I don’t think Alex is asking for “daring arthouse cinema” but maybe at least slightly better films within the mainstream action and action/comedy genre that Johnson is staying in. Duane Johnson is actually a great actor on top of everything else and if you look at his filmography pretty much everything he’s done…

Yeah that’s literally the exact opposite of what I’m saying

I’m not sure why you’re so stuck on this. The point of the scene was to show again that Billy, who’d just been introduced as a character , was a violent psycho and who knows what he might be capable of up to and including murder. Even if he wasn’t literally setting out to kill them (and I’m not sure how anyone can be…

How he’s helping her exactly? By taking an unpaid what appears to be dead end internship?

The larger point is that the character of Billy Hargrove as written and the supposed explanations for why he is the way he is are unconvincing which you’ve pretty much agreed with so . . .

Right but using mental illness as a catch all two word explanation for every school shooting and all bad behavior isn’t helpful to those of us who are actually mentally ill. Not to mention that mentally ill people still have motivations and personality traits beyond simply being mentally ill

I completely agree. Hopper has been served terribly this season. After a couple seasons of being a basically likable everyman’s take on an action hero now he’s a disturbingly angry, grumpy, sad drunk treating basically everyone in his orbit like shit.

I mean I’m a big Jonathan hater but I agree that the battle in the hospital was a really intense and big part of the episode and it was weird not to talk about it

Most of the people who watch this I’m pretty sure are 46 year olds like me who are just fascinated to see our childhoods portrayed accurately at least from a fashion and set dressing standpoint. And it’s an ensemble show. Many of the protagonists are children but there are also many adults including Gen X icon Winona…

It’s pretty strange to see someone ostensibly defend something by admitting that it’s bad writing that’s merely good enough to “fill a void” but okay

I didn’t say or imply that you did but you do seem to be saying that having an abusive parent and “mental health” are a satisfactory explanation of Billy if not a justification and that’s what I’m trying to push back on.

So the victim of abuse excuse for Billy’s behavior both made sense and was good writing but was also completely arbitrary and contrived because the writers simply “needed someone to be a dick.” Got it. Strong argument

Well I think it means something like very small and I don’t see how it makes any sense to say that the relationship between genders is “very small” is all

Fair enough

Yeah I’m not sure that word means what you think it means

Mental illness is maybe the wrong framework to look at it but the point is there are plenty of people who experienced abuse who don’t become as racist and malevolent as the character of Billy

YOu haven’t been on the internet very long if a different interpretation of an ambiguous scene is the “stupidest thing” you’ve ever seen written. It was clear to me what the implication of the scene was but even if he wasn’t explicitly trying to kill them and it was a “joke” or he was “just trying to scare them” he…

I just finished it. It was definitely the worst of the 5 I’ve seen thus far. Way too much going on a lot of it really annoying. I hope they can get it back together now after getting all of this exposition out of the way

I’m pretty sure every time period had “gender dynamics”. The question is whether they were good ones or bad ones

Not trying to wade into the gender dynamics debate but this comment is spot on in terms of the tone and the influences that this season of Stranger Things is going for. The show was never subtle but it’s REALLY not trying to be subtle or non-ridiculous now