The US gov’t is pretty consistently an antagonist throughout the show as well.
It is but the show doesn’t really ever fully acknowledge this, here they are torturing kids and poking around eldritch dimensions but none of the main characters ever actually question this, it’s just kind of treated like a fact of life, like “it occasionally rains and snows and also the US government sometimes tortures kids in their secret lairs”, there’s just zero self reflection. At the end of season 5 everyone just kinda moves on with their lives and that’s it.
which was hilarious. the us government is capturing and experimenting on pregnant women, creating a horror dimension that could end the world in the process, but we’re supposed to believe the soviets were bad/wore for having prison camps? also the actions of the us gov’t are excused on the arms-race grounds that the soviets would have done it so we had to beat them to it? just bad
the show was at its best doing 80’s horror and coming-of-age goonies stuff
hahah, that’s fair. the military just up and disappearing at the end of s5 with no followup on their operations in the upside down or capturing/interrogating any of the living children is objectively terrible writing. I much preferred the earlier seasons where things were very mkultra-coded and the us gov’t/brenner were very clearly the bad guys.
for me it was just better-than-usual slop, which has its place. enjoyed the 90’s vibe before it became over-the-top and the DnD stuff, but that’s about it
It is but the show doesn’t really ever fully acknowledge this, here they are torturing kids and poking around eldritch dimensions but none of the main characters ever actually question this, it’s just kind of treated like a fact of life, like “it occasionally rains and snows and also the US government sometimes tortures kids in their secret lairs”, there’s just zero self reflection. At the end of season 5 everyone just kinda moves on with their lives and that’s it.
but the evil commies made a base under a mall and uhhhh hmmm made prisoners work?
which was hilarious. the us government is capturing and experimenting on pregnant women, creating a horror dimension that could end the world in the process, but we’re supposed to believe the soviets were bad/wore for having prison camps? also the actions of the us gov’t are excused on the arms-race grounds that the soviets would have done it so we had to beat them to it? just bad
the show was at its best doing 80’s horror and coming-of-age goonies stuff
literally - then the US did it AGAIN in the final season and it was actively killing them like dawg
hahah, that’s fair. the military just up and disappearing at the end of s5 with no followup on their operations in the upside down or capturing/interrogating any of the living children is objectively terrible writing. I much preferred the earlier seasons where things were very mkultra-coded and the us gov’t/brenner were very clearly the bad guys.
for me it was just better-than-usual slop, which has its place. enjoyed the 90’s vibe before it became over-the-top and the DnD stuff, but that’s about it