Review: Stranger Things, "Sorcerer" | Season 5, Episode 4

Hey free subscribers—as the first batch of Stranger Things episodes concludes, a reminder that Lily's coverage will continue through the rest of the year. To read her take on the final episode in this batch and to join the conversation on the rest of the season, become a paid subscriber.

It feels odd to start the review of a ninety-minute midseason finale by analyzing its final moments at length, but when those last few seconds clarify the entire show’s themes in such an indelible way, you don’t really have another choice. It’s time for us to talk about Will Byers, newly-minted psychic teen.

As first a casual viewer and then a critic, I’ve taken issue with the way the show’s treated Will for the vast majority of its run. In season one, of course, Will was Stranger Things’ mystery, a vanished kid trapped in a lightless, demon-haunted dimension. I went into this particular role Will played in more depth in my review of “The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler,” but the summary is that I can’t object to it; the show’s plot needed one of the kids to be kidnapped, and the rest of the cast did a good job characterizing him in his absence. 

It’s in season two that my quarrel with how Stranger Things writes Will comes to the forefront: there, he gets a small handful of episodes where he’s able to interact with other characters before he’s possessed by the Mind Flayer, once again held prisoner by the Upside Down. In seasons three and four, his contribution to the show’s supernatural plot is to have the back of his neck prickle occasionally. In his protracted absence, his friends have grown up around him. He’s a perpetual outsider whose greatest utility is his ability to be acted upon by various Big Bads, an object rather than a subject in a friend group full of active protagonists. He often feels like an afterthought to the show’s writing team, a character included more out of obligation than actual interest.