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Onomarchus posted:I highly recommend doing this even though I liked S2 more especially because of S1's tightness, something the series increasingly loses. Love S2 as I do, it's where it first let dross in, in The Lost Sister. ST wears many hats, tries to be all things to all people, but it definitely works as serious psychological drama. It's just that people will put up with horror more often than genuinely depressing stuff, and you need to go low one way or another if you want to feel meaningfully uplifting. Helps to get people in the chapel before you can preach to them. But you kind of mistakenly alluded to something involving a dropped thread from S1 I wish the show had taken up but likely can't or doesn't need to. Thing is, in S1 he was working through his own PTSD from his lost kid by finding Will, and he beat the breath back into him with the anger and pain of the loss of his daughter. But he didn't pivot to saving Eleven because of coincidence or because he discovered himself as some "finder of lost children" in general. He sold her out to Brenner to save Will. The show spends so much time developing Joyce as this nearly crazy woman who would do anything to save Will and won't let go, even having Jonathan of all people tell her to move on at one point I think, but then there's something she won't do. She won't trust Brenner and sell out Eleven to save Will. Hopper does. And the kids back at the school when the G-men show up know someone sold them out. Dustin even says "Lando." Never gets mentioned again, though it easily could have been dealt with off-camera. By now they're all such a caring family unit the reveal would wash off them. Anyhow, S1 plus Hopper and 11 in S2 is what makes the Hopper-Joyce union we finally got in the S4 finale work, and it's based not just on attraction but on wanting to parent each others kids and owing their own kid a small or large measure of atonement that the other partner can cover for. Genuinely well written and not found in any alluded-to other story I'm aware. Introducing Owens in S2 as the kinder, gentler government spook who experiments on children is mean to soften the Hopper betrayal I think, but yeah it gets elided extremely quickly in favor of cohering the broader found family unit of the various main characters coming together. Onomarchus posted:Anyhow, there's got to be more reveal on Vecna, for one or two reasons that may be the same reason. Have we found out what the sad and angry memory Vecna uses to drive his powers? We don't know which one it is or if we haven't seen it yet. And there is certainly more about Vecna's past that hasn't been revealed yet, though I don't know if it's because he's an unreliable narrator or leaving things out deliberately. It might just be that Hawkins being a place that "thin" or has a special connection to the Upside Down is what woke Henry's powers up, even without a gate being open. Which would also explain why he absorbs other people for power boosts - he has to draw on their trauma (or other strong emotions) because for whatever reason he can't do it on his own. Given how the final showdown went in this season I expect that will be the crux of how he gets beat for good in S5.
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Jul 11, 2022 01:26
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Watching this official recap show where the Duffer Bros. talk about how they put S4 together is hilarious after reading all of these story criticisms in the thread. As far as they were concerned, S4 was their best season storywise because of the delay the pandemic imposed - they claimed this was the first season they finished all the scripts before filming started, allowing them to go back and add stuff in. Among some of the things they're claiming: -Master of Puppets was a very late addition, as was the meetup in Ep1 between Eddie and Chrissy; Max not truly dying was also a late change and, according to them, is "not a cheat" and "incredibly relevant" to what's coming in S5. -Vecna controlling the Mind Flayer was something they also claimed to have planned all along; in S5 they are also going to show his "prequel" story and how he ended up with powers/messed up (big question mark on "is he redeemable? is there humanity?" left in him) When pressed on what's happening in S5: -they promise to explain more of the mystery of the Upside Down and why it exists as it has since Will was taken there in S1. -As an analogue to how Max was messed up in S4 because of the events of S3, they're saying Dustin is going to have a darker time in S5 after the events of this season. -They don't think it's going to be as long as S4 and is going to "start at a sprint" since, unlike other seasons where they don't know what the threat is at the start, they're going to be gunning for Vecna day one.
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Jul 11, 2022 02:58
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I’m sad that official youtube channel doesn’t have the weird aftershow from season 2 hosted by Jim Rash, which appears to have been removed from netflix. There were some good insights from the cast about their process and understanding of their characters, if not the writers.
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Jul 11, 2022 03:29
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I didn't have any real problem with anything that happened in S4 other than the fact that I thought Vecna's multiple monologues went on too long.
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Jul 11, 2022 03:34
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Henry needed more monologues. His voice is creepily soothing.
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Jul 11, 2022 03:35
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Bruteman posted:talk about how they put S4 together is hilarious after reading all of these story criticisms in the thread. Counterpoint: Most of the story criticisms in the thread are loving stupid, and this was easily their best plotted season since season 1. Not the criticisms the person reading this had, obviously, theirs were the good criticisms.
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Jul 11, 2022 03:39
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Onomarchus posted:But you kind of mistakenly alluded to something involving a dropped thread from S1 I wish the show had taken up but likely can't or doesn't need to. Thing is, in S1 he was working through his own PTSD from his lost kid by finding Will, and he beat the breath back into him with the anger and pain of the loss of his daughter. But he didn't pivot to saving Eleven because of coincidence or because he discovered himself as some "finder of lost children" in general. He sold her out to Brenner to save Will. The show spends so much time developing Joyce as this nearly crazy woman who would do anything to save Will and won't let go, even having Jonathan of all people tell her to move on at one point I think, but then there's something she won't do. She won't trust Brenner and sell out Eleven to save Will. Hopper does. And the kids back at the school when the G-men show up know someone sold them out. Dustin even says "Lando." Never gets mentioned again, though it easily could have been dealt with off-camera. By now they're all such a caring family unit the reveal would wash off them. Anyhow, S1 plus Hopper and 11 in S2 is what makes the Hopper-Joyce union we finally got in the S4 finale work, and it's based not just on attraction but on wanting to parent each others kids and owing their own kid a small or large measure of atonement that the other partner can cover for. Genuinely well written and not found in any alluded-to other story I'm aware. Oh wow, I had completely forgotten about that. I remembered the scene of Hop carrying (and resuscitating?) a kid while flashing back to his own child, and my brain just plugged in Eleven. I wish they'd revisit that too.
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Jul 11, 2022 04:03
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I finished it. Favourite season since the first. gently caress tight pacing, if a show wants to have a bunch of meandering scenes of characters bouncing off each other, I'm there for it. Also a great thing to watch on an OLED, goddamn. I was pretty skeptical when they announced two more seasons after s3, but I think it worked out really well, and I'm looking forward to the next one way more than I was looking forward to this.
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Jul 11, 2022 04:12
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Onomarchus posted:I highly recommend doing this even though I liked S2 more especially because of S1's tightness, something the series increasingly loses. Love S2 as I do, it's where it first let dross in, in The Lost Sister. Isn't this most likely because ST was meant to be an anthology show with each season being separate like American Horror Story, but the show blew up so big and the cast was so popular they scrambled around to keep the same story going?
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Jul 11, 2022 06:40
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Couldn't see if it's been mentioned before, but I found it disturbing that everyone insisted on calling Jane by her slave name, even her supposed boyfriend.
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Jul 11, 2022 13:45
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I've always wondered if the writers settled on "El" because it means "god" in several languages
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Jul 11, 2022 13:55
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Kaedric posted:I'm not able to dig through all the transcripts, but it was either heavily implied or outright stated by Brenner at some point. The implication is that once Brenner knows that those powers are possible he starts doing the MKUltra stuff to generate them.
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Jul 11, 2022 14:31
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I have the last episode left and dunno how I feel about this season. I can’t believe they spent the WHOLE drat SEASON in Russia lmao By the end the episodes are 90 minutes each because they have 4-5 storylines each and it’s just a lot. Like it’s not bad but a lot of it feels incredibly unnecessary
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Jul 11, 2022 15:40
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I've always wondered if the writers settled on "El" because it means "god" in several languages Short for her full name, El Topo.
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Jul 11, 2022 19:38
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I think the original memory that makes henry sad and angry is just a mirror image of eleven’s. A memory of his birth to a mother that didn’t want him and never loved him. Maybe even tried to kill him or abandon him somewhere to die. It seems I got it 100% backwards, but when I watched the episode I thought the mindflayer had given young henry the vision of itself that he drew as a kid without really knowing it, and when he sees it for the first time in the upside down, it changes itself into the form he would recognize. I like that reading in a way because it gives agency and power back to the MF as the original source of Henry’s power, and adds an element of prophecy/fate befitting an ancient godlike entity. But it’s also funny that when Henry shapes the mindflayer he still can’t draw the feet.
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Jul 11, 2022 19:49
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As someone mentioned many pages ago, I do think eleven will take Max’s mind back from Vecna. Either through killing him and releasing everyone he’s got imprisoned (her being the only one with a still living body to return to) or breaking her/them free another way. Probably the way they’ll finally close the gates when defeating him. But I also wonder if there’s a second purpose to having max trapped in Vecna’s mind from a narrative perspective: Billy is in Vecna’s mind too, and they may be writing a way for Max to reconcile grief/trauma over his death (or possibly redeem/“save” him in some way).
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Jul 11, 2022 20:06
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I've always wondered if the writers settled on "El" because it means "god" in several languages It's because "Elle" is a common name for girls, OP.
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Jul 11, 2022 20:28
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We can infer (for now) that the horrible thing Vecna saw in his father’s memory was his guilt coloring the things he had done in the war, which Vecna either took literally as a confession that he was a horrible murderer or that Vecna was willing to exploit because he was already a misanthrope and sadist. Do we know what horrible thing Vecna saw in his mother and whether there was room for that kind of misunderstanding, where a kid might see literally the negative self-talk that comes with guilt or regret (ie “I’m a baby-killer and my life is worthless” etc)? I’m still hung up on how she would just happen to know already Brenner and suspect that her kid just happens to have the abilities Brenner studies vs being a regular 50s person and thinking something more typical like “I’m going insane” or “there are ghosts in the house” or “demons have possessed my son.”
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Jul 11, 2022 20:28
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The discourse around a Billy redemption narrative is just baffling to me. He did one good thing (saving Eleven), maybe two if you count him turning down Mike and Nancy's mom to avoid adding her to the Mind Flayer human slush monster. It doesn't mean Max is wrong to mourn him, or that he deserved to die. Sometimes people are pieces of poo poo that do one good thing (maybe) and then they croak before being able to change their ways in a more enduring way and in grieving them you have to reckon with that.
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Jul 11, 2022 20:30
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Maybe Brenner was Creel's real dad, just going around doing acid and putting psychic babies in women. Maybe he really was everyone's Papa. Henry sees them fornicating in his mom's memory and it gets him so mad he becomes a creepy psychopath.
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Jul 11, 2022 20:40
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Kaedric posted:It's because "Elle" is a common name for girls, OP. It's because it's easier to say than Eleven
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Jul 11, 2022 21:09
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He’s a dickhead 20yr old from a broken home with an abusive father. He’s a tragic character; set on a path from childhood to become an abuser himself. Only at the very end does he remember himself, as that kid on the beach with his mother, and realize he could have chosen a different path that would have instead honored her. He makes that last choice, at a crucial moment, and ends up saving the world. And no one really cares to see a redemption arc for someone who did mostly good things in their life, that’s not how it works. And besides, I mean redeem more in the biblical sense than whitewash his character. And for Max to be the one to do that for him, would bring closure to her guilt over wishing him dead. From the perspective of the show, it’s more about finally giving comfort to Max as a conclusion of her arc than anything to do with Billy on his own.
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Jul 11, 2022 21:10
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The tragic thing about billy's death is how it impacts Max. Probably died heroically specifically to gently caress with Max because he was a bigotted shithead. Quasi-related but I think people are taking the "Vecna takes his victim's power" a bit too literally. Those people in this mind palace weren't there mentally. They were his trophies.
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Jul 11, 2022 22:29
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I'm curious if season 5 will devolve into the town completely coming apart over the supernatural elements no longer completely being ignorable. Hopper will take back control of the police department and use their resources to backup the Hellfire club and protect them from the religious nuts, who are going to spread like a cancer through the non-main characters until the whole town has collapsed into The Church vs The Hellfire club
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Jul 11, 2022 22:33
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Kaedric posted:It's because "Elle" is a common name for girls, OP. OK, here's your new driver's license, Ms. Elle Venn 
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Jul 11, 2022 22:39
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Takes No Damage posted:OK, here's your new driver's license, Ms. Elle Venn Yikes. During her first driving lesson she wrecks the car from the inside out.
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Jul 12, 2022 00:09
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Using the parking brake makes her nose bleed.
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Jul 12, 2022 00:17
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Someone fucks up yielding at a 4-way stop so she force pushes them into a ravine.
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Jul 12, 2022 00:23
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I AM GRANDO posted:We can infer (for now) that the horrible thing Vecna saw in his father’s memory was his guilt coloring the things he had done in the war, which Vecna either took literally as a confession that he was a horrible murderer or that Vecna was willing to exploit because he was already a misanthrope and sadist. Vecna says he killed his mother first because she suspected him, and that plus her coincidentally knowing Brenner who evidently suspected Vecna’s powers enough to pull the kid out of the hospital AND to keep him from killing anyone else* after doing so implies something funny is going on. It’s unclear if mom did something during the war, and if so, what line of work that may have been. Creepy house may have been in the middle-of-nowhere Indiana, but it was huge; perhaps the family participated in an experiment and Vecna was the result. *Obviously Brenner didn’t keep him from killing everyone else. But you get what I mean.
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Jul 12, 2022 00:42
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Finally found time to finish S4 today. It was pretty good but I kinda wish they had just ended it this season. I won't go into detailed thoughts because nobody wants to read that but basically it was dumb how Vecna somehow survived everything that the gang did to him, Max dying and the gates opening but then not really opening because she got resurrected but then opening again later anyway made no sense at all and was inconsistent, and next season all these actors are gonna be like in their 30s trying to play high school kids or whatever I'll watch S5 and probably enjoy it but it just seems like they dragged it out longer than it needed to be. I hope next season is a little tighter and they just straight up go to war instead of focusing on all the love stories. Don't get me wrong. I like all the love stories but this season really needed some editing in basically every department Eddie dying really sucks and I really hope they don't introduce another Bob/Eddie character next season that's just gonna die. That poo poo's old already The best thing I'll say about S4 is that everyone knocked it out of the park in terms of acting. This is an extremely talented cast edit: Oh and I'm glad Jason got brutally destroyed when the big gate opened. gently caress him Elephant Ambush fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 04:25
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Elephant Ambush posted:Finally found time to finish S4 today. It was pretty good but I kinda wish they had just ended it this season. I won't go into detailed thoughts because nobody wants to read that but basically it was dumb how Vecna somehow survived everything that the gang did to him, Max dying and the gates opening but then not really opening because she got resurrected but then opening again later anyway made no sense at all and was inconsistent, and next season all these actors are gonna be like in their 30s trying to play high school kids or whatever Yeah the whole final setpiece had cool moments but was confusingly structured for the reasons you mentioned. Also Eddie: 1) Starts to run away but then heroically jumps back in the trailer. 2) Rides away on the bike to distract the bats, not because he's fleeing. 3) Says "I need to stop running away from problems" even though he's not doing that, he's doing the opposite of that, he ran towards the problem so he could distract it and save his friends, which is working perfectly. 4) Hops off the bike for no reason (it's so he can do a cool showdown) and dies, decreasing the amount of time he was distracting the bats.
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Jul 12, 2022 05:14
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Elephant Ambush posted:edit: Oh and I'm glad Jason got brutally destroyed when the big gate opened. gently caress him poo poo I blinked and missed this. That is a horrific way to go, god drat. I'm glad they went the Korra route and actually had a character end the season being super hosed up. Killing them off is a closure, putting them in a coma is a huge question mark. Eddie deserved better.
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Jul 12, 2022 05:14
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THE BAR posted:Couldn't see if it's been mentioned before, but I found it disturbing that everyone insisted on calling Jane by her slave name, even her supposed boyfriend. I think everyone feels like Jane is just a cover name so far. I think when things wrap, she’ll either own the name Eleven, or she’ll dead name Eleven and fully embrace Jane.
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Jul 12, 2022 06:16
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THE BAR posted:Couldn't see if it's been mentioned before, but I found it disturbing that everyone insisted on calling Jane by her slave name, even her supposed boyfriend. Fitzy Fitz posted:I've always wondered if the writers settled on "El" because it means "god" in several languages Kaedric posted:It's because "Elle" is a common name for girls, OP. I should just go to bed, but before this gets further afield, unless I'm very mistaken The Last of Us was meant to be a deliberate big influence on the show and Eleven going by El/Eleven a lot of the time is a huge huge shout-out to that. To avoid spoiling a great game with analogies: I'm talking about Hopper recovering from the death of his daughter by adopting a new one, and the girl in The Last of Us being named Ellie. Spores and a post-apocalyptic wasteland factor heavily into The Last of Us (not a real spoiler that). I'm not saying anything about sexuality with this. And I realized I think Vecna is an unreliable/incomplete narrator because in at least once instance he's full of poo poo. (I love those 3 long flashback sequences. Such good music and one sly dig/joke about Hawkins police chiefs over the ages.) Vecna says his father was arrested for his mother and sister's deaths just as he planned. Bullshit. He clearly tried to kill his father with his signature attack and he randomly lived due to the radio getting the perfect song due to the 11-ish effect of his powers on nearby electrical equipment.
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Jul 12, 2022 07:55
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Open Marriage Night posted:I think everyone feels like Jane is just a cover name so far. I think when things wrap, she’ll either own the name Eleven, or she’ll dead name Eleven and fully embrace Jane. Eleven didn't even know that her real name was Jane until she was 12 years old in S2. Eleven is how she introduced herself to everyone and they've all been calling her that for years. She only goes by Jane at her high school to try to fit in with "normal" kids. Eleven is probably going to stick unless she decides that she wants to try to completely erase her past as a test subject
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Jul 12, 2022 16:24
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I feel like they're being lazy with her name and it should've been a big character advancement for her to claim her real name/identity to move past all the poo poo from the lab. As in, it would've been awesome if it meant something to her to the point where she's making it clear everyone, including Brenner, should be calling her by her real name. But whatever, 11 is more distinct for show branding purposes. Mike's minor inner conflict about his feelings for her would have a bit more bite if he had to figure out how to express if he loved her because she's 11 or for who she is as Jane. iamsosmrt fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 17:35
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I might be wrong about this: doesn’t Paul Reiser call her Jane and doesn’t Brenner call her “daughter”? Very on-brand for a superhero to have a normal name and secret identity and a separate name for doing superhero things. Maybe if she lives to the end and loses the powers/the upside down goes away, she’ll go by Jane.
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Jul 12, 2022 17:46
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I AM GRANDO posted:I might be wrong about this: doesn’t Paul Reiser call her Jane and doesn’t Brenner call her “daughter”? You might be right. I think it's all the main kids that have been calling her 11 though.
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Jul 12, 2022 17:51
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Bruteman posted:-Vecna controlling the Mind Flayer was something they also claimed to have planned all along; in S5 they are also going to show his "prequel" story and how he ended up with powers/messed up (big question mark on "is he redeemable? is there humanity?" left in him) this: Penitent posted:I really dislike 1/Venca being the main bugaboo that is behind everything. It's too neat and tidy and it dispels the cool cosmic horror vibes the show had going for it. Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 18:47
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Honestly I saw that reveal coming from a mile away, in interviews before the season dropped they kept saying something was unfolding in Hawkins that tied everything together so I figured there was gonna be some Big Bad controlling everything from the beginning
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Jul 12, 2022 18:49
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