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| Spoilers ahead Stranger Things, Seasons 1-3 |
Stranger Things, Season 2:
The second season, as sequels often do, gave many fans a great deal to debate about: some loved this, others hated that, etc. Some of those debates are interesting and perhaps even relevant. But, as I often try to do in my better moments, I will avoid being drawn into all of them and try to stay focused and touch on a few of the interesting ways that the themes explored by the character development in the first season was moved forward in the second. In order to support this focus, I will refrain from considering all of the various characters and relationships that explore some similar themes, but from a variety of different perspectives.
Two of the more interesting themes we saw in the first season came to a fascinating collision point in the second: Chief Hopper learning to love (again) and Eleven learning to be loved. Hopper becomes a kind of surrogate (and eventually adoptive) father to the young girl, who had just recently learned what it is like to be loved, by her new friends (first season), until she finally put her life on the line to save them. The journey that these two undergo in learning to trust and respect one another is quite interesting to watch, as they each carry with them the wounds from their past. The eventual reconciliation that takes place in the truck on the way to close the gate, in the season finale, sums up the journey of their relationship together nicely. His principle concern seems to be her protection, but also helping her learn and have the opportunity to live a "normal life." Of course, the persistence of danger makes him reluctant to believe that that will ever really possible. All of this is compounded by his fear of losing her, like he did his daughter. The moment in which he acknowledges this and shares it with her is beautiful, not only because of his honesty and vulnerability, but even more because it is the moment that she realizes that he has come to love her as a daughter. Despite his imperfections and failures, in him, she knows that she is loved.
Her friends had taught her the value of friendship and the wonders of having those you can trust. But, her notion of parental love has been forever deeply wounded by her abuser, who she was taught to address as her "papa," as well as her separation from her mother. At the end of season one, we saw both Joyce and Hopper directing a genuinely parental kind of care and concern toward her. However, Hopper's fear-driven efforts to keep her safe lead him to keep her hidden from her friends, including this newfound surrogate mother-figure. But it is when she learns that he has also kept her own real mother hidden, even lying to her about her being alive, that she runs away. The discovery of her mother becomes a bridge to a new relationship, with her "sister" Kali. The controversial seventh episode, which explores El's time with Kali and her band of outcasts does seem to serve an important purpose in the development of El's character. It is a moment that enables her to make a choice of what she will do, not only with the abilities she has, but also with the wounds she has been dealt. Kali teaches her that the safety that others will seek to offer her is an illusion, but she does not to have simply run and hide in fear. Kali's solution is to go on the offensive, seeking to punish all those who have done harm to her and her friends. She is consumed with revenge, but in a manner that is only an offensive, rather than defensive, approach to her own safety. That is why the short dialogue when El finally chooses to leave and find her friends is so striking. "They can't save you," to which El simply replies "No, but I can save them." This is a beautifully heroic moment on a variety of levels. El has chosen the selfless, heroic path of choosing to use her abilities to help her friends, rather than being consumed with revenge. But, it is not simply a matter of choosing good over evil. She has chosen not to live her life allowing her identity to be defined by her wounds. She has suffered great injustices at the hands of others, but she is more than merely a victim.
Those who are consumed with revenge will tell you they have chosen the stronger path, that they are not simply victims. But, the fact that they are fixating upon a path of revenge, shows that their own internal sense of identity has not truly moved beyond the identity of a victim. Perhaps it is true that our mission, the actions we choose to guide our path in life, always flows out of our identity, rooted in relationship, whether we like it or not. Kali has chosen to remain on the path that keeps her identity rooted in her victim-hood. It is true that she has found a kind of community and friendship, in which they find degrees of strength and security with one another. But, they foster within one another the sense of identifying as those who have been outcast by the injustices done to them. They aide one another in the process of allowing the identity of victim to become even more deeply rooted in themselves. The relationships they have known are marked by abuse, in one way or another. These relationships have forged within them the identity of a victim. This identity becomes only more deeply rooted within them, as the fruit they bear is simply one of exacting revenge on their abusers.
Like them, El has also known abuse at the hands of those who provided her the only relationships she knew for most of her childhood. Once she escaped and discovered true friendship, and even a kind of parental love in Hopper and Joyce, she found a greater strength than that to which Kali is clinging. She is able to truly say that she is more than just a victim, because she is a friend and a daughter. Her return to Hawkins to save those who have taught her about real love is a moment of true triumph, because it is a return to those identities that are rooted in love. Yes, she has been hurt. But, she has also been loved. In this love, she finds a new identity. Her return does force her to go back and face her wounds, which is symbolized both by the return to Hawkins Lab and by closing the gate that she opened - a gate that bears a striking resemblance to an open and oozing wound, which unleashes havoc and horrors on those she loves most. Her journey invites us all to ponder: What will we do with our wounds? Will we simply seek to make others suffer for them? Or will we confront them and allow them to be healed? Will we allow ourselves to be loved, so that we may love, in the form of heroically selfless acts?
Stranger Things, Season 3:
Once again, Season Three has El and Hopper parted early in the season, sending them on separate journeys destined to collide again at the conclusion at the end of the season. And once again, this reunion at the series finale might be the most fitting place to begin from. While the tragic loss of Hopper (unless he is somehow the "American" in the prison in the mid-credits scene) is a great loss, it gives way to explore Joyce's role as a new mother to El, as she takes her in. She was always trying to coach Hopper in how to parent El anyway, which gives way to the beautiful and emotional conclusion, in which El reads the speech that Hopper could not bring himself to give her at the beginning of the season. In a very straightforward manner, he acknowledges that she reawakened his heart and allowed him to love again.
Of course, it is fair to say that that process started with Joyce, when he first devoted himself to helping her find her son in Season One. Thus, it is no surprise that most of the season focuses on exploring his relationship with Joyce. And of course, just at the point that it is progressing to the point of them both being able to open, honest and vulnerable with one another, it all apparently ends.
Meanwhile, El's journey, also rather unsurprisingly, focuses more on her relationship with Mike and the other children. Her growing friendship with Max is important on various levels, especially since her silly and unfounded jealousy in Season Two closed her off from her. Now, she is free to become friends with this fellow "member of her own species," which also sets the stage for El to care more genuinely for Max, when she finds herself grieving her step-brother. But, Max's role is also largely one of coaching her in her relationship with Mike. As is the current trend within pop culture, the growth in the central romantic relationship features Mike learning to trust and respect her, with very little reciprocal lesson-learning on her part, other than her being "liberated." <sigh> Nonetheless, the lessons learned that strengthen their relationship and enable them to begin again are valuable lessons well worth learning. In particular, the lesson regarding boundaries, while not fully developed, was refreshing. While Hopper failed to help them learn this lesson as he had hoped, it was eventually at least partially learned by the intervention of Max, which enabled Mike to realize his selfishness in wanting to have her "all to himself."
The moment in the conclusion in which she is able to understand that he can't bring himself to tell her that he loves her to her face, so she simply tells him, "I love you too," shows us clearly that her friends and her newfound parental figures have helped her to be able to receive love deeply enough that she is able to give it in return, even when it is not expressed by the other as it ought to be. Given that this was the girl who had to learn from them what it even means to be loved, this simple little moment is of great importance.
One final aspect to speak of is her role in helping Billy to reclaim the best of himself. Again, the growing friendship between Max and El enables us to appreciate this a bit more deeply. The twist is that this season enables us to realize that Max not only sees his wickedness up close, but she also cares for him with more compassion and concern than we have yet seen. She is still his sister. When Max and Billy entered the story in Season Two, it was an interesting move for the writers to make the grand mystery of their story and why they are "stuck together" and "family now" actually turn out to be quite ordinary. It gives them an access point for countless people who have had similar experiences in mixed families. The glimpse of the abusive and belittling behavior of Billy's dad in that last season gave us our first hint as to why Billy is so outrageously and unbelievably awful at being anything that resembles a decent human being. In fact, they made him so awful - and then leaned into that awfulness at the start of the next season by showing him as a horrible lifeguard, screaming and swearing at and insulting the children he is supposed be keeping safe and then ignoring them, while he tries to set up an adulterous affair with a married woman who is probably one of their mothers - that it was unsurprising that they used him as a sort of villain. Yet, by making him the first of "the flayed," they made him more of a victim who plays the role of a villain. Naturally, this conveniently perfectly matches the "wounded wounder" character type they had already established for him. Only when faced with an evil this great, do we see any semblance of decency fighting for dominance in his psyche. It is interesting how, even if subconsciously, he is able to use El's journeys into that odd space she goes into, in order to spy on people, as a space where he can reach out to her and offer her a memory, which she is able to later use to bring him back to control over himself. In her journey through his memories, she glimpsed some of his deep wounds. But, she also glimpsed a deeper innocence within him, reaching deeper back into his childhood. In a sense, she is able to give control back to that child that he once was, a child that is not yet broken by his wounds, but is secure, happy and free in the love of his mother. This is what enables him to die a hero.
Our wounds cut us very deep. And the more that they derive from meaningful relationships in our lives the more they influence the sense of identity that carries over into our actions. These wounds don't have to be what defines us. They can be healed. We can learn to give control to the child within, the child who is not defined by those wounds. The experience of being loved enables us to develop a secure sense of identity, out of which we can give love to others.
May we go to Love Himself, to Our Heavenly Father, in order to discover the Power of that Love that heals us and sets us free to love.
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