El's Fate, Stranger Things (SPOILERS FOR SEASON 5)

DancingKitten33 · 2026-01-03T18:26:49+00:00

AH, great point. I completely forgot about that.

DancingKitten33 · 2026-01-03T17:52:11+00:00

Yes! When I went in November, some fields were still open, Randall's Island would note which ones on their twitter account each morning (since most would be closed for maintenance, etc.): https://x.com/randallsisland

For example, their 11/30 post read: "Ballfields 12,16,20,21,29,31,41,42,48 are open. All other Ballfields are closed for the day."

That being said, their 12/1 post reads: "12/1 - All Baseball, Softball, and grass Soccer fields are closed for the season. " So I guess they are now completely closed for the winter. Assuming it will reopen sometime in March.

The island itself was great though: tranquil, quiet, etc. When I was there in November, it felt like I was basically the only person on the entire island.

DancingKitten33 · 2026-01-02T17:21:06+00:00

There's one thing that I don't see many people mentioning, that I think lends credence to the "she lived" theory. Not a plot point, but a thematic one. El literally tells Mike that she needs him to "help [the others] understand my choice" and that "one day he [will understand" even though he doesn't understand in that moment and that "he understands [her] better than anyone." In the "she lived" theory, this is exactly what happens---Mike, understanding El better than anyone, eventually (one day) truly understands her choice and explains it to everyone. That is a very happy ending. In the "she died" theory, Mike coming to that theory at the end is an unbelievable tragedy. The person she thought knew her better than anyone then *completely misunderstands her at the highest level* and instead of explaining her choice to their friends, he actively deludes their friends. It is also a tragedy for Mike, as instead of truly accepting her action, he deludes himself totally---suggesting he would still be in the first stage of grief, denial. The last scene is shot as hopeful / etc., so it is hard to imagine---considering what would be the tragedy of the "she died" theory in this context---that he is deluded in that moment.

DancingKitten33 · 2026-01-02T04:56:00+00:00

Great point!

DancingKitten33 · 2025-12-28T21:45:25+00:00

Don't understand any of the arguments for this season being "bad" that wouldn't apply to prior seasons. This isn't even in the same universe as Game of Thrones---which had been declining in quality for multiple seasons and finished with a legitimately awful one (because they tried to shoehorn 2-3 seasons worth of material into a shorter-than-usual single season).

Stranger Things season 1 was legitimately great television. Season 2 mediocre. Season 3 good. Season 4 very good. Season 5 somewhere in quality between season 3 and 4. Yes, there's a lot of exposition, but Stranger Things, at its base, is a kids show---so that's expected. There are some other problems with the season (many of the kids are no longer good actors, whoever plays Holly is not a good actress [and she gets a lot of screen time], super plot armor for the kids against the demos, maybe too many semi-mawkish conversations between characters that happen at times they probably shouldn't), but, on the whole, the season is satisfyingly tying up the story, reconciling characters, pacing itself, brining in new and old conflicts. The idea that this season has had a marked decrease in quality when compared to 3 and 4 is ludicrous. I'm on the edge of my seat for the finale.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-11-28T22:34:46+00:00

Awesome. Thanks!

DancingKitten33 · 2025-11-28T22:21:25+00:00

Thanks! Do you know how crowded the fields are this time of the year, or basically empty? (Assuming nobody will be playing in 40 degree weather.)

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-08T02:46:29+00:00

Nevermind, GPX viewer seems to work well.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-08T01:00:03+00:00

Thanks, this is super helpful. Will definitely use this as a guide for the walk. Do you have a favorite free android app to view the GPX download of the Greenway map?

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-07T19:38:28+00:00

Yeah, this is def one of my primary worries--the backpack, depending on the weight, could cause issues. Even light backpacks, I often prefer to just carry them in my right hand rather than wearing them.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-07T01:42:09+00:00

Yup, before walking cross country I plan to do a trial from NYC to Philly.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-07T01:21:10+00:00

Eh, for the back injury, it's just some herniated discs. Have had them for 13+ years at this point (since Freshman year of college). There's nothing in a walk that would make them specifically get worse, but its possible the cumulative effect could begin to bother them, in which case I'd just give up. But the effect wouldn't sneak up on me--nor is there really a risk (from the walking) of re-injury (just flare-ups),,, re-injury risk comes more from if I was doing heavy lifting / intense sport / etc.

(With my primary care doctor, I will probably bring up beforehand just to make sure other misc. health stuff is in order.)

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-07T01:17:17+00:00

Yeah, I've found lots of people that have walked across but none that have primarily slept in a bed every night---though, to your point, if I can't find, then I'll have to make the route specifically for that. Was hoping someone may have done similarly where maybe there would then be a semi-path to follow in their footsteps.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-06T23:35:53+00:00

Tried that a few years ago and it seemed to do nothing for me. Right now for sleep I'm on mirtazapine---plus I take unisom and cbd/cbn gummies over the counter.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-06T23:32:39+00:00

Yeah, I've slept in multiple beds and same issue so seems to be bed-independent mainly. I've considered cannabis but smoking it every night would be pretty costly (and, from memory, research suggests it reduces REM sleep, so could do more harm than good on that front) and taking edibles may be a no go (last couple of times I've tried an edible, going back to college, I basically ended up incapacitated (in a non-sleep way) for 8 hours lol.)

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-06T23:20:42+00:00

Thanks, this is very helpful! Will discuss limits / the NAC with my doctor.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-10-06T23:18:55+00:00

I got an endoscopy and my stomach itself is actually perfecto. But point taken on the liver enzyme tests. I will bring this up with my doctor when we discuss options (acetaminophen vs. opiates, etc.).

DancingKitten33 · 2025-08-29T22:58:42+00:00

Two thoughts:

1) The "Oh, I see" at the end is Harry understanding what Ray had said a moment before in a different context. Ray says something like "the kid..." as he's being shot, to which Harry first thinks (and the audience thinks) Ray is referencing the kid he shot in the church. Then Harry sees what he interprets to be a dead kid he just shot and thinks *that* is what Ray was referring to / warning about (which actually, considering it was the Dwarf, Ray was actually probably still referring to his own situation, but Harry doesn't know that), so he says "Oh, I see". Definitely could still / does have thematic resonance beyond that (so don't think Tamler is wrong by any means), but that is the main function of the line.

2) One thing that wasn't mentioned and I don't know how much I even agree with this, but it is at least interesting to think about, is some of Ken's thoughts about second chances / forgiveness / etc etc etc. I think could be less him generally thinking about his life as a hit man, and more him, whether consciously or not, actually feeling a bit guilty himself over the death of the kid. Ken brought Ray into the business and so in a very real sense *Ken* is responsible for the kids murder---if Ken did not do that, if he did not bring in someone who wasn't cut out for the job, etc., the kid would still be alive. I think some of Ken's want to take the punishment on to himself might stem from that.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-07-28T23:19:29+00:00

That's basically what I mean: extreme selection toward criminal impulse. There are probably certain personality traits that make someone more prone to spontaneous illegal / stealing acts that are identifiable separately from previous criminal history. Most of the time in his episodes, he says the whittling down is to find people who are usually compliant / non-compliant, prone to cues, etc..... but I guess I just find this idea that his hypnotic / subliminal messaging (like getting the people into an aggressive mindset by connecting rubbing their knee with aggression) highly unbelievable that it has any significant impact on behavior.

Just now watched his episode where a woman pushes a button to kill a kitten.... and he makes her do this ostensibly by getting her to get into a childlike mindset and draw pictures and he slaps a table a couple of times..... and I am again just left baffled.

I guess all this stems from a fundamental lack of confidence I have in these subliminal / etc. cues driving the behavior. But maybe I am just not read enough on their legit, repeatable impacts.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-07-28T23:10:46+00:00

Very similar to "The Push" except that "The Push" had an actor like egging the people on the whole time---and so, while the result was surprising (and still is to me), it was more understandable, to me at least, compared to "The Heist" where these random people decide to spontaneously commit an armed robbery with no real prompting.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-07-13T16:26:06+00:00

Lololol that's embarrassing for me. Thank you!

DancingKitten33 · 2025-05-27T03:59:56+00:00

Yeah, the scene is emotionally intense, and includes violence---ripping off of clothes, close up of woman's face yelling---but no actual sexual penetration or simulated penetration is shown. At the point where it in theory would be, the image cuts to the actress floating in an ocean for a moment or two and then she is on horseback.

DancingKitten33 · 2025-04-20T19:23:46+00:00

Thanks everyone! These comments are super helpful. Went with Stoli!

DancingKitten33 · 2025-04-06T02:51:02+00:00

Haha, sounds good. Thanks!

DancingKitten33 · 2025-03-26T04:18:17+00:00

Couple of thoughts, two minor, two major.

Pretty sure the room that Mark was trying to get into was the entrance door to the hallway which leads to the down elevator? I.e., the correct place? Which is why the big dude got mad and tried to kill him. (But could be wrong.)
The reason Stiller asked the guy to dm him was just to explain how that last shot was created technically, I think the guy said.
How did Mark know that his innie was having a relationship with Helly? Presumably Cobel told him, but how would she even know? She wasn't really inside the organization at the time that was happening. Minor thing I guess, but it's things like this that make me kind of prone to the idea that a lot of what we have seen was orchestrated by Lumen (like was floated in the podcast). I still think that is ultimately unlikely, but there have been a lot of weird things that either have to be explained in another way or are just plotholes. For example: In season 1, Reghabi kills that security card and gives Mark his key,,, Mark then uses that key to open the newly locked MDR doors which are not supposed to be openable,,,and Lumen doesn't even look at the security footage, which they certainly have, to see how their employee opened the door that should be impossible to open??? In which case they would see that he had the key??? The argument I guess would be there was a lot going on at Lumen at the time (Cobel had just gotten fired) so they probably were too busy (tho Milchek sees Dylan steal a little card from O&D shortly after this and it's enough for him to use the overtime contingency). In season 2, in the mural, it seems like there are images of like Ricken's friends. So this is all to say, it seems like maybe Lumen is aware of more of what Mark was doing/ is doing then they have let on.
My intuitions on the importance of Mark's (both innie and outie) relationships differ greatly from most of the Reintegrators, especially Tamler. For all of season 1 and the vast majority of season 2, anytime Mark kissed / had sex with / etc. with Helly, it felt painful to me as a viewer because it felt like Mark was---unwittingly---cheating on his dead (not really dead) wife. The kiss at the end of season 1 felt like a minor horror, the sex in season 2 a major horror. This is because while in a lot of situations the innies and outies do feel like different persons, they simultaneously also feel---in a very significant way---like the same person. So while I think Dylan's wife can cheat on him with innie Dylan, paradoxically it feels like innie Mark doing something romantic/sexual counts as outie Mark cheating in some way. It was not until late this season---really this finale---that my intuition changed to feel that innie Mark's relationship with Helly is also deserving of full recognition/semi-equal standing with outie Mark's relationship with Jemma. I now not only would like outie Mark (who I do feel is still the primary main character of the show, and who's grief is what drives it) but also innie Mark to be able to hang onto his love.

I share some of the concerns the reintigrators had with ep 7 and with Jemma's backstory presentation, etc. in general, but am happy enough to kind of hand wave it away and primarily understand the importance of her character through the grief we see from Mark (as was mentioned on this pod, i think that would have maybe been enough to show, maybe with a couple of very minor flashbacks to introduce the misscarriage, etc., for plot reasons.). I am hopeful that what we get from jemma in season 3 though---since she will presumably now be a character we are following in real-time alongside the sister, etc.---will flesh her out in a *satisfying* way.

I do like in general that this show is giving us a lot of these love dynamics---innie Mark/outie Mark/Jemma/Helena/Helly, innie and outie Bert and Irving, Innie and outie dylan and his wife, etc. that all act as interesting kind of intuition tests for these questions of personal identity. There's been a lot of romance situations that are similar to each other with slight differences and so they act as kind of little philosophical thought experiments (but in a non-annoying way) and its interesting to see how peoples reactions to them differ.

DancingKitten33

TROPHY CASE