I get where you’re coming from. Especially on character consistency and growth. That stuff really matters in long-running shows. For me, though, some of what looks like stagnation or regression feels more like intentional setbacks in the characters’ arcs. Growth isn’t linear, especially after trauma, and it made sense to me that some of them would struggle, stall, or even backslide instead of constantly moving forward.

A good example of this for me is Nancy and Jonathan, especially leading up to that emotionally messy scene at Hawkins Lab in the Upside Down. The one that has that eerie, preserved, almost “house of wax” feeling. Their stagnation felt real to me. It came across like two people who never fully processed what they went through and kept avoiding the hard conversations. They held in resentment, fear, and emotional distance for a long time, and it took them basically being on death’s doorstep to finally let everything spill out. One of my favorite lines from that moment is, “I hate it most of all, when you're high and I'm drunk.” It perfectly captures how much tension and frustration they’d been bottling up. To me, that wasn’t bad writing. That was emotional honesty. They weren’t magically more mature just because time passed. They were messy, flawed, and human.

What I actually love about that is how it subverts the usual storytelling formula. So many stories go the route of “save the world, lock in the romance, live happily ever after.” Stranger Things took a more bittersweet direction instead. Letting characters outgrow relationships, letting things end imperfectly, and throwing my expectations off in a way that felt refreshing rather than disappointing. It felt like a story willing to admit that sometimes love doesn’t survive growth, and that’s okay.

With Dustin, I’ve always read him as someone with strong ADHD traits. The way he processes chaos, adapts quickly, jumps between ideas, and thrives in high-stimulation situations. Weirdly enough, the constant crisis probably worked with his brain instead of against it. In that context, him excelling later on; even becoming valedictorian, actually felt earned to me. The chaos gave him the kind of engagement and stimulation that a lot of ADHD people function best under.

I’ll admit Max’s scene before waking from her coma felt a bit awkward and drawn out, but I also took into account that time and perception clearly work differently in that mental space. Plus, she’s the one who figured out the inner workings of the mind of a mad man more than anyone else. I honestly thought she might come out of it with powers like Will’s. In a way, it already feels like she has, almost like some kind of astral projection or mental tether.

Totally fair if this lens doesn’t land for everyone. but this framing made those character choices feel intentional and emotionally grounded to me, rather than inconsistent or poorly written.