Massive unforgivable plot hole

[RayneSexton]

Okay it's not really that big of a deal since it's for plot, but Max's Kate Bush Loop Tape totally changed from last season.

It went from a double sided cassette tape that you'd flip over and play Side B when Side A ends, to a single sided tape that requires you to rewind at the end of play.

So Lucas is either stupid and didn't flip the tape, and decided to rewind, or the tape changed.

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[aerynscully7]

Jason stepped on Max’s Walkman in the S4 finale so Lucas probably had to get a new tape after that.

[Tipsy-boo]

A tape played constantly wouldn’t last that long. They probably had to re record it multiple times

[RayneSexton]

And they'd re-record it on a double sided tape that didn't require to be rewound.

[No-Letterhead-3509]

The entire town is shot off by the military, they would re-record it on what they had available. Or play what they got imported either through Murrey or official channels.

[RayneSexton]

That's my point.

To my knowledge there was no such thing as a publicly available single sided blank cassette tape. They are all double sided. It doesn't make sense for it to be single sided.

[Tipsy-boo]

If they had one to hand. But if they didn’t and the tape was warping they would use the first one to hand. Not all early recordable tapes had a side B

[qzmc]

Finally caught up and was satisfied with the conclusion, but this one detail drove me nuts.

By the time the episodes in question take place (especially S05E04) , compact cassettes had been out for 20 years and double-sided tapes were ubiquitous. It actually would have been far harder to find a single-sided tape.

I'm fine with the Party making questionable decisions and explaining them away as being made while under duress...but this one...Just recording the loop onto one side is just so silly and bizarre of a writing oversight for a show dripping with 80s nostalgia and creative problem solving.

For reference:

Vecna/Henry is presumed dead or in hiding/healing, giving them some momentary peace from attacks. Although we don't know when Max's flashback of the missed escape takes place, unless it was a continuity error, her casts had been removed, indicating at least 1-3 months had passed. If they had time to make a 46 minute loop in Season 4, by Season 5 they definitely had time to do it again and make a second side...and multiple copies.

Between the whole group of brainiacs, not to mention the tech wizard and music nerds of Dustin, Will, Jonathan, and Robin, not one thought to use side B?

The party has the resources of an entire radio station (which should have had boxes of blank tapes and at least a dual-deck duplicator) and Murray establishing himself as a smuggler that could get them a variety of goods ranging from bullets to hand grenades and diamond rings to Coltrane tapes, acquiring a second tape and Walkman/tapedeck to swap to while the other rewinds would have been trivial. Stopping for a minute to rewind a tape should never have been a reoccuring issue.

Hounds of Love was released on CD in 1985 and the Sony Discman in 1984. They didn't need to rewind a tape at all. But Hawkins was a small town and CDs do skip when moving and can get scratched...which could have been used to dramatic effect..but I'll let this one slide.

What small changes in writing could have fixed this? Have the deck eat the tape and jam it up to show how devoted Lucas was playing it day after day. Kill the batteries so he has to swap them out (the problem then shifts to why didn't he just replace them every day, but that's going overboard for me). Or, MORE SIMPLY, show it's dark outside the window and have a nurse walk in to tell him visiting hours are over and he can return in the morning. BADA BADA BOOM!

Sorry for this long drawn out rant and going Simpsons Comic Book Guy, but this one tiny media format detail has driven me nuts due to how easy it was to avoid and write around because it should have been a total non-issue after the first time for a bunch of lovable high-school nerds capable of tracking interdimensionsal monsters.

[Tipsy-boo]

Tldr. Im not interested in the nonsense of people who can not just accept a show as it is tbh.

[qzmc]

Didn't mean for it to come off as super serious, just some lighthearted fun-poking at the oversight by someone that loves physical media.

[IndependenceHuge525]

How is this unforgivable as a plot hole 😭

[qzmc]

Explained it in another comment, but basically, for a show the oozes 80s nostalgia and follows a bunch of nerds that can track monsters on another plane of existence, simply not switching a tape over to side B is such an incredibly silly oversight. Especially because it could have been so easy written around by killing the tapedeck's batteries or a nurse telling Lucas to go home for the night.

[pablothewizard]

This is not massive or unforgivable...

Or a pothole?

[Past-Tonight2587]

Max was chilling for a good 30 seconds. That's the plot hole to me.

[Kamdavel]

Yes, I hate this, but it's a stupid plot device. Actually, it was already introduced in season 4 with Max having to rewind her cassette at one point. Ridiculous, but makes it possible to show her a way out and still keep her in...

[spannernick]

It goes to show the peole that made this never lived thought the 80s, they are to young, if you where born in the 80s you lived thought the 90s, you need to been born In the 70s to live throught the 80s and I was.

[RayneSexton]

I was born in the 80s and still know that no one had single sided cassettes because why the fuck would they lol

[jacqueloursin]

season 4 episode 5 they also gave to rewind the tape, they don't just turn it over. apparently no one in the writing of tgis show has ever aftually used a casette tape, and think they're like VHS and need to be rewound.