From top:
Something scary is
coming to Hawkins
(again); Jonathan
and Nancy enter
the heady world of
journalism; Robin,
Steve and Dustin
rock the ’80s look.Billy Hargrove, played by Australian
actor Dacre Montgomery, certainly does.
He might even be the threat. Introduced in
Season 2, along with his younger step-sister
Max (Sadie Sink), he spent most of his time
being deeply unpleasant to everyone he
encountered. Now he’s working as a
lifeguard at the municipal pool, strutting
around in his swim shorts, enjoying the
experience of being ogled by the locals, until,
as Montgomery puts it, “Something far
more sinister starts to unfold”.
While his fellow cast-mates weren’t given
homework, the Duffer brothers did ask
Dacre to watch The Shining, and Jack
Nicholson’s performance in particular, to
indicate the way Billy is heading. “He’s pure
evil this season,” says Montgomery, bluntly.
Billy’s turn to the really dark side is front and
centre this season, while the show begins to
spend more time with the wider ensemble.
If Season 1 centred on Will’s buddies
searching for him after he disappeared into
the nightmare of the Upside Down and
meeting the mysterious Eleven (Millie Bobby
Brown), and Season 2 foregrounded Will’s
troubled return in what some critics felt was
a remix of the first series, the third chapter
gives all the main characters, young and old,
way more to do, with jeopardy for everyone.
According to Wolfhard, “The first season
was more about the adventure aspect and kind
of fun, the second season was more about the
horror aspect, season three is everything, like
the fun of season one and the horror of season
two and the Duffers have got better at it, at
writing it. And we’ve become better actors”.that the
Duffers know their cast so well now, they’re
building the character arcs round the actors’
real-life personalities and inter-relationships.
The friendship groups have shifted this season,
for example. Matarazzo’s science nerd Dustin
spends more time away from Will and his
gang, to hang out with older character Steve,
played by Joe Keery, he of the extraordinarily
lavish hair, who’s now working in the mall’s
ice-cream parlour. “Dustin and Steve are
pretty much best friends now. You’d be
surprised,” explains Gaten, proudly. Keery
adds, “It’s pretty cool that they can have such
a close relationship. I think it’s down to the
fact that Steve in a lot of ways is immature
and Dustin is so mature that they meet in the
middle. The relationship is sometimes like a
little married couple.” The Duffers have so
successfully transformed Steve, one of season
1’s more irritating and antagonistic characters,
a jock figure who stood in the way of Nancy
and Jonathan’s relationship, he’s become one
of the most likeable elements of the show.
Then there’s last season’s other newbie,
Max, Dacre’s cool, tomboyish outsider of
a step-sister who bonded with Will and the
boys, drawing feelings of resentment from
Eleven. This time round, Max and Eleven are
a formidable duo. “I think most of the show in
the first two seasons revolves around the boys
and their friendships,” observes Sink, who
plays Max, “So it’s interesting to see two girls
have a friendship, especially as we’re friends in
real life. Millie Bobby Brown nods, “We’re two
powerful girls in real life and we’re also two
powerful girls in the show. So putting two
powerful female forces together, the Duffer
brothers couldn’t have been more smart.” One
of the most delightful elements of the early
part of Season 3 is watching Max take Eleven
under her wing, introducing her to the delights
of shopping – and Madonna, with major
echoes of another 1985 movie classic,
Desperately Seeking Susan.
With Max showing Eleven how to
interact “in the real world”, as Sink puts it,
away from the safe bubble of her existence
with adoptive father Jim, there’s a sense in
which the young characters of Stranger
Things are helping each other grow up. “We’re
not kids any more,” says Mike, at one point,
spurning Will’s invitation to play Dungeons
And Dragons, in favour of canoodling with
Eleven. Yes, as the season kicks off, 12 months
after we last saw them, Eleven is engaging ina series of heavy petting situations with
Mike, to a soundtrack of ’80s soft rock,
while Lucas is dating Max, leaving Will
feeling even more isolated than when he was
trapped in an alternate dimension and being
brainwashed by a monster.
It doesn’t help Will that his brother
Jonathan is maturing as well, and is even
more preoccupied than ever by his girlfriend
Nancy (Natalia Dyer). They’re also now
both interns at the local paper, the Hawkins
Post, another key new location in the show.
“Jonathan’s doing photography and Nancy’s
the journalist,” explains Heaton. “Definitely
they’ve matured, in the sense that their
relationship has become stable. They know
where they are with each other and how
they navigate that”.
“This year we see how the dynamic of
their relationship works,’ adds Dyer.to
describe Season 3 as “the biggest jump into
something new” he’s not only referring to
the locations and visuals, he’s also touching
upon the show’s emotional landscape. It’s
no surprise that after three years of working
on the show, everyone involved has a clearer
sense of who the characters are. Some of
them may have started out as teen archetypes- jocks, nerds, outsiders, tomboys and
trophy girlfriends – but they’re not any more.
Perhaps the most refreshing development
of this new season is the arrival of Robin,
played by Maya Hawke (daughter of Ethan
Hawke and Uma Thurman). She’s not in the
same social scene at high school, but forges
a friendship with Steve now they’re working
together at the Mall’s ice-cream parlour.
Robin is such a smart, instantly soulful
figure, actress Hawke is loathe to pin her
down. “It’s really painful to take a person
and assign them adjectives,” says Hawke.
“But she’s funny and sarcastic and brave and
really, really smart. As the season progresses
she figures things out and does things that
are almost unimaginably intelligent. She’s
really clever and creative and funny, but she’s
always been excluded at school. She isn’t one
of the cool kids.”
How Robin relates to Steve and how
they both relate to young Dustin is indicative
of the way the Duffer brothers have changed
it all up this series. In many ways it’s now
all about the dynamics of growing up,
forging relationships, dealing with rejection,
and falling in love.
That’s the essence of the new, even more
ambitious season of Stranger Things: come
for the ’80s nostalgia, Spielberg references
and giant tentacled monsters; stay for the
beautiful consideration of human friendship.
All that, plus exploding rats.
STRANGER THINGS SEASON 3 IS ON NETFLIX NOW