Last week I wrote about the first half of season one of Netflix's new original series Stranger Things, and this week I'll be writing a companion critique of the season's final four episodes. While I found the show's premise to be interesting enough to draw my attention, all in all, I finished the first season largely disappointed. Instead of a rambling preamble, I'm just going to dive right into things this time. Let's go.

In keeping with my last critique, I'll start with Nancy. Nancy, as we all remember is characterized by her connection to Steve Harrington in the first few episodes, and in the last four episodes, the emphasis shifts from her connection to Steve to her alignment with Johnathan Byers. Once again, at no point in the show does she really act on her own. On top of that, she still has no hobbies, no interests, nothing. The most we hear about her life during the one week season is her shopping with Barb for a shirt that would impress Steve. After my critique of the first half of the season, I talked to a few of my friends about the series, hoping to hear their opinions of the show, and most of them told me to wait, that Nancy would shine in the latter episodes. I begrudgingly took their advice. I waited, and at the end of the credit reel for the final episode, I found myself still waiting. Yes, Nancy shot a coke can with a gun on her first try, and yes she correctly surmises that the creature was attracted to blood, but what do those things add up to? In the end, the trap she and Johnathan sets fails on two levels: they fail to kill the monster, and Steve Harrington, the asshole boyfriend she should have dumped when he let his friends spray paint "Nancy SLUT Wheeler" in big red letters on the town cinema's sign, gets to be the hero with a baseball bat.

However, ignoring all of that, what upsets me the most is Nancy's acceptance of Johnathan's unsettling candid camera habits. The guy, unbeknownst to her, took two pictures of her, one of her at a window and another of her in the process of changing her clothes, and she, after teaming up with him, asks him something along the lines of "What did you see in me?" not once, but twice. Twice Nancy Wheeler, a girl who seems to be particularly intelligent, asks a guy she barely knows beyond his bad reputation why he chose to take a picture of her changing clothes, as if him violating her privacy in such a way was just a sweet gesture of affection. It's unrealistic and reveals something about the way women work in the logic of this show. In Stranger Things, a woman must accept the reality of creeps with cameras. In fact, they must go beyond acceptance; they must indulge in the creep's desire to feed his ego by asking what he saw in her, what was so interesting and unique about her naked back that he chose to take a picture of it without her knowledge.

Moving on, we have Karen Wheeler. Karen is just as uninteresting in the latter half of the season as she is in the first half. There is so little to say about Karen that I'm almost relieved. When Dr. Brenner and his croney's show up and flood her house in search of Eleven and the boys, she gets a moment to fall into an emotional frenzy when talking to Brenner's right hand woman, but is easily cowed by Brenner. After that, she goes right back to having no noticeable presence. The show would lose nothing if she was never in it.

Next is Joyce Byers. Joyce is as unstable as before, and, much like Nancy, requires a man to get things done for her. Yes, she knows Will is alive because he told her through the lights and through the wall, but her certainty is as flimsy as her composure. Once her ex-husband steps onto the scene he is, in one conversation, almost able to convince her that she might just be nuts. After kicking him out, which was probably the only time Joyce actually does something, she goes right back to being useless. Hopper and her team up, but the partnership is uneven. Hopper calls the shots while Joyce follows him around like a scared pup. When they're captured at the laboratory, she keens and shouts and is generally belligerent, while Hopper plays it cool and solves their problems. Later, one would think that when they discover Will in the public library, with some weird otherworldly tentacle down his throat that Joyce would dive at him and rip the thing out herself, but in this most crucial moment, she begs Hopper to do it for her. In spite of all of her hysterics, all of her outspoken love for her son, Joyce can't even bring herself to rip out the parasite which has slithered down his throat. This woman is so unreal, so dependent on others to take care of things that, by the end of the season, she's just tiresome, not relateable.

Now finally, we've got Eleven. While more of her past is revealed in these episodes, as well as her responsibility for the creature's appearance in our dimension, she is still not a well thought out character. For one, she wants Mike to call her pretty. I doubt that someone with as limited a vocabulary as Eleven would even understand what pretty is. She had to ask the boys what friend meant, but some how she figured out that pretty is something that she should want to be and that a crucial element of it was her blond wig which rendered her more feminine. It's unbelievable that she could even grasp the concept of beauty. From how austere her life seemed to be before her escape, Eleven should have no idea what conventional beauty standards are, nor should she care if someone calls her pretty, but she does, which is not in keeping with the backstory the writers went to such trouble to give her. There is a vital disconnect with how Eleven acts when her femininity is brought into a scene and how she should act in respect to the life she lived before the week in which the show took place.

What do we know about this girl? Other than her traumatic back story and that she likes Eggos, what do we really know? Very little and that is because while Eleven could've been given a chance to develop a personality, to gain interests, to read, to watch TV, to take a peek at a dictionary, she is mainly shown eating, waiting for the boys, using her powers for the boys, or bleeding. It's completely unbelievable that this little girl who probably had no contact with the outside world ever could just adapt to life in it so easily without being the least bit curious about anything.

Last but not least, on the subject of Eleven, I resent the sacrifice that she makes in the end to kill the monster. It's obvious that a trade is necessary in the construction of the story: Eleven appeared after Will disappeared, and so for Will to be rescued, Eleven would have to be lost. I just had hoped that something more creative than a grand sacrifice would be the vehicle of the transaction, especially since the scenes preceding Eleven's slaying of the Demogorgon show little Mikey kissing her and asking her to a dance. As the audience, when she says “Goodbye, Mike” before turning the Demogorgon into a cloud of ash, we are supposed to understand that Eleven is losing something more than her life: she's losing a chance at love, at the Snow Ball, at more dresses and kisses; she's losing Mike Wheeler, the boy who called her a weapon in episode six and treated her like his personal supernatural walkie-talkie/body guard/bloodhound. And by the way, their romance is crap. How could you like someone who can barely articulate her thoughts? What did he see in her? What did she see in him? I suppose it's easy to like someone if you've had nothing else to raise your standards, but does that really make their relationship endearing? Watching those two, I couldn't help but feel that once El truly started thinking for herself, things would fall to bits.

Overall, there are parts of Stranger Things that are enjoyable. The soundtrack was killer and really characterized the show as 80's in feel but also very modern. I loved all of the Dungeons & Dragons, and who couldn't love the opening sequence in red neon? However those positive aspects of the show couldn't possibly come together to cloak what was it lacking: actual females who have agency in their lives and contribute to the conflict. Joyce can't do anything for herself except smoke cigarettes, shout Will's name, and put up Christmas lights. Karen is absolutely forgettable, just like her husband. Nancy is all about boys and doesn't learn to stand on her own, no matter what anyone else will try to tell you, and Eleven is a “weapon”, quoting Mike here, who can speak, smile, and consume Eggos. What's worse is that these are just the main females. Barbara, Nancy best friend, was only there to move the plot along through death, and the other women in the show either slept with Hopper, are someone's mother, or don't get a name. This show could've been so much better had the writers paid more attention to the characters they created.