Drama
Stranger Things
The newest season of Netflix’s Stranger Things continues to blend ’80s nostalgia with ever-darker spiritual content and horrific violence.
Our children’s children gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble…
Twenty-seven years before Pennywise the Clown lures Georgie Denbrough into a storm drain, young Matty Clements sneaks into a movie theater to watch the Music Man. As Harold Hill merrily sings about trouble in River City, something much more troubling is happening in Derry, Maine.
Shortly after watching the movie, Matty mysteriously disappears from Derry. Four months later, his friend Lilly thinks she hears his voice from her bathtub drain—and she sees bloody fingers reach toward her before Matty’s voice ceases. A girl named Ronnie has experienced similar unsettling things. Most troubling of all, it seems that officials on Derry’s Air Force Base might know something about these eerie events.
General Francis Shaw is determined to win the Cold War without resorting to nuclear power. He believes that Derry holds a secret weapon—or perhaps a secret entity—with the power to win. Shaw’s been employing the help of Dick Hallorann (from The Shining franchise), whose clairvoyant abilities are useful in locating the entity. And when Major Leroy Hanlon and his family relocate to Derry, Shaw believes that this secret is within arm’s reach.
According to local legends, whatever’s lurking under Derry’s streets can generate horrific fear. That makes this “weapon” particularly hard to catch and especially hard to master. But Hanlon literally can’t feel fear. An accident in Vietnam severed his terror receptacles, it seems. Shaw seems confident that once he locates the secret entity, Hanlon can help harness its power to win the Cold War.
But this secret entity is much more powerful—and much more evil—than Shaw anticipates. It’s not something that can be easily contained. Nor is it something that should be harnessed.
Just like General Shaw, the school kids are curious, too. Lilly and Ronnie recruit schoolmate Rich and Hanlon’s son, Will, to investigate whatever it is that took Matty. They’ll follow its trail anywhere…even if it leads them straight into the sewers.
In Derry, there’s trouble, trouble, trouble, indeed.
After Stephen King’s 1986 novel, the miniseries from the ’90s and the two theatrical films, you’d think fans would have had enough of the IT franchise. But attracting 5.7 million views in its first three days, HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry proves any naysayers wrong.
People just love their scary clown shows.
Reprising his role as Pennywise the Clown from the most recent movies, Bill Skarsgård is back to scare kids and adults. Just like the first and second IT movies, neither Pennywise nor the show’s directors pull any punches when it comes to grotesque and bloody horror.
HBO “welcomes” its viewers back to the franchise with a particularly macabre scene in which a woman gives birth to a horrifying baby-like monster. Blood pours from between the woman’s legs, and her intimate parts are fully visible. The monster attacks the parents and three children while still attached to the umbilical cord. And this disturbing birth scene is not the only one of its kind.
Disturbing birth scenes aside, kids and adults get attacked and killed throughout the franchise. A young girl gets attacked by the insides of her dead father, and another child gouges out her own eye after seeing a horrifying vision.
Aside from the show’s violence, its language is probably the next greatest concern.
A kid utters “crap” in the first episode, and if that were the most offensive word in this show…well, you might not be able to tell Stephen King inspired it. The characters’ swear-word vocabulary is much more extensive. There are frequent uses of the f-word, s-word, “d–n,” “d–k” and misuses of God’s name. Many of these profanities are uttered by young children, who also slip in the occasional sexual joke or reference.
Needless to say, IT: Welcome to Derry is not a show I’d recommend to kids. And frankly, if you’re an adult who’s anything like me, I wouldn’t recommend it to you either.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Four months after Matty Clements disappears from Derry, schoolmates Teddy, Phil and Lilly vow to find out what really happened to him. Meanwhile, Major Leroy Hanlon arrives at Derry Air Force Base, hoping the town will offer the quiet return to normalcy he and his family desperately need.
Thinking a family plans to help him, Matty hops into the family’s car. Quickly, he realizes they’re a bit…well…creepy. The daughter opens a Tupperware full of liver, and she plays with the blood in the container. The mom calls her daughter a “little harlot,” and the family makes several sexual references. The mom then begins to give birth, pulling up her dress to show her underwear and belly. As the baby comes out, the woman removes her underwear and blood pours from between her legs—which is fully visible. After the birth, the baby turns out to be a winged monster, covered in blood. Still attached by the umbilical cord, the monster attacks Matty and the family.
A girl sees bloody fingers poking through her bathtub drain. A boy sees a lampshade covered with human skin and screaming human faces. Masked men attack Major Hanlon, beating him with metal pipes. A terrifying monster brutally attacks a group of children. Blood pours from a child’s wounds, and his bloody face smashes into a window. His blood then splatters on a girl’s face. After most of the kids are killed, two remain—one of whom is holding the severed hand of one of her friends.
Students bully Lilly by sticking pickle jars in her locker, which smash at her feet when she opens the door. Later, Lilly reveals that the pickles remind her of her father, who tragically died from a machinery malfunction at a pickle jarring factory. Matty has a black eye, and it’s implied that his father physically abused him. Phil describes a gory story that he’s writing to Teddy.
Characters liberally use profanity including 10 uses of the f-word, eight uses of the s-word, one use of “d–k,” two uses of “a–,” two uses of “h—,” several variations of d–n and multiple misuses of God’s and Jesus’ names. A girl calls her little brother an “idiot.” Lilly’s friend Marge calls her optometrist a sadist. Written on Teddy’s locker is a rude reference to male genitals.
A young boy watches a woman undress in front of a window. He sees and comments on her bra, and he talks about her breasts to his friend. A seductive painting of a woman can be seen on the side of an Air Force plane.
There is a brief discussion about evolution. A Jewish family recites traditional prayers. A father and older son both wear yarmulkes.
One scene includes bathroom humor. A boy repeatedly vomits into a bucket.
The newest season of Netflix’s Stranger Things continues to blend ’80s nostalgia with ever-darker spiritual content and horrific violence.
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