Stranger Things, Season 5, Episodes 5-7 (The Duffer Brothers, Netflix, 2025)

    It looks like the Duffer Brothers are going to stick the landing after keeping viewers waiting for three long years. There is only one episode left of Stranger Things, a series that began filming during Barack Obama’s second term as president. It has been part of the cultural backdrop for over a decade and its narrative is now one day away from concluding. There are a lot of expectations bound up in that conclusion. There are also a lot of plot threads that need to be tied together or deliberately let loose.

    Early in episode 5, Dustin refers to one of the triple-climax plot lines in Return of the Jedi. He, Steve, Jonathan, and Nancy are like Han Solo and the Ewoks of Endor who need to deactivate the shield generator so the assault on the reconstructed Death Star can proceed. This moment seemed like more than just a throwaway reference to one of the most famous science-fiction movies of all time. Instead, it foretold a possible triple-climax at the conclusion of season five. The gates need to be sealed; Vecna must be destroyed; and the powers of Jane, Will, and Kali need to be explained. These various goals would likely need to involve different parties in different locations, but by the end of episode 7, all the protagonists are in the same space and going to the same place.

    Part of me hopes the action is resolved quickly and most of the final episode is dedicated to explaining why the military is using the blood of psychic children to create Manchurian candidates in the first place. It’s the Cold War, right? A commentary on the folly of mutually-assured destruction? The nature of the psychic powers and what that implies for adolescent identity formation is still an interesting angle that may not be adequately resolved, but will fuel speculation and fan theories for years to come. It recalls the “what happens on Monday?” hypothetical of The Breakfast Club. In a few days or weeks or months, what will happen to these characters? Are they forever connected by the shared trauma of these events, or do they move on and grow up? The more I think about the show, the more questions like these come to mind and the more it seems like it will be difficult to resolve the coming-of-age narrative with the sci-fi horror explanations of what actually happened in Hawkins. They’ve had three years, though. I still have hope in their ability to pull it off.

    Given that this is the end of the series and there has usually been a notable character killed off in each season, it is fair to consider who might be on the chopping block this time. After patching up their falling out, Steve and Dustin re-commit to the fight against Vecna and exchange the lines “I die, you die; you die, I die.” If this becomes prophetic, then it is way too heavy of foreshadowing. It’s a good red herring, though. It made me squirm.

    Will finally comes out to the whole crew, which was touching and well handled. Note that he doesn’t say he’s gay, just that he’s “not into girls.” As I mentioned in my thoughts on the first four episodes of this season, it seems like Will’s ability to integrate his identity and share that transition with his social world is the key to how he will ultimately wield his powers. Yes, he can tap into the hive mind (i.e., heteronormative society) but he is not of it. He’s aware of how it affects him, but it does not control it. I may be wishing too hard on this star, but there does seem like plenty of room to explore this idea in the final episode.

    There hasn’t been much grey area in Jane Hopper / Eleven’s development as far as desires go. She and Mike have had their ups and downs but nothing else has indicated that she is questioning who she likes or loves. Her adolescence is marked by the need to integrate herself socially and emotionally into world where she is an escaped experiment. She’s found solace in her peer group and has been accepted and adopted by adults like Jim and Joyce. Most recently, an erstwhile friend has reemerged: Kali from Chicago. All three of these parties are fighting for their part of Eleven, and all are at cross purposes. The boys of Hawkins want her to save the world with them, Hopper wants her to stay safe and survive, and Kali wants her to sacrifice herself while saving the world. She seems least likely to follow Kali’s lead, even if it will make the world safe for everyone else. It’s too much, too soon, and her connections to the established characters are too strong.

    Aside from the resolutions of the character arcs mentioned above, I’m also curious about what is in that goddamn briefcase. In the scene where Holly and Max are exploring Henry Creel’s memory, they see him kill a government worker and open his steel briefcase. Whatever he learned from the information inside it has traumatized him enough that he wants to merge oblivion’s abyss with the world of Hawkins.

    In a perfect world, the explanation for how Henry Creel became Vecna should be explained in terms of how this trauma stunted his development. It’s not just that he beat the guy to death with a rock. There’s something he learned that made him unable to adjust socially, cognitively, physically, emotionally, and psychologically to the world he knew. I have high expectations for a satisfying explanation of this aspect of his character, and I am crossing my fingers that the Duffer Brothers will deliver.

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Home But Alone No More (John Abendshien, Abendshien Associates, Inc., 2025)

    The guy who was living in the Home Alone house when they filmed Home Alone has written a book about the experience. If you must know, he is an expert in the field of healthcare strategy and policy. That doesn’t mean that Peter McCallister was also involved in healthcare in some way, but it at least puts to rest the idea that he was involved in criminal activity (unless you understand the U.S. healthcare system to be a form of theft) or that he inherited his wealth (Abendshien discusses his own humble roots in the text). There’s much more interesting information to be found here anyway.

    I’m obviously biased toward Home Alone as an all-time favorite movie, Christmas or not, because I’m only slightly younger than Macaulay Culkin and because I grew up maybe 10 minutes from the house. That meant I saw the movie at least three times while it was in theaters (thank you Mom and Dad) and that by going a block or so out of the way, I could see the house after a visit to my childhood dentist. To say this movie is wrapped up in nostalgia for me is quite an understatement. Thankfully, it’s a good enough movie on its own that I don’t have to rely on “my childhood” as a reason for enjoying it. It’s not like it became a worldwide success only because people from the North Shore loved it so much.

    Abendshien knows that as well, though the consequences of signing his family up for this situation were not immediately apparent. He admits that he didn’t think the script made much sense from a plausibility angle (pp. 29-30). He figured allowing the filming to occur at his house would be disruptive for a short while because the movie would bomb and people would forget all about it. The idea that his house would eventually become famous enough to be made into a LEGO set was the furthest thing from his mind. In fact, he maintains that he would not sign up for the opportunity again if he knew what he knows now. The reasons are not that it wasn’t worth it, but that there were so many things that had to go just right—and did—that it would be a miracle to think it could happen again. “We were blessed, plain and simple, to work with the folks, the producers, cast, crew—who turned this film into a bona fide gift to the world” (p. 164). It was a right place, right time kind of phenomenon, which only makes the movie itself all the more special.

    It’s so special, in fact, that Abendshien can’t even escape the house’s fame in professional settings. He opens the book with a story about a presentation he was giving at a conference. Instead of the host giving the usual rundown of Abendshien’s accomplishments, he simply quipped that the next presenter was the guy who lived in the Home Alone house. There was scattered applause and a few giggles. After the presentation, though, the only questions the audience had were about his experiences with the film. No one asked about the talk he’d been invited to give! That being the case, it seems like this book had to be written.

    For many reasons, it’s great that it wasn’t written in 1992 or 1995 or even 2005. Abendshien and his now ex-wife sold the house in 2012. They had more than 20 years of living in the house after filming concluded, which means they had plenty of time for fans to pay visits to gawk at the house (and intrude on their privacy). If he’d tried to write this book before his family had moved out of the house, then many of the stories might not have happened the way they did. They needed time to set, to incubate, to cure, before certain themes about the house and the movie emerged. Also, as Abendshien told me when I purchased the book from a local bookshop while he was there to sign it a few weeks ago, he had a job to work and a life to live. He couldn’t have written it before now because there wasn’t time.

    Since so much time has passed, you might think all the stories about Home Alone have been told. They haven’t, and this book is full of them. I won’t spoil all of it but I will give a few highlights.

    The Abendshiens lived in Evanston prior to moving to Winnetka. John Hughes’ location scout approached them about filming in their Evanston house for Uncle Buck, but it didn’t work out. A year later, that same scout came with Chris Columbus to their house in Winnetka so they could discuss possibly using it for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, which Columbus was briefly involved with as a director. That didn’t work out either, but the house was still on Columbus’ mind when Hughes invited him to direct Home Alone (p. 21). It’s wild to think there’s a reality where the Uncle Buck house or the Christmas Vacation house is instead the Home Alone house.

    Kevin’s backyard treehouse did not last long past filming. Wisely, Abendshien had the crew dismantle it (p. 100). One can only imagine the number of kids (myself likely included) who would love to try to get a view of the house from it at night. As a suburban homeowner, the insurance liability of an attractive nuisance is making my head spin.

    Even though northern Illinois gets plenty of snow, there were scenes that needed some Hollywood magic (i.e., potato flakes, shaved ice, soap foam) to get the look just right. In a hilarious twist, the one time the crew was trying to get a shot of the yard covered in pristine snowfall, Abendshien messed it up. He’d been on his way back from O’Hare airport from a business trip and noticed that his street was unusually calm for a film location. As he tells it, he got his car stuck in a snow drift in the driveway, “waded through the snow to the front door, and then realized I’d left my briefcase in the car. So, back through the snow I trudged, fetched the briefcase, and made another trek through the drifts.” He opened the door to see various crew members, including Chris Columbus, and one of them greeted him with “Hey, Mr. A., you just fabulously fucked up our shot!” (p. 59). As with many elements of Home Alone that couldn’t happen now, that story would not have happened because someone from his family or the crew would have contacted him to let him know not to mess up the snow in the front yard when he arrived home. But now, it’s a cool story for him to tell and a moment for eagle-eyed viewers to spot. (Check the space between the driveway and the front door when Kate McCallister exits the Kenosha Kickers’ truck at the end of the film; Abendshien’s footprints are visible but the car is out of the shot.)

    The book’s key chapter shares the title with the book itself. It’s full of stories about the home in the years since filming wrapped. Abendshien traces his initial shock and frustration to an eventual acceptance of the house’s importance to so many people. By 1991, he says he was ready to sit on his porch with a shotgun and have the clip from Angels with Filthy Souls (“I’ll give you ’til the count of ten. One, two…[sound of gunfire]”) playing as people approached the property. We’re all glad that didn’t happen. We’re also glad that the house became a big enough part of the film that it is available as a gingerbread house kit. Abendshien reflects on the bizarreness of the fact that “people can literally eat what used to be our house” (p. 151). If that kind of consumption doesn’t meet with your approval, maybe you’d enjoy reading this book instead. It’s a marvelous tribute to a timeless movie told from a perspective that no one else could have had.

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Crusader of Centy (Nextech / Atlus, 1995)

    I didn’t catch it when it premiered, but Chris Kohler’s episode of Complete in Box that focused on Secret of Mana is the place where I first heard of Crusader of Centy. In the comments on the original article, he was naming a desire to play other 16-bit action RPGs, and someone chimed in with this game and Beyond Oasis. Both games appeared on the Nintendo Classics service in 2023, but it took me until this month to play them both. It’s a forced comparison because of that comment section and the release date of both games but Crusader is much better than Oasis.

    For another forced comparison, I would say that this game feels like it shares DNA with both Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. There’s a simplified version of the combat and action that reminds me of the latter game, while the action-focused nature of the combat and puzzling recalls the former. I do appreciate the way the overworld is simply a map (à la Mystic Quest) because that cuts down on a lot of traversal that would have otherwise been annoying. There are minimal interactive moments in it, too, such as when you activate a switch deep in a dungeon or cause a cyclone to appear on the map. So, it’s not the same look the entire time.

    The action plays out with you as the hero, swinging and throwing a sword as you explore various climes in the world around your hometown. You’ve got mountains, beaches, volcanoes, glaciers, deserts, and towers. All the locations you are used to seeing in games. The cool twist on all of this action is that you get animal companions throughout the game. You can have up to two of them on screen with you at any given time. They do things like attack enemies, turn into platforms, give you fire or ice powers for your sword, transport you to safety, make you run faster, make you swing your sword faster, or let your sword ricochet off of walls. Because you can have two at a time, some of these effects can be combined. It’s a lot of fun exploring the different combinations to see how to best or most easily pass through a given dungeon. Some even have interaction effects when working together that give you more than just the combined powers of each animal. As a plus, they are also cute.

    You eat apples to regain health, which means your hero probably has awful tummy troubles during the adventure. Let’s not dwell on that. There are cool boss battles that help you become more powerful by increasing your hit points. So, leveling up is gated behind these specific encounters, which means you can’t get overpowered at all. Except for a few mild platforming moments, there’s not many times where hit points become an issue (though if I was playing more conservatively because I didn’t have access to rewind or save states, maybe I’d think differently).

    So, what distinguishes Crusader of Centy from Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest or the other game it’s commonly compared to, A Link to the Past? For one, the music is incongruous and great. The songs are catchy and memorable but belong in a mascot platformer or much simpler and less serious adventure game. I say less serious because in addition to that music, the story itself is interesting. As you might expect, there are monsters on the loose in the game world and you have to figure out what the deal is. Turns out the monsters were there to help all along and it is humans who were the evil ones that slaughtered these creatures needlessly. A nice twist on the expectation I had of there being an evil sorcerer or mad king behind all of it. 

    It’s in a weird spot where it’s popular enough to be preserved via Nintendo’s emulation service but not to have been subject to a retranslation or other text edit via fan-made hacks. The dialogue formatting and misspellings throughout are consistently bad. This game is not perfect by any means, but it is entirely serviceable and worth 5-10 hours of your time.

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NIKKI NAIR Violence is the Answer (Future Classic, 2025)

    Hey so I try to show that I have wide-ranging, even eclectic tastes in music and maybe even pop culture more generally through my reviews in this blog. It’s a way of capturing my thinking at this point in time. That means that sometimes I’ll speak from a place of authority on the book, album, single, movie, or episode I’m reviewing. Sometimes, I just want to record my reaction to one of those cultural artifacts and share it because I’m excited about engaging with it more than passively. This NIKKI NAIR EP is something I’m excited about but don’t have a lot of authority to discuss. I know I’ll find it helpful to wrestle with why I like it as I continue this review. Maybe you’ll find it interesting to read as I grapple with it, too.

    At this point in my life, I should know better than to declare that I don’t know the history or style of a genre of music. All of it is at my fingertips. I can learn about scenes and trends with the greatest of ease. Yet, I still don’t know much about what I usually term dance or electronic music. Let’s blame the Spin article from 1996 that popularized the term electronica for people living in the U.S. I can already tell that some of you reading this are having a conniption fit because I am lumping together disparate sounds such as jungle, house, techno, drum & bass, trance, electronic body music, intelligent dance music, etc. into a single mass. I’m sure I would be just as annoyed with someone who reviewed a punk record but couldn’t tell the difference between hardcore, youth crew, powerviolence, d-beat, emo, crossover, and NYHC. Given that I have spent most of my life listening to guitar-forward music, anything that doesn’t feature live players of instruments working together in person falls into the catchall term of electronic. So be it.

    You can probably tell that I didn’t hear about NIKKI NAIR from my usual means of learning about music. Admittedly, I have slowed way down over the years in terms of how frequently I keep up with music scenes or new sounds. At the same time, I can’t let myself be someone whose musical tastes are stuck in my teens or my 20s or even my early 30s. That feels gross. Luckily for all of us, Hearing Things exists. Just like Defector arose from the ashes of Deadspin and Aftermath came from Kotaku, Hearing Things is a worker-owned music website that pulls together writers formerly of Pitchfork, Spin, The Fader, and Jezebel, and other sites and zines. It’s an incredible resource and you should support it. I do.

    In his review of this EP’s “Smooth,” Ryan Dombal focuses on the title track, with its hook “my brain gets smooth when I think about you.” There’s more to the song than that line, but I think it’s incredible, so let’s hyperfixate on it for a minute. The idea of the smooth brain meme is that one is unable to think about anything in any depth, for any length of time. Scientists and people who have passed high school biology will tell you that the size of the brain is less important than the number of folds or wrinkles it has. So, the common understanding is that a person with a smooth brain has no worries; they are pure id. In reality, it’s less cheerful, but let’s focus on the literary implication here. NIKKI NAIR is saying that thinking about his beloved is enough of a comfort that he has no bad feelings. No bad vibes. Good vibes only. Good wife only. Good wife. Goody. Goody gumdrops. Good, good things. Good. It’s romantic in a childish way. As Homer Simpson once told Marge after a dark night of the soul, the one thing that only he can give her is “complete and utter dependence.” Marge replies, “that’s not a good thing.” It’s not at all. Still, NIKKI NAIR captures that fleeting feeling of pure joy that comes along with contemplating one’s beloved and giving yourself over to them in total devotion.

    In a much more mature sense, “IRS Love” speaks of a deeper commitment in a completely absurd way. For most of the song, you hear “I know that you want me / You know that I want you, too / Baby, I just wanna file my taxes with you.” The vocal effects make the chant sound much more childish than it is. Think about some of the other songs you know that have to do with “just wanting” someone or something. Most of those songs are by four dudes from Queens who really liked bubblegum pop. This accidental RAMONES song is incredible. Think about it. Instead of wanting to sniff glue or be someone’s boyfriend, Nair wants to have a stable enough relationship with someone that they’d file taxes together. It’s hardly romantic, but speaks to the kind of closeness and communication that is part of a lasting relationship. Unlike with “Smooth,” there’s a sense that the feelings are reciprocated. As he continues to repeat “just wanna file my taxes with you,” he layers in the lines “going to work I want to walk right into traffic / But I know if I did that then you’d have to file alone.” He’s saying he knows his partner also wants to file taxes with him. It’s mutual. You need the smooth brain moments and the roughness that creates the rough brained wrinkles to make a relationship last. The grooves that NIKKI NAIR puts down on this EP’s tracks are enough to deepen the ones that already exist in your brain, even if you sometimes wish it would just stay smooth.

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