More Stranger Things!

Stranger Things is back; and creepier 

Despite my best efforts to carefully savor the new episodes of season two of the Netflix series Stranger Things one by one like a box of crackers on a crowded life-raft stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I've torn through all nine episodes.

In less than a week after it premiered last Friday night.

After watching the brilliant season finale last night, I literally had to force myself to close the Netflix app on my iPhone and pick up a book to read to avoid starting the second season over again. 

As a sci-fi fan and political junkie, it must be mentioned that in my last blog about Stranger Things back on July 31, 2016, I debated whether Donald Trump's emergence as the Republican Party's candidate for president was more terrifying than the creepy things going on in (and under) the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana.

I'm starting to think that the terrifying reality of the scandal-plagued Trump presidency is even scarier. 

Especially after learning that conservative radio host Sam Clovis (who has no scientific experience or educational background) withdrew his name from consideration for the Department of Agriculture's chief scientist post on Thursday because he personally approved ex-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos' visit to Russia in 2016 to meet with Russian operatives who offered stolen emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

That said, Matt and Ross Duffer, the brothers who created, wrote, produced and directed (some episodes of) Stranger Things, have definitely upped the creep factor in season two.

No pun intended, but they've successfully managed to bring even stranger things to the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana (and to the city of Chicago as well in one memorable episode).

The annals of entertainment history are littered with series that were breakout smashes in the first season only to follow up with disappointing second seasons - the dreaded term "sophomore slump" is used to describe promising first-time film directors who follow up box off hits with movies that are panned by critics and fans alike.

Regulars Lucas, Dustin and Mike are joined by Max
Mayfield (played by Sadie Sink) in season two 

With solid writing, great casting and imaginative plot twists and character arcs, the Duffer brothers have avoided that fate with the second season of Stranger Things.

If you scour the internet long enough you'll find people who'll nitpick about season two, but from my take it's arguably as good as season one.

The show doesn't rest on its laurels, rather it ups the ante and pushes the boundaries of what the show can be.

One of the strongest aspects of the show is the casting, and season two introduces some really cool characters to bolster the ranks of both the kids and adults who join together to battle the mysterious forces that plague the town of Hawkins.

For my money, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, played by actress Sadie Sink, is the most interesting new addition.

A no-nonsense, tom-boyish redhead who skateboards, Max arrives at Hawkins Middle School after moving from California with her family - including her older step-brother-from-Hell, Billy Hargrove (brilliantly played by actor Dacre Montgomery), a violent, brooding psycho who adds a nice menacing touch and is effective as the childhood bully we all remember, feared and loathed.

The series regulars, Mike Wheeler (played by Finn Wolfhard), Lucas Sinclair (played by Caleb McLaughlin, Dustin Henderson (played by Glenn Matarazzo) and Will Byers (played by Noah Schnapp) first encounter Max when she's dropped off in front of school by her crazy older stepbrother Billy in his souped up Camaro Z-28 - which he drives like a delusional maniac.

The gang are intrigued by (and attracted to) Max, but only learn who she is after they discover that she's a video game ace who outscores everyone on the game Dig-Dug at the local video arcade - where multiple scenes are set in season two.

Dustin (center) Lucas and Mike dressed as the
Ghostbusters for Halloween

Another brilliant addition in season two is Erica Sinclair (played by Priah Ferguson), the sassy, smart-mouthed little sister of Lucas.

She's absolutely hilarious in the scenes she appears in as the Duffer brothers begin to introduce more of Lucas' family and home life; including his parents, who appeared briefly in season one - it's refreshing to see an average middle-class black family from the suburbs on screen too.

Dustin's mother is also introduced as a minor character in multiple episodes as part of a plot line involving a strange pet that Dustin finds in his trashcan and decides to bring home.

The verbal exchanges between Dustin and his mom played by Catherine Curtin reveal a loving but amusingly quirky relationship as the series spends more time in Dustin's home as well.

On the adult side, the Duffer brothers bolster the talented cast with the addition of two well-liked veteran actors who are familiar to fans of both television and sci-fi / fantasy movies - Sean Astin and Paul Reiser.

Astin, recognizable as Frodo's loyal companion Sam from Peter Jackson's brilliant Lord of the Rings trilogy, joins the cast as Bob Newby, a likable former high school classmate of Will Beyer's mother Joyce, played by Winona Ryder.

Paul Reiser as Sam Owens in Stranger Things

Newby is Joyce's new boyfriend, a supportive and friendly average guy who works at the local Radio Shack and goes on to play a critical role at the end of the season.

Reiser, known for the NBC series Mad About You and the 1986 box office hit Aliens, joins the cast as Sam Owens, who's sent by the Department of Energy to take over the mysterious lab in Hawkins.

After the death of the former head scientist Dr. Brenner (played by Matthew Modine) at the end of season one, Owens presents a far more human face to the government than Brenner - a detached, robotic, cold fish who ruthlessly tried to recapture Eleven in the first season after performing cruel experiments on her for years.

Where Brenner was essentially a villain, Owens, sent to get the "project" back under control, becomes more of an ally to the group.

Without giving away any spoilers, season two picks right up where the season one finale left off, Will Byers, after being rescued from the horrors of the Underside at the end of last season, is back home with his family and friends, but must endure the after-effects of having been trapped in the Underside for so long.

Even though he's back in school, where some students taunt him for having been mistakenly thought to be dead in the first season, he's still traumatized by his terrifying experience.

Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven

Will's older brother Jonathan Byers (played by Charlie Heaton), Mike's older sister Nancy Wheeler (played by Natalia Dyer) and Nancy's ex boyfriend Steve Harrington (played by Joe Keery) all return as the Hawkins High School students entwined in the mystery (and a teen love triangle) who've joined the fight to help Will and stop the evil trying to take over Hawkins.

Saving the best for last, the enigmatic character Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown) is revealed to be living "off the grid" in a remote cabin with Hawkins Chief of Police Jim Hopper (played by David Harbour) - where he's been trying to keep her safe from the government forces pursuing her.

Season two finds her mysterious powers growing stronger, and her more determined to uncover the links to her murky past.

But she's also a willful teenager, and in defiance of Hopper, she sets out on her own journey of self discovery to find answers to her real family's fate, as well as that of another girl with strange powers who was kept prisoner in the lab by Dr. Brenner for years.

Millie Bobby Brown plays Eleven with equal parts sweetness, introspection and intensity as the character taps into her own powers to probe the mysterious circumstances of her childhood.

She also comes to grips with her growing feelings for Mike, as the presence of Max forces Eleven to confront feelings of teenaged jealousy that are sure to strike a universal chord with the audience.

The erie malevolent entity that haunts the fictional
town of Hawkins, IA in season 2 of Stranger Things  

But true to form, the Duffer brothers effectively also manage to ratchet up the fear factor in season two in ways that I think make it even creepier than season one.

In the first season audiences were given a terrifying glimpse into the strange, dark world known as the Underside.

In season two, elements of the Underside come to Hawkins.

The same portal revealed in season one becomes the same avenue by which the same four-legged carnivorous beasties (which Dustin names "demi-dogs" in season two) that first escaped into Hawkins from the Department of Energy's lab, venture further into the town of Hawkins.

Both above ground, and below.

Unquestionably the introduction of a strange, malevolent entity cranks the creepy factor up a notch.

An erie non-corporeal spirit-like being of enormous size (pictured above), it strongly suggests elements of the Ogdru Jahad, those were the huge cyclopean tentacled creatures that almost reached earth from another dimension at the end of the movie Hellboy, as well as the strange "smoke monster" in the ABC series Lost.

I have no idea what it is, nor do the Duffer brothers give it a name, but it suggests that we've only begun to scratch the surface of the evil that dwells in the Underside.

Based on the final scene of the season two finale, the Duffers brothers will be giving audiences a dose of that in season three - which I (and millions of others) already can't wait to see.

If you like sci-fi and still haven't gotten Netflix, you're missing out.

There's nothing like Stranger Things in the movies or on network television - don't miss it. 

Lost In the Bushes

Paranoid? Or just delusional?

In a Washington Post article on Saturday, reporter Phillip Rucker quoted an unnamed high level Republican source close to the White House as worrying that Trump is "in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion." 

Arguably, millions of people had already reached that conclusion the moment Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign by accusing Mexicans of being rapists and drug dealers.

Particularly given the widely-respected Constitutional scholar and Harvard law professor law professor Laurence Tribe's op-ed in the Washington Post on Saturday explaining why Trump needs to be impeached.

Let's be clear, even though I'm admittedly somewhat biased in the political sense, I'm not simply saying Trump needs to be impeached because I don't agree with his political views.

This guy has obstructed justice and continues to violate Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution due to the astonishing range of ways in which he continues to use the power and influence of his office to directly channel financial profit to himself and his family.

Late this afternoon WaPo reported that Trump revealed highly classified intel on a possible ISIS attack with (of all people) the Russian ambassador and the Russian foreign minister during a meeting at the White House last week - the day AFTER he fired the FBI director leading the investigation into links between Russia and members of the Trump administration.

Part of the title of my previous blog, in which I used the term "car-wreck presidency" to describe the unmitigated chaos of the current presidential administration, it's a phrase borrowed from journalist Matt Taibbi's words from his April 6th Rolling Stone article, "Trump the Destroyer".

It's not my habit to assign homework or anything on this blog, but if you do have the time and haven't already done so, I would highly recommend you take some time to read it.

I've found it helpful to put Trump's publicly warning former-FBI Director James Comey about "leaking to the press" on Friday just days after firing him, into some kind of context.
  

Republican Senator Dean Heller

Trump's (latest) actions are so far outside the boundaries of normalcy and ethics that even some Republicans, including Nevada Senator Dean Heller, are now saying that an independent investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections and links between Russia and members of the Trump administration "should be on the table".  

The erratic POTUS is loosing popular support, even among his own base.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in the wake of Comey's firing puts Trump's approval rating at an anemic 29%.

According to a Newsweek article by Tim Marcin last Thursday, Trump is actually loosing significant support among the segment of white voters who elected him in November.      

Any newly-elected presidential administration is going to have it's fair share of missteps as a new commander-in-chief and the staff responsible for handling the herculean complexity of running the executive branch of the federal government learn how to operate the levers of power.

But the baffling jumble of policy announcements and executive orders, which are often contradicted by Trump's own nonsensical Tweets or statements, sew disorder and confusion.

The daily White House press briefings conducted by Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (the daughter of former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee) are so rife with false statements and bogus facts that they're now being openly ridiculed by many in mainstream media

Spicey answering questions in near darkness Tuesday

For Pete's sake, on Tuesday night poor Spicey spent several minutes hiding in the bushes outside the White House in an attempt to avoid talking with reporters demanding answers about Trump firing the FBI Director.

Take a couple minutes to watch CNN's Don Lemon laugh at Spicer's attempts to justify the fact that Congress will not authorize billions for Trump to build the "beautiful wall" along the southern border with Mexico that he made a central theme of his campaign.

Each day it seems like this presidency gets more and more surreal.

At this point it's more of a horror show-circus than a presidential administration.

As Politico reported earlier today, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus scolded members of the senior staff for putting clips of fake news on Trump's desk.

Including the embattled former Fox News commentator Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland, who slipped POTUS a copy of a phony Time Magazine cover about climate change.

Seriously, what kind of White House is this when a Fox News opinionator can slip into the Oval Office and put a fake magazine cover that's been known as an Internet hoax for years on the desk of the president?

The Trump administration conducts itself like some kind of vindictive, punch-drunk boxer who ignores the rules of the ring, issuing right-hand hooks, sweeping jabs, sneaky upper cuts and body blows even after the bell rings - not just to win, but to try and pummel the opponent into submission.

That's just how Trump, who famously fawns over authoritarian leaders who trample human rights and jail or kill their political opponents, and considers Roy Cohn a mentor, operates.

Trump with Machiavellian mentor Roy Cohn

Cohn is the combative, Machiavellian attorney who served as the chief counsel to anti-Communist crusader Senator Joseph McCarthy during the controversial Senate hearings into wide-ranging Communist infiltration of the U.S. government in the 1950's.

He later represented notorious Mafia figures like "Fat Tony" Salerno and John Gotti and is widely considered the man who shaped Trump's propensity to respond to any disagreement with all out war.

To regard any critique as an insult and keep a lengthy enemies list.

Trump first hired Cohn to represent him in the early 1970's when the government accused the Trump organization of widespread discrimination against African-American applicants in Trump-managed apartment complexes in New York and Virginia.

Cohn died 31 years ago but his influence on the chaotic and combative 45's White House is very much alive today.

Given everything else going on in the world today, it's not easy for the average American citizen to keep up with everything White House Inc. is doing and what Trump's strategy for governing actually is.

The glimpses we do get are genuinely horrifying.

On Friday Jessica Huseman of ProPublica reported that Trump is expecting to tap the conservative talk radio host from Iowa Sam Clovis as the undersecretary of the US Department of Agriculture; a position normally held by scientists with years of experience in research and economics.

Sam Clovis: Science? Who needs science?

So a guy with zero scientific knowledge or degree who's loyal to Trump and denies the existence of climate change, will likely head up the department that manages research for the USDA - a federal department with over 100,000 employees and a yearly budget of almost $140 billion.

That's the department responsible for creating the federal laws that govern forestry, farming, and food.


It also oversees the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) that provides poor and working class Americans with food stamp assistance.

What's going to happen to American kids and families who depend on SNAP with Sam Clovis at USDA is too scary to ponder.

To sit down and look at the totality of how this White House operates and what it's priorities are is to face the horror of this presidency; and the damage it's doing to America's reputation, political institutions and the people those institutions are supposed to serve.

Sean Spicer huddling in the bushes while trying to avoid answering questions from the press about why the president fired the director of the FBI is an apt metaphor for Donald Trump's presidency.

An administration huddling in the bushes of lies in a forest of secrecy to avoid the scrutiny of a free and open press - and the American people they're supposed to serve.

Is Trump truly "in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion" as Phillip Rucker says a Republican insider suggests?

Based on his decisions, actions and words in the past few weeks, sadly for America, it seems likely.