How fun was watching Stranger Things on Netflix over the past weekend? I kind of wish that it wasn't a streaming series, because those eight episodes went by way too fast. If you haven't finished, roll your 12-sided die in another direction because I am going to get into spoilers for the Stranger Things finale. Why was Will taken on Stranger Things ? Presuming the show is renewed for a Season 2, it's still going to take forever to get all the questions I have answered.
Since we only really saw Will in the first and last episodes, with some glimpses and flashbacks in between, his return was especially mysterious. It's like reading Lord of the Rings but someone cut out all of the Frodo and Sam chapters. As we see in the finale, he is still suffering some consequences from his journey to the Upside Down, so I'm starting to wonder both why he was "allowed" to come back and why he was taken in the first place.
Was Will chosen for a reason? For one thing, Eleven seemed to recognize who he was — despite having had no contact with the Upside Down since before he was taken, at least as far as we know. Mike and Lucas also examined his behavior in the Dungeons and Dragons game for potential clues. They thought the fact that he sacrificed himself was significant, as if he somehow knew this was going to happen.
Also, if Will was the monster's first victim, how come he was the only one that Joyce and Hopper were able to rescue? You'd think he would be the most far gone. Did he evade capture in the forest? Did the monster have a special purpose for him? In the finale, besides coughing up tentacle residue, he also lost control of his reality and flashed to the forest for a moment. Now, this could be Stranger Things visualizing or dramatizing what it feels like to have PTSD... or, since this is a fantasy, Will's mind could be metaphyiscally caught between two worlds. If the show is picked up for Season 2 and if it continues to follow these characters in this story (I could easily see the show pulling an American Horror Story and starting from scratch, but I don't necessarily want that) — Will's secrets should hopefully be revealed.
Images: Netflix
