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overthinking entertainment
Stranger Things: Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap - Season 5, Episode 3
Will gets Wise to what he sees. Robin is wiser. El and Hop spend quality time. Holly rides into the woods and up that hill.
The Crawl reassembles, and lays a trap out of the Goonies video game.
How many times must the Mods repeat themselves. This post is not a playground. Be polite. Unless it's a Mormon.
or a Democrat.
posted by eustatic on Dec 01, 2025 at 10:05 PM
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I woke up early, so in first with filming location info. The waterfall Holly uses as a landmark is in the Stone Mountain Park Group Campground. One of the prettiest waterfalls in the park. It's the same stream where Agatha was "investigating a murder" at the beginning of Agatha All Along. (I ran by during that filming, too--"Why are there so many police cars and ambulances with their lights on? Oh, they have the name of a made up town on them. Never mind.")
Obviously, we do not have a sandstone rock wall in our granite-filled park, but the suddenly granite again rocks at the end of the episode where Holly meets Max are most likely the rocks by the waterfall again.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:49 AM
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On the surface, the last two episodes haven't been as dire as the first. There's enough action to keep things moving at a good clip (when the running time reaches more than an hour, they're usually trying too hard). But the widened scope and the older kids just makes me think about how much sadness is beneath the surface.
How do you end a show like this? They've established that the Upside Down isn't something that can just be sealed away, at least as long as Henry (I think it's stupid to keep calling him "Vecna") exists. And even if they get rid of him, others with his powers exist, out there in the world, damaged and ready to start the cycle over again. It's a message that resonates with the "end" of the Cold War, that ending any given conflict is not enough when you have weapons on hand that can end civilization.
I think they missed a great opportunity to time skip to the early 90s when the characters would be the actors' actual ages, the Soviet Union has collapsed, the Reagan Era is over, and yet the same problems and fears persist under the surface, just waiting to erupt. I know this show just wants to be a Steven Spielberg/Stephen King pastiche, but those stories had power because they embodied our real fears in metaphorical ways. Stranger Things might not, in the end, be smart enough to encompass that.
posted by rikschell at 5:33 AM
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I found the moment when they absolutely lit up the demogorgon to be really satisfying. Nancy continues to be a bad ass on the rise, and Dustin installing the tracker on Steve's beamer was just as satisfying as the demogorgon.
Did the writers make out the soldiers that Hopper guns down to be psychopaths ("it was guys like you who had ears on necklaces...") so to make the fact he's shooting soldiers following orders less ooof?
Lucas: "She's more like a super villain." Oh geez, no understatement.
Sometimes I miss the symbolism throw up by the show, and sometimes Holly putting on the equivalent of a red hood in the form of a bandana before heading into the forest slaps you on the forehead. I definitely liked the reveal that Max was present in the dreamscape instead of spending the season stuck in a coma.
Joyce gets episode 3 mother fiercely facing down a monster award.
posted by Atreides at 6:42 AM
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Most Def need a "Moms and Monsters" campaign,
wherein the mothers of our adventuring party team up to find their lost kids in the dungeon
and banish the satanic panic to the upside down, with an mRNA vaccine
posted by eustatic at 7:31 AM
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Did the writers make out the soldiers that Hopper guns down to be psychopaths ("it was guys like you who had ears on necklaces...") so to make the fact he's shooting soldiers following orders less ooof?
I wonder about that, because at the end of episode two it kind of looked like they all miraculously survived: like the guy he shot was somehow saved by his flak jacket and the two guys who got grenaded were merely thrown back by the blast. "How convenient that the good guy doesn't actually kill anyone," I thought, until we see body bags at the start of this episode.
posted by asnider at 8:11 AM
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How do you end a show like this?
Convinced by Molly on the value of healing for the new generation of dreamers, and the brittle nature of his revolution, Henri decides on a psychic Glasnost. East Germans are allowed into Hungary, and the wall falls, revealing a giant Patch Bay. The slimy tentacles reform to patch signals into a giant AMS3 and Vermona
and the Stranger Things theme plays over the Squawk. Robin is voted Key Secretary of the North American Vibes Committee, and the Hawkins DOE lab is reformed into a gigantic Teletorn, permanently suppressing the mind flayer under Will's control, freeing Panama from the grip of Noriega, and HW Bush from the need to proceed with "Operation Just Cause" and kicking off the New World Order.
H W Bush, freed from the Mind Flayer, outflanks the Clintons on the left, and enacts single payer healthcare across the USA. and, after the Valdez tragedy, the US congress nationalizes Exxon, which begins to build offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico in preparation for the Rio Earth Summit
doodoododoo DOoDOodoodoo doodoododoo DOoDOodoodoo
posted by eustatic at 8:31 AM
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Erica remains the absolute best. When she whipped out that syringe? Friends, I lol'd.
posted by Kitteh at 9:28 AM
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Did the writers make out the soldiers that Hopper guns down to be psychopaths ("it was guys like you who had ears on necklaces...") so to make the fact he's shooting soldiers following orders less ooof?
Should we care? Soldiers following orders are often the worst kind. Hopper was likely a conscript sent to Vietnam to uphold imperialism and promote global fascism in support of the United States' imperial agenda. He probably just did the minimum and tried to survive.
But now he's fighting a war of his own choosing and he defines who his enemy is.
(Side thought: I never have understood how soldiers can simultaneously be heroes and not be moral agents. A hero necessarily has moral agency. We don't praise a machine for doing a job.)
posted by yonega at 10:34 AM
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yonega: " Hopper was likely a conscript sent to Vietnam "
He told Eleven he was forced by his father to enlist because his dad couldn't handle him. So, yes, in a way, he was a conscript.
posted by cooker girl at 10:40 AM
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Coming back with more than just filming locations. I loved this episode. The caper was absurd and it worked. I adore the idea that they needed the help of the absolute worst kid in school, and this was how they decided to get it--by drugging and tying up his whole family.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:42 PM
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Yeah, this one picked things up for sure. The Max reveal was great - I had no idea who it could've been and then it was the only thing that made sense. I think it's a little ridiculous that the Duffer's were like, "It's not enough that Holly is trekking through the woods alone - give her a riding hood to dramatically put over her head and then dramatically pull down like 30 seconds later" but whatever. If they're in the Nightmare Hellscape Realm (which is the only place they can be, given the weird geography and Max being there) then the overtly symbolic imagery gets a bit more of a pass.
The number of felonies perpetrated by all of our heroes in this episode is ludicrous, but hey, at least it (kind of) worked. Love that Derek is the shittiest little kid in the world and that the rest of his family doesn't seem much better.
Robin and Will is a fun combo that also makes total sense but which I didn't expect. Gotta wonder what Joyce thinks the nature of that relationship is, since she's taken note of it.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:34 PM
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Erica remains the absolute best. When she whipped out that syringe? Friends, I lol'd.
posted by Kitteh at 9:28 AM on
yes! well played
posted by eustatic at 10:01 PM
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I *told* you to eat your pie.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:41 PM
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