the best part about stranger things is that they can’t solve anything until they put the three groups together because each group is acting within a separate genre
mike, lucas, dustin, and el are in a weird sci-fi coming of age story where the group of plucky misfit kids solve the mystery and test their friendship along the way
nancy and jonathan are in a horror movie where the teenagers have to kill the monster set against a backdrop of high school drama and romance
joyce and hopper are in a conspiracy thriller where the adults have to figure out what shady stuff the government is up to while also dealing with the difficulties of their personal lives
they all approach the issue within the confines of their genre, but none of those approaches work because none of them are seeing the whole picture. it’s only when all the threads start to converge that they can actually get anything done.
This is brilliant and I love it
The other interesting thing is how they switched around the roles for S2:
Nancy and Jonathan are now in the conspiracy thriller trying to bring the people from Hawkins Lab in S1 to justice
Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Max are in the horror movie, trying to kill Dart and the demo-dogs (with the love triangle between Lucas/Dustin/Max in the background)
And then there’s Joyce and Hopper (with occasional intervention/assistance from El and Will) in the sci-fi story trying to work out how the upside-down works and how to fix it.
And Steve thinks he’s in a teen romance, but in reality he’s the guy showing up ten minutes late with Starbucks to the horror movie.
