The tragic deaths in Stranger Things are almost mythic at this point.
There's at least one character demise per season that completely destroys us, from Barb's untimely kidnapping by the Demogorgon and Bob Newby's savage mutilation by the Demodogs to Joseph Quinn's Eddie's tragic death by bat most recently in season 4, arguably contributing massively to Quinn's current status as a Hollywood superstar.
So as Stranger Things 5 airs, fans are all dreading whose favourite character will be next on the chopping block. But theres a Stranger Things death that I think needs to come before any other – the tired love triangle between Steve “The Hair” Harrington (Joe Keery), Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton). What started out as a rather compelling decision between popular jock vs deep-yet-maybe-a-bit-creepy loner for priss-turned-kind-of-badass Nancy is now just annoying.
“I'm not sexualising him, I just find him very attractive.”
I had the honour of watching the first episode of the new season (plus the first shocking few minutes of episode 2) at the Stranger Things 5 premiere earlier this month, and a matter of minutes into the much-awaited new instalment, I found myself beyond irritated at Steve and Jonathan STILL sniffing around bloody Nancy. Don't worry, no spoilers ahead, just a much-needed rant about an extremely played-out love triangle trope…
We see it in an amusing-if-completely-juvenile race up an electrical power tower to fix an outage. We see it in a (no way innocent but definitely illicit) hand brush between Nancy and Steve while they cook up their latest plan to defeat the evil waiting in the Upside Down. Steve and Jonathan are then thrown together at the last minute for their latest mission, which is clearly awkward for them both as they are (after over nine years and five seasons) in love with the same girl.
My question is: why is this love triangle still a thing? And can it please die a Stranger Things-related horrific death already? As the franchise is set to end, I'd like to see all three characters with a better ending than this petty, uninteresting emotional tug of war.
Of course, Nancy and Jonathan's relationship has taken a few hits, from having to go long distance for season 4, not to mention their differing preferences for college that they seem to have an inability to communicate to each other. But does that mean we regress, and give Nancy and Steve an ending that could be far better for both characters if they moved forward with their lives, instead of backward?
The draw of the on-screen love triangle isn't a unique or particularly new dynamic. This year alone, Celine Song's Materialists saw Dakota Johnson's character Lucy choose between an old (problematic) love in Chris Evans' John and her wealthy “perfect match”, played by Pedro Pascal, Harry. Perhaps most significant, though, was the epic finale of The Summer I Turned Pretty, which saw Lola Tung's Belly finally choose between two love interests, brothers Conrad and Jeremiah.
Fans are clearly mad for a “torn between two lovers” storyline packed with yearning and stolen looks. It's a well-worn onscreen dynamic, the most successful of which includes Twilight's Team Edward and Team Jacob saga, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett's clashing romantic antics in Pearl Harbour, Dawson's Creek, The Vampire Diaries, the list goes on. We love to ship, we love to compare – but enough is enough. This isn't how Stranger Things should end for these characters. The stakes are the highest they've ever been this season, with the very fate of the world at stake as Vecna attempts to rip it to shreds. Which renders the cataclysmic decision of who Nancy might choose to snog next rather anticlimactic, and maybe even redundant.
The significance of Nancy's relationship with both men is admittedly a thread that has run through the entirety of the show, yes, but I'd argue we don't actually have any new areas to explore now. We are doing all three characters a disservice by just harping back and forth between two (rather played-out) endgames: Nancy and Steve or Nancy and Jonathan. There's been repeated references to “shared trauma” between Nancy and Jonathan, the reason why they connect – but that definitely applies to all three members of the triangle. They all deserve better than to end up with a person merely because they almost died beside them… If they all survive the final season, that is.
On the bus home from the premiere, myself and some fellow journalists (read: Stranger Things superfans) set up a specific post-event WhatsApp chat to vent our thoughts and we came to a consensus. The best outcome, for Nancy in particular, is to “end up” with neither love interest. Her entire arc throughout the series has been about discovering who she really is, and that doesn't actually need to be with a man. Especially when the literal apocalypse is unfolding around her.
So unless Jonathan and Steve want to consent to some form of a throuple to spice things up, let's just kill off this rather dull love triangle ASAP, please?
