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What I'm working on - January 2026 (Patreon)

Published:
2026-01-11 20:26:17
Edited:
2026-01-11 20:27:10
Imported:
2026-08
Tags:

Content

Happy new year, Patrons! I'm excited to update you on my current deep dive.

I've been battling the flu for over a week now, and I've been using my immobility to do mainly one thing: binge rewatch all of Stranger Things in preparation for a potential video.

In light of the recent failure that was the final season, I'm finding it hard to resist the urge to shout my hot takes from the rooftops. I first picked up the show in 2022 when season 4 was airing. I was briefly but intensely into it, despite thinking season 4 was pretty subpar. I'm now compelled by its sharp (or arguably not so sharp) decline in quality.

My first goal is just to complete my rewatch so I have full, fresh thoughts. I'm not completely sure what my angle is yet-- I'd like to maybe do a straightforward review of each season to illustrate the decline, but I also have a couple potential sidequests. I'm interested in perhaps exploring some of the rumors/claims I've seen circulating in attempts to explain the season's quality, like the lawsuit that was lodged against the show a few years ago, or the theory that Ross Duffer's ex-wife was the secret mastermind behind the show. I'm always into unpacking these little bits of vibes-based pop misinformation, and I think it's something unique I could offer to the Stranger Things finale conversation. How it all fits into a video, I'm still not sure, but I'm feeling energized about curating it.

Whenever that's done, maybe it's time to finally take a trip to the world of Lifetime 'At 17' movies? I recently got a DM on Instagram pressing me about it.

Thanks for this month of support!

Files

Comments

heyitzmae

please do an analysis of conformitygate similar to your sterek one. i need to hear an analysis of it from someone who is not clinically insane

Salma Ahmed

As someone who has never watched this show but is deeply fascinated with the utter mess it has become, I am excited. Btw, what do u think of Heated Rivalry if you've watched it? there were some jokes in the pod, but what is your take on the newest fujo mass psychosis. I think it's fun but the rapid parasocial fanbase scares me, why can't we all be normal.

silybun

I remember watching the first season and thinking it was great, but I never watched subsequent seasons because I just KNEW it was going to go downhill. I feel like from the beginning there just wasn't enough substance there to stretch over several seasons.

Jane Mulcahy

See I'm not sure how much/IF to cover that stuff... I only know about it superficially and I'm not sure I can be bothered to do a deep dive lol. It's definitely wild but also feels like nothing new to me since it's SO deja vu from The Johnlock Conspiracy/any number of other 'secret unreleased ending' fandom mass hysterias. I might just touch on it briefly to note why it's not novel to me/why I think fandoms are comparable to conspiracy echo chambers lol

heyitzmae

true it’s hardly a new phenomenon but also i’ll listen to you talk about taxes. to me the interesting thing about it is that it feels reflective of stranger things kind of being the ambassador for latent tumblr fandom culture into the mainstream

Jane Mulcahy

I watched all of Heated Rivalry the other day (sick in bed, lol) and I thought it was fine! Me and Ryan are gonna discuss it for our FR patreon episode this month and I'm thinking of arranging with him to put it on my personal patreon as well since SO MANY people have asked me to talk about it. The ugly truth is, I don't even know what people want me to say about it! It's fine! Perfectly competent softcore pornography! I've heard the fandom has had some crazy moments, but such is the case with every fandom ever, and also I haven't witnessed any of it firsthand, so I'm not very interested. I guess I have some thoughts on the whole tired 'women are fetishizing gay men' argument, which I'm sure I'll get into with Ryan. But other than that, I just thought it was decent easy viewing. Much better cinema than the RWRB movie

Jane Mulcahy

that's true, it's definitely interesting that it seemingly transcended the tumblr gay shippers into GA circles!

Zoë Brauch

okay thank you for saying season 4 was also subpar, i've seen so many people saying it was a great return to form and as good as season 1 and it made me feel crazy! and then season 5 was so bad that i started to doubt myself and wonder if s4 really WAS good. it wasn't! so excited to hear your thoughts, i loved your letterboxd review for the final episode lol. unrelated but i also wanted to thank you for recommending letters to satan claus - i watched it with my partner last month and we both absolutely loved it, we can't wait to show it to all our friends next holiday season!

Jane Mulcahy

the 'season 4 is the best season since 1' delusion is maddening. there are some superficial thrills and callbacks in the season that I think fooled people into thinking it's good, but the longer it goes on the messier it gets, and worse, some of the choices in it fatally unravel the lore of the entire show (vecna was the STUPIDEST IDEA EVER!!!!)

Matt E.

The only reason I think it's slightly (extremely slightly) more understandable to me than TJLC (which admittedly I didn't realize the full extent of until the Sarah z video) is that Netflix/streamers do release things in weird ways to get buzz (eg pioneering the binge model, args, choose your own adventure episodes 3tc) in a way that it was always absolutely delusional to expect of the BBC (and also doesn't have scheduled programming that would have had to have been a lie)... But still is clearly a similar amount of cope

Clay Thornton

I’m really fascinated by this show because I think it really highlights the dangers of how TV has fallen into the dichotomy of “popcorn TV” or “prestige TV.” I feel like S1 was kind of received as prestige TV…but the show pivoted pretty quickly especially by S3. I also did not like S5 at all, but my sister keeps trying to tell me that I “expected too much” because it’s just entertainment TV at this point. Which I have seen echoed in a lot of online discourse about this series. I feel like it’s really sad that a lot of TV viewers are willing to accept bad writing just because a show doesn’t market itself as “prestige.” Idk if this is something you’re going to address but I do think the way audiences perceive the modern TV landscape has impacted how fans of the show have reacted to each season, especially this one.

kirsty

i think the decline is quality is also masked by how far the seasons are released from each other, 3 years later and without a rewatch people think the seasons before are great but mainly because they’re mixing all the memorable moments of all the seasons together and blinding saying they love every season because of the 80s vibe (even though most watchers weren’t alive anywhere near this decade). I was surprised to find out how many people loved season 3, i assume because of these factors, because i believe that to be the biggest decline of all in quality over all! yes even after season 5 because after watching the disaster that was season 4 i was not surprised by the lacklustre last season.

Amanda Halbrock

I remember the moment I realized I had lost interest in stranger things so clearly. It was in the middle of the season 4 finale where I realized I didn't care about what was happening, turned it off and never went back.

Finn

Sarah Z did a pretty nuanced and articulate breakdown of conformitygate on her Patreon.

Finn

My ranking of ST also goes 1>2>3>4>5; for me, the whole secret Russian base under the shopping mall was the shark-jumping moment. It felt like the show stopped being an authentic 80s homage and more of a Woke 1.0 show: "Look at the mayor being bribed by Russians! Isn't he just like Trump?!". IMO the base should have been run by US agents, maybe even by Dr. Kay; 'Reagan's America is it's own worst enemy' makes for a more prescient theme. S4 is a miserable mess but for Sadie Sink, and S5 is just a demented parody of S1.

Finn

And as far as divorcegate goes, I don't think the theory that the Duffers were coasting off the ideas of one of their ex-wives is fully correct, but they've always been kinda weird toward the female cast members and their post-series interview re: Eleven's fate is just ... so revealing. I reckon it's just another case of Ready-Player-One-brained white men who legitimately believe that 80s nerds are an outcast minority.

Finn

I actually didn't mind Vecna, I kinda like the idea of the alien monster having a human avatar (even though they literally already did that with Billy in S3), but like you said, they had to do a bunch of bullshit amnesia retcons to Eleven's backstory to try and make it fit.

Noa

I'm so excited to hear your takes on Stranger Things! Especially after having to suffer through this horrible final season.. I hope you recover from your illness soon!

Jane Mulcahy

Yeah omg, on my rewatch I was actually kind of taken aback by what I perceived as the conservatism of season 3! The Reaganite depiction of generic 'Russians' as these inherently evil supervillains who must want to evilly weaponize the upside down because... communism? Question mark? That and the truly CONSTANT hamfisted product placement/brand tie-ins since season 3 (they're present in 1 and 2 but still forgivably subtle) give it all a real cynical consumerist vibe.