in the early 2010s, when it felt like anything was possible in the world of entertainment. And it’s something Wednesday fans — or anyone who loved Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein — needs to put on their to-watch list immediately.
Green stars as Vanessa Ives, a deeply religious clairvoyant at constant war with her own internal darkness. And while her story begins as a sort of supernatural team-up mystery — Vanessa joins forces with a retired explorer (Timothy Dalton) and an American sharpshooter (Josh Hartnett) to track a bizarre creature and a missing girl — it ultimately evolves into something much creepier and more complicated.
Over the course of its three season run, the show went on to add over a half dozen characters from across classic literature to its narrative, including Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), his Creature (Rory Kinnear), Dr. Henry Jekyll (Shazad Latif), Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), an assortment of figures from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and a consumptive sex worker named Brona Croft, who ultimately transforms into a sort of Bride of Frankenstein-esque figure and is played by Green’s soon-to-be Wednesday co-star Piper.
Its story is… well, let’s just call it deeply strange, wrestling with questions of love, faith, death, rebirth, and power even as it drips with Gothic decadence and existential dread. Allowing all its characters — even its purported heroine — to fully embrace their darkest selves, it makes for incredibly compelling viewing, and Green’s performance is a major reason why.
Her Vanessa is a deeply tortured, conflicted soul, constantly yearning and self-flagellating as she is possessed, institutionalized, and tortured, both physically and psychologically. Fueled by both extensive emotional trauma and a seemingly bottomless rage, Green gets the chance to be messy and vulnerable as often as she is steely and righteous, and the show refuses to categorize her character as anything so simple as a martyr or a monster.
Wednesday fans will undoubtedly love how unabashedly weird the show is, which not only deftly recreates a Victorian era teeming with malaise and uncertainty, but features everything from grotesque gore and twisted romance to full-throated misandry and uncomfortable themes surrounding race and empire. But unlike the cheaply bound supernatural tales that give the series its name, Penny Dreadful is, at its heart, a character study. Elegiac, well-written, and willing to hue remarkably close to the various pieces of source material its various characters originally hail from, it’s a genuinely haunting experience from start to finish, and one that will stay with you long after its final credits roll.
Galactus Actor Ratios Deadpool Creator After “Fake” Fantastic Four Complaint
Comics firebrand Rob Liefeld isn’t shy about publicly criticizing Marvel.
This week, Liefeld has taken aim at the special effects used for Galactus in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. But after he shared a clip on X showing the massive villain walking through a city engulfed in flames, remarking that it “looks so fake” and declaring that “the Marvel FX fell off a cliff,” Galactus actor Ralph Ineson wasn’t about to let it slide, clapping back at Liefeld’s critique and taking a dig at his ongoing Marvel fixation by quoting his comment with, “Rent free 😂.”
Though Ineson could have opted to school Liefeld on the amount of work that went into creating Galactus for Marvel’s latest stab at bringing their first family to life, he ended up going for a more playful response and received enough traction to ratio him into the sun.
It’s worth noting that Galactus wasn’t all CG FX in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Ineson wore a full, practical suit on set to portray the cosmic entity, ensuring a real human presence beneath his costume. Of course, digital work was then done to enhance the world-eater’s look. You could argue that those looked fake because, well, Galactus isn’t easy to pull off outside the pages of Marvel Comics! In 2007, Fantastic Four sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer even tried to depict him as a swirling cloud of cosmic debris along with a vague silhouette of his form. First Steps definitely took a risk by creating a comics-accurate Galactus, but that seems to have paid off, and Ineson’s portrayal of the character has been a hit with many fans.
Liefeld, who co-created Deadpool and Cable for Marvel in the early 1990s, has become known for stirring up controversy in the decades since. He was among a group of Marvel illustrators who left the company in 1992 to start the indie publisher Image Comics in an effort to ensure that creators would always own their work. He’s played nice with Marvel off and on since then, but earlier this year, he officially severed ties with them after a series of events that he considered personal slights, such as not being invited to the Deadpool & Wolverine after party.
Whatever you think about Galactus, First Steps, or Liefeld himself, it’s certainly not illegal to criticize Marvel for their CG-heavy blockbusters or their treatment of comic book creators.
“Marvel’s treatment of creators has never been their strength,” Liefeld allegedly told them in an email last year while angling for a lead credit in Deadpool & Wolverine. “Without the worlds, the characters and the concepts that we create — and in this specific case, the world of Deadpool — there are no films to shoot. No blockbusters to distribute,” he wrote, adding, “Comic book creators cannot continue to be relegated as afterthoughts.”
All valid points, but Liefeld must know that when he publicly criticizes others, especially those who have put a lot of work into Marvel’s films, he’s going to get some blowback.
One of the Best Fantasy Series in Years Is Getting a Big Screen Adaptation
Fantasy is everywhere right now, on screens both large and small. From blockbuster films like Wickedand Dune to television series like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, and even Outlander, fans who love sprawling fictional universes, complicated main characters, and a dash of magic are truly living their best lives. And now Sony Pictures is currently set to adapt a feature film version of one of the best fantasy books that far too many people haven’t read yet: James Islington’s Hierarchy series.
The announcement comes immediately following the successful November release of its second installment, titled The Strength of the Few, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and there’s at least one more book in this saga on the way. Though Islington himself seems uncertain about just how long this series may go, so we should all probably stay flexible on that score. (Given the hefty page count of both books released so far, banking on at least four is beginning to look like the smart man’s bet.)
The sort of sprawling, complicated epic fantasy that seems far too rare in our current market of short attention spans and quick-hit sequels, the Hierarchy series kicks off with The Will of the Many, a 700-page doorstopper that more than takes its sweet time getting started. (Buckle up for several hundred pages worth of dense worldbuilding and character introductions, is what I’m saying.) But the end result is more than worth it. A high-tension dark academia story that mixes politics, philosophy, magic, and no small amount of rage, the book will feel fairly familiar to many fantasy readers (particularly if you’ve read Pierce Brown’s Red Rising or virtually anything involving the magical boarding school trope. But Islington’s gift for twisty, deftly-plotted storytelling makes beats we’ve seen before feel brand new as his tale wrestles with everything from colonialism and capitalism to revenge and loyalty.
Set in a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy take on Ancient Rome, The Will of the Many is full of difficult, morally gray characters and a unique magical system in which people cede a portion of their “Will” (or life force) to bolster the abilities of those who rank above them in the authoritarian social ranking hierarchy. (Thereby, ensuring that those in power are the only ones with the strength to stay there.) The story follows Vis, a student at the elite Catenan Academy and the sort of annoyingly hyper-competent protagonist who is good at virtually everything, who often pops up in stories like this. (If you’ve heard this book referred to as “dudebro” fantasy, this is why, but you won’t care after the first couple hundred pages.)
Vis is also hiding a life-threatening secret from everyone around him. As he works to investigate a death and infiltrate the regime, he uncovers many secrets, lies to almost everyone he meets to some degree or other, and finds himself swept into a rebellion that could upend the world as he knows it.
The project is in its very early days and, as yet, has no producer or filmmaker currently attached. But the Hierarchy series is an excellent example of the sort of ambitious original fantasy that belongs in theaters, rather than another unasked-for sequel or puzzling live-action IP reboot. Fingers crossed it lives up to the world Islington created on the page.
Zootopia 2 Review: Disney’s Buddy Comedy Is Still a Solid Joke
The difference between a successful buddy comedy and a successful buddy comedy franchise is all about chemistry. You can cast the oddest of odd couples as your oil and water gumshoes, but if audiences don’t enjoy seeing that unlikely duo vibe—be it Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte discovering they love to smash redneck-heads in together, or Chris Tucker teaching Jackie Chan how to swagger to Edwin Starr—then you’re not getting a part two.
Luckily, Walt Disney Animation Studios and its fleet of animators—led as last time by directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard—know what they’re working with in Zootopia 2. The introductory sequence of our furry heroes Hopps and Wilde (voiced again by Ginnifer Goodwin as the Bunnyburrow transplant rookie and Jason Bateman as the sly-guy fox con-artist-turned-detective) finds the two already going rogue and undercover. Indeed, when we meet them the pair is trying to pass as an unlikely married couple by walking with a baby and stroller up to some seedy seaside docks.
On a surface level, the sequence is definitely teasing the tumblr shippers out there, who grew up too invested in the love lives of anthropomorphic critters. But it is also a way for all of Zootopia’s target audience of families to recognize the charm of affectionate bickering, which Goodwin and Bateman’s voices slide into like no time has passed at all. Still able to respectively conjure eager-beaver upstart energy and world-weary cynicism simply by clearing their throats, Goodwin and Bateman slip back into Hopps and Wilde like they’re a pair of well-worn winter slippers (with faux fur, of course). And the animators are thus in turn free to conjure them in amusing scenarios, such as a pair of lost tourists who took a wrong turn somewhere around Orlando’s Epcot.
Zootopia 2 is thus very much a solid buddy comedy sequel from the jump, because it does what the better Lethal Weapon or Rush Hour add-ons knew how to do: play it again with a few inventive key-changes. All of which goes a long way since so much else of Zootopia 2’s story and setup returns safely, and perhaps a little dully for the parents, to the familiar.
This is signaled early by the central mystery at play in the follow-up, a conspiracy which seems destined to rock to its core the metropolis where talking animals live together. As you might recall from the first film, the city of Zootopia is a sprawling urban landscape where every conceivable cuddly mammal, and plenty that are not, live and prosper. Some neighborhoods are submerged underwater while others are covered in snow. In Zootopia 2, we learn this was made possible because of “weather wall” technology that was invented a hundred years ago by (so we are told) a wealthy family of lynxes, the Lynxleys. Yet at a ritzy gala thrown by the frostbitten blue-bloods, the first reptile anyone has seen in this berg for over a hundred years, Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan), appears like a thief in the night to steal a family heirloom from the Lynxleys… an artifact that Gary swears will clear his family’s name and indeed all snakes’ reputations of being sinister forces of evil.
In the aftermath, the Lynxleys inform the Zootopia police that they want Gary dead, and for Hopps and Wilde to stand down on investigating the case. Adults will see where this is going, but children and parents alike can delight in an adventure that takes our core buddies out of the city and into the sticks where reptiles gather in backwoods bars, and life-and-death secrets will be unearthed with a side of fried-fly gumbo. It is also here that our heroic partners will be forced to reconcile their dueling worldviews, with Hopps the tenacious hero cop disagreeing with Wilde’s general noir-ish pessimism that nothing they do really matters; that’s just Zootopia-town, Judy.
When Zootopia arrived in cinemas nearly a decade ago, it felt like a breath of fresh air for Disney Animation, which had recently seen a successful revival of its princess movies via Frozenand Moana. Even so, the studio hadn’t made something as thoroughly left-field as this since arguably the 1980s. It was the aforementioned buddy cop movie, but with a twist that actually surprised parents as much as kids when it was revealed that the utopian world of the movie’s title was a lie wherein vegetarian animals were scapegoating and demonizing the minority “predator” population in their ranks as a form of political power and control. Given the film released the same year that this strategy ushered in a new age of division politics and racist scare tactics in the U.S., Zootopia felt shockingly edgy for a Disney movie (especially since plenty of parents clearly failed to comprehend the film’s message).
Zootopia 2 attempts to do the same trick with regard to a new erstwhile unknown marginalized group, this time reptiles, but like much else with the recent glut of animated sequels, it feels faintly reverse-engineered to give audiences the exact same thing. This can also be applied to the rest of Bush’s screenplay, which revisits the narrative of two unlikely friends simultaneously coming together while being torn apart by the prejudices of society.
So like Frozen 2 or Moana 2, it’s more of the same. But then, that is not a rare or verboten thing for either the film’s core audience or the buddy comedies of yore that both Zootopia pictures so wryly satirize and homage. At the end of the day, the appeal is the chemistry between the two leads and how they banter.
In the case of Hopps and Wilde, the aforementioned voice acting is again winsome, and Bush’s screenplay shines when it puts the pair in scenarios that flirt with turning them into veritable married spouses. Early on in the movie, the partners are punished for their devil-may-care rule-breaking by being sent to police partners’ version of couple’s therapy within the ZPD, and later they dress up like Mr. and Mrs. Smith while getting to hobnob with the elite and pampered of the faux-utopia. The vibes are still clever and fun, even if the rest of the movie is going through the motions.
In this way, Zootopia 2 far surpasses the doldrums of Disney’s Moana 2 last year and provides families with a charming diversion this holiday season. The series might already be entering its procedural phase, but when it comes to cop yarns, that’s just part and parcel of the process once numerals get in the title.
Zootopia 2 opens on Nov. 26.
Stranger Things: Four Episodes the Duffer Brothers Say You Should Rewatch
While audiences have been obsessed with Stranger Things since the 1980s-set horror adventure first burst onto the scene back in 2016, the many years that have passed between seasons and the show’s frequently overstuffed and lore-heavy episodes mean that it can be difficult to recall the details of its many complicated plot twists. What’s the difference between a demogorgon and a Mind Flayer? How did Barb die? Where did Vecna come from? How do Eleven’s (Millie Bobbie Brown) powers work? How did Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) get out of the mysterious Upside Down? Why is Max (Sadie Sink) in a coma? And Hopper’s where, now?
Luckily, the folks in charge know that keeping track of the vast amounts of Stranger Things mythology they’ve introduced is a Herculean task at the best of times —even when it hasn’t been four years since the last season came out. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the Duffer Brothers have done their best to slim down the show’s mammoth 35-hour runtime into a more manageable chunk, listing four key episodes they recommend fans take another look at as we head into the final season.
They are:
“Will the Wise” (Season 2 Episode 4)
“The Spy” (Season 2 Episode 6)
“Massacre at Hawkins Lab” (Season 4 Episode 7)
“The Piggyback” (Season 4 Episode 9)
The fact that these must-watch episodes all come from just two of the series’ four seasons is…certainly a choice, and probably an unfortunate commentary on how narratively unwieldy this show has grown over time, but let’s roll with it.
“The Piggyback” is an obvious pick, if only because it’s the season 4 finale and the last episode any of us saw, in which the gang faces off with Vecna across multiple dimensions and the Upside Down essentially begins invading Hawkins. But what about the other three?
“Season two is when we really started to build out the mythology and started to dive into everything, and how this was going to be an ongoing [series],” Matt Duffer said. “That’s where we started to really plant the seeds for the mythology, and I think probably that’s why that is as relevant as it is. Season four is also highly relevant — ‘Massacre at Hawkins Lab’ is a good one.”
“That [episode] starts unveiling some of the Upside Down mythology and starts giving some answers, and, of course, all the stuff with Henry and Eleven continues to resonate throughout season five,” Ross Duffer added. “Those are some good ones to revisit.”
These episodes repeatedly stress the importance of Will’s time in the Upside Down, Eleven’s disturbing history, and the pair’s unexpected connection with the demon known as Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), indicating that these two characters are the key to whatever is going on in this last group of episodes.
Will has taken something of a backseat in the show’s most recent seasons as both its cast and the scope of its story have expanded. As for Eleven, her powers have only grown stronger since she was first introduced, and her surprising history with Vecna means she has a vendetta of her own to settle. In its final hours, Stranger Things certainly seems poised to bring things full circle to the two characters who essentially started it all. Does that mean they’ll both survive the journey? That’s still anyone’s guess.
Stranger Things season 5 volume 1 releases on Netflix at 8pm EST on November 26, 2025.
