Narm / Stranger Things

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• In "Holly, Jolly", we get a flashback of Eleven being forced to use her powers on a cat. While it makes a variety of noises, the cat makes one very common stock yowl, usually seen in cartoons and comedies, which can pull you out of the otherwise tense scene.
• Some of Will's monologues in Season 2 about the Upside-Down and the Mind Flayer feel very stilted and theatrical, as opposed to the more naïve and childlike naturalism of the other child actors. At times, he sounds like a thirty-year-old stage actor inside a twelve-year-old's body.
• "The Mind Flayer" lingers ominously on Bob having left his gun behind, but between the Demodogs' bullet resistance and Bob barely knowing which end to point, it's obvious to the viewers it's useless to him anyway and comes off a bit silly. (In retrospect, the point may be to show he's lacking vital situational awareness that he'd forget it, but that's not apparent in the moment.)
• A huge amount of tension is built around Will fighting the Mind Flayer's possession to give a message to the other heroes... Which turns out to be that they should close the gate they already knew full well was the cause of everything.
• While Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown continue to do a stellar job in portraying the relationship between Mike and Eleven in Season 2, "The Gate" occasionally saddles the former with some very cheesy lines that sound more like something from a cliched romance film than something a kid would say.
• During Billy and Steve's fight in "The Gate", Billy breaks a plate over Steve's head. While it's likely meant to highlight just how insane Billy has gone in the moment, it comes off a bit like something out of Looney Tunes.
• The first couple episodes of Season 3 really can't make up their mind on how normally Eleven can speak now. Thankfully, this clears up for the rest of the season.
• Grigori's resemblance to the Terminator seems like a nice homage, until you rewatch previous seasons and see that the actual film exists in the Stranger Things universe. The end result makes it seem like he is deliberately channeling The Ahnold in an attempt to be trendy.
• Cary Elwes does a fine job as the slimy mayor Larry Kline, but his reaction to Hopper breaking his nose stands out as hilarious in an otherwise intense scene. His delivery is definitely what sells it.

  Larry: MY NOSE! YOU BROKE MY GODDAMN NOSE!

• Will still has his bowl cut in Season 4, even though he's long since grown too old (both in and out of universe) for it to look anything but daft.
• Eleven beating Angela with a roller skate is treated as a shocking assault and compared to her apparently massacring the test subjects at the lab, which can be hard to take seriously as it's far from the most violent thing she's done. The build-up to this moment, with her menacingly walking after Angela with ominous close-up shots of the skate in her hand, is also rather overdramatic, and is almost played like she was going to kill her.
  • Just to drive home the point, in the following episode, Angela is being helped by paramedics (as if her injuries were life-threatening) and every person in the roller rink is crowded around, gaping at the scene.
• Hopper's daring escape attempt from the Russian gulag seems to forget Hop is just supposed to be a small-town sheriff, since he spontaneously gains superhuman-level pain resistance and immunity to cold weather. For a start, he breaks his own ankle only to continue walking, running, and even landing on it without expressing any discomfort, not even a limp, then later travels quite far through snow without any footwear. He's still not given any, even when captured again, and continues to never express discomfort over conditions that should have led to him losing his feet to frostbite.
• The big reveal that Vecna is Henry Creel/001 can be a little hard to take seriously when you realise he's delivering a dramatic, eloquent Motive Rant to an eight year old child. And when they reunite years later, he gives another rant about what he's been doing since then.
• Vecna can use telekinesis, so the shot of him carrying Max over one shoulder is hard to take seriously.
• The scene where Will delivers a speech about being different to Mike and then turns away and starts crying fits into this trope. It's a sad moment for Will and his struggle to accept his sexuality, but it has become a meme. Many fans were especially confused at the fact that Mike couldn't see Will obviously crying right next to him.

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