Can we please all just agree that the duffer brothers forgot how to write after season 1? Please? (This is no shade to any of the actors, they've all done amazing and are living proof that good acting can save a bad script. Obviously if I wasn't invested, I wouldn't still be here talking about it)
The amount of times they backtracked and undid shit as soon as they realized how lame/weird it was isn't a sign they listen to their audience, its a sign that they completely lost their own plot and had to be smacked over the head with a shovel to remind them of it.
Removing the scenes of Johnathan taking creepy photos of Nancy changing when they realized that they wanted them together, then painting steve as the bad guy for beating the shit out of him? Ew.
Making a hard stance that billy was nothing but a racist asshole, then moving on to provide context/explanations for his behavior right before he died then making him sacrifice himself to further Max's development? Lame. (This was in part because Dacre was frustrated with the choices they were making for him because they were turning him into someone he did not sign up to play. He even said he was told he'd be a jerk older bother, party boy from the 80s, not a racist psychopath. Hence his refusal to say THE word.)
That whole weird little x-men type shit they tried to pull for Eleven at the end of season 3 only to scrub it and make no further mention of it? Lazy, predictable, and just plain old LAME.
The weird tension they keep putting between LITERAL CHILDREN Will and Mike just to backtrack and turn Mike into a dick? Fucking WEIRD.
Making Jason into a villain despite the fact that, from literally any point of view but the viewers, his crash out and dissolving into near-insanity is completely justified? Bro's girlfriends mutilated corpse was found in Eddie's trailor and the two had previous history that included Eddie intentionally leaning into and playing up Jason's delusions of him being a satanist. The cops weren't doing much and people were keeping secrets from him, of course he went nuts. Just plain bad writing.
I swear, the potential for their writing is there, but they focus way too hard on villainising insignificant characters that are the traditionally "cool" kids for the sake of it, just because they can't figure out any other way to raise the stakes without having to risk killing off characters that would acutally add real emotional depth to the story because they lost the nerve to follow through with the original work.
