I can't help but feel that when you do the reading into the background of Stranger Things (MK-ULTRA, Project Montauk, M.I.C. / MAC-V, Psy-ops, CIA declassified documents, etc), that Season 1 comes across as an INCREDIBLY creative way to essentially stick the middle finger up at Uncle Sam.
Flash forward Two Seasons and it's like we're looking at some terrible DLC for a Call of Duty game — gone is the LSD mind trials / physical abuse / human experiments / cover-ups — suddenly we've got Big Bad Russians digging space tunnels under malls?
Even Season 2 felt like an apology for putting forward the idea that The US Government might not be the good guys . . . I doubt they ran out of ideas that quickly, though this is a possibility for the drop in quality / hard left-hand turn the series takes.
Personally?
I think the Duffer Brothers were approached by the MIB and (politely, ofc), had their families / friends / livelihoods threatened if they should continue the show according to their vision.
It's almost like every choice Stranger Things has made as a show since Season 1 is to deconstruct a very real and quite terrifying Hawkins (made to emulate Montauk Island), and erect in its place a cartoon, cardboard cutout.
Rambling over. Discuss!
Anyways — I'm just curious — what do y'all make of Season 2 and 3 compared to the first?