Back When Eggos Could Save the World

If Netflix posts its new shows at 12:01am on the day of their release, then I am 3 hour and 52 minutes from RIGHT NOW until Stranger Things Season 2 is released.  I know it's late October, but I've still been hoping for a freak snowstorm or a hurricane that made travel highly dangerous but injured no humans or pets so that I could have a day off work and sit home to do nothing but watch TV.  Sadly--and unsurprisingly, since we're a little on the outs--Mother Nature did not comply.  I will have to go to work and serve the taxpayer for either eight hours or as much time as I can stand to wait.  So in honor of Stranger Things, please indulge me while I fangirl out a little bit and explain all the reasons why it's Netflix's greatest accomplishment to date.

1) The title logo is pretty much a dead ringer for all things Star Wars.  That's enough right now.

2) Good beats evil.  You know why?  Because in 1983, when the show is set, that's what happened in movies.  The Rebel Alliance, Indiana Jones, and the kids in E.T. all won over faceless bureaucratic drones who sought self-aggrandizement at the expense of apple pie, freedom, and all that is pure in this world.

3) One of the main heroes is actually a heroine who can humiliate bullies and kill evil adults with her mind and gunslinging gaze.  And That. Is. Awesome.

4) You know that if Police Office (Sheriff?) Hopper had been in The Goonies, where he belonged, he would have been on the Goonies' side, no question asked.  

5) The 1980s apparently were simpler.  I was alive in 1983, but my primary goals included learning how to speak intelligibly and navigate the Big Girl Potty, so my memories are unreliable.  But apparently there was a time--in my lifetime--when you could blame unexpected absences on car trouble, extra homework or staying over at a friends' house, and the utter lack of cell phones meant that people would trust what you said.  Without cell phones, they had no other choice except living in perpetual anger, distrust, and disgruntlement, and that special set of circumstances was being preserved for life in 21st century Washington DC.  

6) According to every promo out there, the new season will be set around Halloween of Year 0, aka 1984, aka The Year Ghostbusters was released.  It's going to be about kids.  Being friends.  Fighting evil monsters and evil grown-ups.  Dressed like Venkman and Spengler.  OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!   

Yes, I'm jealous.

7) Mostly, Stranger Things is about friendship, the last days of feeling un-self-conscious childhood, and finding more within yourself than you ever dreamed possible.  I like Stranger Things essentially for the same reasons I like It.  Because sometimes kids and friends and monsters and good cops and devoted parents and clear boundaries are just the way the world should be.

THREE HOURS AND 32 MINUTES!!!!!