"Stranger Things" is Great, Features Most Oblivious Parents in Television History

“Stranger Things” on Netflix just finished airing in my living room. (SPOILERS ahead…) Unlike the rest of the world, I thought it was really good! Just kidding, Stranger Things is the Internet’s latest streaming darling. Everyone loves it and every character is the best character even though it really is quite problematic. (Oops! I forgot the links!)

Luckily, I chose to just enjoy the show. It was great the way that it felt nostalgic without having to wink and nod at the audience every time they paid homage to something.

It felt like an 80’s movie, but it also reminded me of X-Files. It was just fun. And a little scary. I hope if [when] they bring this back for a second season, they have as fleshed out a story as they did for season 1. While I totally bought monsters and government conspiracies and telekinesis and the Upside Down, I want those things treated with the same care in a second season, even if it means an homage to Slither, which was inspired by movies from the Stranger Things era that I’ve never seen. Just do the same thing again, but with different things! Recapture this perfect recapturing of things only 80’s kids will remember.

Now, as great as Stranger Things was and is, here are 5 Even Stranger Things that stuck out to me while I watched.

Not one, but TWO boys snuck into the room of their teenage daughter. On multiple occasions. One of them spent the night. In her bed. He had a gun.

Then their son had a girl spend the night in the basement for multiple nights. Both their son and daughter also snuck out of the house on multiple occasions. The fact that their youngest daughter didn’t wander away and get abducted by someone with a van – when there were multiple men in vans in the neighborhood – is a miracle.

Did they even notice that both their children were gone the last two episodes of the series? Their son is hiding in a junk yard and then hiding from the government and ducking to miss machine gun fire while a monster tries to eat them. Their daughter is walking around with a bear trap and handgun, lighting a house on fire and hanging out with the two boys who have spent the night in her room.

What do you think Mr. and Mr.s Wheeler were doing at that moment? My guess is Mr. Wheeler was watching the ’83-’84 Hoosiers lose two of their first three games of the season while Mrs. Wheeler was drinking wine and reading a book she bought in the checkout line at the grocery store. Their youngest was probably in the backyard making friends with a rabid raccoon.

The show takes place Indiana in November. Yet Steve’s absentee parents haven’t covered the pool yet. Not only are they gone in the middle of the week, but they haven’t closed the pool by the time snow is in the air. If the pool wasn’t open, then Barb wouldn’t have been sitting on the diving board. The Harrington’s should be facing a wrongful death suit from the Holland family.

Sitting there watching a horror movie with his arm around what we can only assume is a fellow teacher at 10pm on a Saturday and he is willing to stop to explain to a preteen – in great detail – how to build a sensory deprivation tank. Even if it means keeping his date’s curiosity door locked a little while longer. This man should be named Indiana Educator of the Year.

So, Steve and his friends spray-painted the movie theater marquee in broad daylight without a ladder. Then they were hanging out around the corner with spray paint, like, two minutes later. The only people so clueless as to miss this happen and then catch the culprits would have to be Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler and the oblivious Midwestern doofuses they hired to watch over the theater while they were busy not knowing where their kids were. I mean, the ticket window is RIGHT THERE. Season 2 could just be about how Steve and his douche friends got away with this without being arrested.