All About Steve -- STRANGER THINGS

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SEASONS 1 & 2 OF STRANGER THINGS

Just like most of you, I devoured the second season of Stranger Things in a matter of hours and am now dealing with an epic hangover full of feels. There is very little in this world I'm not cynical about, but Stranger Things has a way of bashing down every one of my walls with thumping synth bass and homegrown nostalgia. If you're anything like me, you've already discovered the wealth of essays and thinkpieces online explaining all the many ways in which the show is so damn perfect, so there's no need to repeat the obvious power it has over its viewers. But it's not just about the inversion of tropes and fantastic music that sets Stranger Things so high in the ranks of great television--it's the characters.

At the end of the day, all these pitch-perfect 80's references wouldn't matter much if the people living within them were just as pastiche. And Stranger Things' greatest strength lies in that magic formula of the familiar turning into something new, just like childhood itself. That magic makes watching something as simple as a bunch of kids riding their bikes and sniping at each other over D&D lore a joyful experience--a vibrant feeling of nostalgia for our own childhoods as well as an almost parental pride in watching these kids grow up.

Even characters that start out as cliches slowly become something else entirely unexpected: ballet-pink Nancy realizes she is secretly a badass, known nutcase Joyce turns out to be seeing more clearly than the entire police department, and Scumbag Steve transforms into the world's greatest babysitter.

I need this Funko figure.

Steve is one of those characters that, when you're discussing the show with a group, the very mention of his name causes the whole crowd to stop and spit and scoff and say "Steeeeve" with such utter contempt that no further commentary is necessary. It was one of the absolute truths of Season One: Will Byers is trapped in a parallel dimension, the government is in on it, Hopper is not to be fucked with, and we all hate Steve.

Like anyone, I had a lot of feelings about Steve from the beginning, mostly negative. My first time watching the show, it was instant, intense hatred for this poofy-haired, over-confident King Shit who was really bad at interpreting the word "no." He was in every way the asshole we all knew from high school, some swaggering peacock that would only look your way if he wanted to fight or to fuck. So as much as the show calls to mind all the wonderful things from childhood, Steve served as a reminder of a lot of the crappy ones. This hatred for Steve soon dulled into mild irritation, as I was assured that soon enough he would be punished for his sins, hopefully by way of getting gobbled up by an interdimensional beast.

But then something happened: Steve got his ass severely kicked.

It was glorious.

After this severe spanking to his ego, Steve's more human side begins to emerge. He sees the error of his ways with surprising sincerity and immediately begins trying to turn things around, starting with cleaning up his slut-shaming graffiti about Nancy. It's this moment that beautifully illustrates the beginning of Steve's redemption: he made a big bombastic display of his hurt feelings for the whole town to see, only to realize how immature and hurtful it was towards a girl he genuinely cares about. Now he has to clean up his mess, and it's not coming out easily. For once, his popularity and charm will do him no good. He really needs to scrub in order to erase this mistake.

He follows this up by going to Jonathan's house and apologizes for his general shittiness with nearly frantic humility, only to stumble into a house full of booby traps and a very pissed off monster. And it was at this exact moment that Stranger Things busted through my last remaining wall of cynicism and I began to fall helplessly in love with Steve Harrington.

My thoughts exactly.

The Duffer Brothers recently revealed that Steve as a character was exactly the hollow douche he appeared to be until Joe Keery auditioned for the role. They said that his natural charisma and likeability instantly changed the way Steve was written, and you can see it as early as the very first episode if you really look for it. Joe is able to show through subtle expressions and delivery that some of his more dicktastic moments are tinged with just the slightest flicker of discomfort. Perfect example--when Steve casually destroys Jonathan's camera in what is ostensibly a defense of his lady's honor but in reality is just a dick move, you can see in his body language how instantly he regrets it. But, ever the tough guy, ever the King Shit, he walks away before his guilty conscience can chime in.

See, the thing with Scumbag Steve is that he is a scumbag because that is what he feels he is supposed to be. He grew up wealthy, he knows his way around a can of mousse, and he "kinda looks like" that guy from Risky Business (yeah, sure Steve), so he poises himself be That Guy. That Guy gets all the ladies. That Guy beats down anyone that steps to him. No one says "no" to That Guy. Maybe the reason we are so inherently bitter towards Steve in Season One is because we can sense that he's just a big phony. All that swagger, all that posturing--it's all fake, merely a performance of the kind of guy Steve thinks he should be. And for all intents and purposes, it's been working for him quite well, up until he begins courting Nancy Wheeler.

The full scope on my feelings for Nancy are for another blog, because I have a lot to say about how damn proud I am of my girl (actually, I probably have enough material gathered up in my head to write long-winded, overly emotional thinkpieces for every single character in the cast), but for our purposes today, let's focus on the profound effect she has on breaking down the thick layer of sleaze that coats Steve in Season One.

From the jump, Nancy is not swayed by Steve's usual tactics of seduction--you know, those old romantic gestures of shoving a girl up against the bathroom wall and interpreting a cancelled date as an invitation to sneak in her bedroom window. To his credit, for all his rapey vibes in the beginning, Steve does catch on pretty quick that Nancy is different from his former conquests, and what starts out as just another notch on his bedpost quickly slides into something more sincere. Nancy's sweetness and genuine decency begins to chip away at Steve's need to look cool in front of his friends, and when she blows him off to hang out with outcast Jonathan Byers, it is both an unexpected blow to his ego and a wake up call that maybe being a dick to everyone isn't the best way to show that you care.

But this is still gross.

The end of Season One shows Steve blissfully happy to be snuggled up with Nancy in his Christmas sweater watching It's a Wonderful Life with her folks, while she listlessly stares off in the distance, leaving us questioning just how long this relationship can last. Season Two wasted little time in answering us, since the second episode ends with Nancy drunkenly revealing her true feelings about their seemingly perfect union: "It's all bullshit."

To be fair, he had it coming. You do not fuck with a girl's white sweater.

As if this wasn't enough, Steve also has to tangle with new psycho in town Billy, who is aiming to be the new king of the senior class. If Steve was tempted to go back to his old ways after being dumped, any attraction quickly sours with seeing the ugliness that radiates from Billy and all his unhinged alpha male aggression. Heartbroken and humiliated, Steve is left to stumble around with a new identity that has made him a more decent person but causes him to lose his place within the high school food chain. Seeing no other option than to return to the only good thing he knows, he goes to her house to try to reconcile. But instead of finding Nancy, he runs into Dustin who says he needs the assistance of a certain bat armed with rusty nails, and suddenly, everything falls into place.

Scumbag Steve becoming Babysitter Steve is one of the most magnificent transformations of a character I've ever seen. It's on par with Jaime Lannister going from an incestuous bloodthirsty prick to a one-handed man of honor. In a season that seemed to pride itself on attempting new team-ups between characters, this one is the last thing you see coming and one of the most delightful surprises of a show that aims to shock. As much as I love Hopper being Eleven's new dad, there is little that compares to the feels of watching Steve and Dusty walk down the railroad tracks talking about girls.

And the benefits of quality hair care products.

If you're one of the non-believers that chalked up Steve's heroics at the end of Season One as merely an attempt to win back his girlfriend, then Season Two should put that shallow read to rest. Once again, Steve is inadvertently dragged into a second encounter with the Demogorgan(s), but this time it is undoubtedly selfless. He willingly puts himself in danger to help--and then fiercely protect--a bunch of kids that shouldn't mean anything to him. Not only does he square off against a gang of literal monsters, but he even throws himself in front of the testosterone-fueled freight train that is Billy when he comes looking for his stepsister. When he wakes up from his severe ass-whooping in a car being driven by a thirteen-year-old, he has one of the most fantastic freak-outs put to film. And come on, tell me you didn't get chills watching him swing that bat again like a goddamn superstar.

Come at me, bro.

Nancy's influence certainly contributed to Steve's metamorphosis, but ultimately, it does not define him. Because for all the softening the love of a good woman can do to a hard man, it is obligation and responsibility--these moments that we are sometimes accidentally thrust into--that reveal who we truly are. And, surprise, Steve reveals that not only is he a good person, but also the King Shit he always tried to be, only in a different way than anything he could have prepared for.

Stranger Things is that rare perfect show, striking the balance between exploiting our nostalgia and expanding upon it, teasing out unique perspectives on old tropes while introducing us to rich characters who are both comfortingly familiar and refreshingly new. But Steve Harrington stands out among this wonderful cast by becoming something entirely unexpected: a hero.