-Robin. God I fucking love Robin so much she's probably my favorite character now. Loved the reveal as well! Would've loved to see if she ended up being bi and going out with Steve anyways or something, but that's just my love for romance stuff without standards. What we got was absolutely amazing and very meaningful, even though I felt a little bad for Steve Rough position to be in, really.
-While we're on Steve, I FUCKING LOVE STEVE. He's so great. Competes for the #1 spot.
-Frankly I'm less frustrated with Mike than most people on here. We're still talking about El being a what, fifteen year old child literally risking her life? Mike cares about her a lot, quite obviously, so his outburst there didn't warrant the backlash from Max IMHO, being scared/frustrated/angry/scared at your girlfriend literally putting her life in danger is very normal and nowhere as controlling as Max especially thought it to be. I'm also pretty sure they'd gotten back together by that point so, like, Mike wanting his girlfriend to stop is in itself very understandable and again, not as toxic as Max thought it to be, IMO. That said, "just let your girlfriend be" is a valuable message that could've been conveyed through another way.
-That said, Mike basically only staying relevant in the show because he's El's boyfriend was... eh. Lucas could've been better too.
-The entire Scoops Ahoy gang is by far the most enjoyable character bunch I've seen in this show. Every single scene almost was a delight.
-The one thing I don't like about the Scoops Ahoy gang is that Erica straight up crosses over into toxicity territory ("stop crying, nerds!") from sass sometimes.
-The entire rat motif could've been used to far greater effect in the middle IMHO. I preferred it to teethy mind flayer
-Billy's "redemption" was unearned. I always end up a little disappointed when stories about abuse don't go farther than "abuser was abused too", but this particular case was just iffy. Kind of the MO with horror/thriller stories, but I think they should've done more with him and Max, and it felt like he died being treated as more of a hero than he deserved to be, especially because it was just "he remembered who he is, oop he suddenly gained a level of power not even Will had". His rapey abduction scenes were also pretty bad.
-I liked the idea of Karen thirsting over somebody (mostly because I dug the aesthetics, ha), but the fact that she's thirsting over a goddamned 17 YEAR OLD HIGH SCHOOLER felt very uncomfortable. If it was Ted thirsting over Barb in S1 or some shit people would've been up in arms and probably rightly so. The legality isn't much of a point for me because the law doesn't change or not whether a relationship is (potentially) abusive and Billy's a high schooler with a problematic past...
-Overall I liked the focus on character relationships over the horror because frankly they needed to do much more to beat Will screaming in agony from the fire in S2 than whatever they ended up doing in that department. What the fuck did the chemicals end up being about anyway?
-The above point is primarily because I fucking love campy romance lol.
-On that note Joyce and a Hopper that seemed to finally get his act together by the end of the season never really getting to develop something fucking sucked and having two boyfriends in a row snatched away from her probably is going to take a huge fucking toll on Joyce, but I have no idea how they'll resolve it at this point.
-Hopper seemed... off. He'd learned a bit more about parenting by the end of S2, and it just isn't at display here. I didn't mind it that much but it was kind of sad.
-Someone mentioned Joyce became the level headed part of the Joyce-Hop duo which was a great change of pace, but I'll be honest, Hop kinda felt like he didn't get enough support for himself from Joyce this time. The two of them going over the heart-to-heart was wonderful though. It's just that Hopper is going through his own shit and he never gets to open up about how it hurts HIM to anyone. He's probably frustrated and insecure over having a strenuous relationship with El and such... he needed somebody to understand him.
-The horror was rather bland compared to S2 frankly. The Mind Flayer as a cosmic entity that couldn't be subjected to mere fireworks and that had to be sealed off instead of outright defeated precisely because of its power... was undermined here. We learned nothing new about the Upside Down either.
-Alexei was a wonderful side character. :c His death got to me more than Hopper's, in some ways...
-I loved the Russian storyline except for the ending and the terminator guy called Grigory? in the subtitles. I mean, constructing a huge laser under a mall in a miles-wide complex? That's some good, zany shit. It lent itself better to character interactions than Mind Flayer 2: Electric Boogaloo, especially because that one stopped being interesting about the takeover stuff right after the Natalie house stuff and maybe the final hospital scene. It also really doesn't fit in though because why the fuck are they interested in reopening it? Not to mention the elevator part was ACE and it had the best group of characters.
-I'd be quite disappointed if Hopper came back. Even though his death was stupid in the time he and Joyce had the slow-mo stare he could've gotten back up there.
-It'd have set the tone better if characters got increasingly frustrated/worried about it as it went on, but the Suzie/Dustin scene was great, quite in-character and frankly a controversy quite similar to the Final Fantasy X laughter scene controversy (how dare creators put in a deliberately awkward and cringe inducing scene yadda yadda).
-SUZIE WAS READING EARTHSEA AND EVEN VERBALLY REFERENCED IT I ALMOST SCREAMED THIS IS THE FIRST REFERENCE IN ANY MEDIA THAT'S GOTTEN TO ME IN A LONG TIME AS A NOVELS OVER MOVIE BUFF AND I FUCKING LOVED IT, A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA IS MY FAVORITE NOVEL, IT MADE ME SO HAPPY
-Jonathan and Nancy could've done more honestly. They could've developed more... The entire sexist workplace arc went nowhere. While I get Jonathan's view in their quarrel though, it's also true that they've seen impossible shit so Jonathan should've agreed that maybe more impossible shit was going on.
-El actually noticeably improves in terms of individuality and speech by the end. Good for her!
-A bunch of traumatized kids and teens are probably generally not ready for a romantic relationship though that isn't generally acknowledged save for the "shared trauma" nines between Nancy and Jonathan.
-Murray going "you guys should just fuck already" was great
-Sad about Joyce & co. moving away. Moving away fucking sucks :/
-The next season doesn't seem like it'll be very focused because the Russian thing overstayed its welcome and the white demogorgon is Zzzz
-Dustin got a lot of shit last season and kinda failed at everything so it was very nice to have him save the day and also be a driving force in general. As someone who never even saw the 80s (far from it) the way they just couldn't google the planck constant was quite something. One of the reason Scoops gang is the fucking best.
-Seriously I love the Dustin-Steve partnership!
-The new cola scene was fucking obnoxious and might be the lowest part of the season (Karen thirsting over Billy notwithstanding).
-El just kinda did more of the same, it felt like.
-Finale was a visual treat.