Without any hyperbole- the TV show Stranger Things is beyond words.
What makes the series beyond words is that it doesn't just capture the feeling of having friends, but when watching, it’s actually having friends. This friendship between the viewer and the characters is equal to a real-world friendship. The verisimilitude between the screen and show's world isn't an appearance of truth; but is truth. For a TV series to be so meaningful where it forms connection beyond verisimilitude is something beyond words, as its more genuine than the real world.
Stranger Things' friendship isn't shallow, where people become friends with each other because their the same age, attend the same school/college, live near another, or for a different circumstantial reason. In a sense, friendships where organizations or social structures push a person to become friends with a specific other. In contrast, Stranger Things is a real friendship, as when watching it, the viewer is with it. Through the viewer's bond with the characters, they feel life's indescribable feelings.
The characters experience the indescribable feeling when something in life has ended or is gonna end soon. This indescribablity is connected to a multitude of complex thoughts and other feelings, though there isn't a word which defines it. It's not a word or a phrase, but an entity in recalling memories, past experiences, or imagining never had experiences.
The series finale's epilogue shares how real friends handle farewells. Not crying, but they feel a heart-sinking loss beginning at the moment of saying goodbye, with the friends believing what's happening isn't a bad thing. Their quietness toward their farewell isn't because they've had a bad friendship or one ended one badly. However, the word or words to describe their quietness and heart-sinking can't be found or put together as it is also indescribable. This heart-sinking moment is a reminder of how potent the series has always been. The entire series makes you believe powerfully that the characters are real friends who care deeply for each other. This powerful moment equals reality: when something ends, you start questioning everything and feel a firm sense of nothingness.
When the finale ends, the same heart-sinking feeling the characters have is shared with the viewer. They may not be crying or close to crying, even though they were crying at other moments throughout the series. This thesis is for the complete series: when the characters are broken, the viewer's reach to them is that of a real friend.
Friendship is conveyed through the characters' friendship and their time together. Their interactions and seeing their challenges through together, and how circumstances push them into positions that they don't directly target. It's not an escape from real life as a new real life where people empathize with those they've never met.
At the end of the final season's sixth episode, "Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz", the characters Max and Holly, trapped in a place inside the villain's mind, must part ways to return to the physical world. This scene begins with an arrangement of "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush; however, instead of using drumbeats during the song's drumbeat section, this arrangement uses piano keys. Piano plays as Max tells Holly to find her own way back by finding something special to herself, a special thing which makes her feel safe, strong, hopeful, and connected. A powerful and meaningful special thing that the viewer can feel in their heart. When Holly settles on her special thing, a figurine from her older brother Mike, the song reaches its synth movement, but instead the arrangment plays it with bowed string instruments. Elementary school-aged Holly doesn't understand the concept of purposefulness, and how her figurine can have it. Here Max asks Holly why she always carries her figurine. Holly replies because Mike told her that whenever she's scared, she can just "become" the figurine, and she keeps trying, but it never works. As Holly's replies with tears, the arrangement begins using choral vocals. Holly now tells Max that she could only stand still as her mother was attacked, and then later when Max was attacked, saying "there's nothing heroic about her" . Max replies, "There's nothing you could do in those moments". Max tells Holly she's smart and faces danger bravely, and how her figurine basically embodies all these strengths. The two hug, part ways, and the scene concludes with Max and Holly both running towards the portal to the physical world, all as the arrangment plays. As the vocals hum, the viewer feels the emotional and psychological experiences of another human being.
This is another way Stranger Things is a real friend beyond words, because its real. It has one of the most intense bodily experiences watching a movie or TV show. When the previous episode, "Chapter Five: Shock Jock", ends, the viewer is so engrossed in the story that they experience the same shocks as the characters in those moments. The parts where Max almost dies as her EKG flatlines; Will drops down after tapping into Vecna's mind'; Steve and Dustin fighting in the Upside Down; and maybe most of all, seeing Dustin desperately try to reach Nancy and Jonathan, calling them not to shoot at what they believe as the shield generator, and Nancy, herself even unsure, putting her finger on her gun's trigger, loaded bullet, ready to shoot. These parts build sensations of panic, terror, excitement, stress, and anxiety burning in the viewer, proving that Stranger Things really is having friends.
The show connects so powerfully, without using chemicals or being a real-world event. There's no real-life to make the viewer feel stressed and care deeply about the characters. Being a work of art so powerful that those witnessing it care more about its characters than some real-world people they've known for longer is only a piece of what makes Stranger Things "beyond words". If a work of art is so powerful that it can make you care about its characters even more than some people you've known longer than in the real world, it isn't. It's not an escape from real life so much as a new real life where you can empathize with people you've never met. From just these parts, the show brings out feelings; this verisimilitude is powerful, as the emotions are sometimes more potent than in the real world. Since the characters are your friends, you feel for them at their most stressful and most terrifying. You know the characters like they're actually your friends, so watching them in these moments of stress. The work connects so deeply, without using chemicals or reminders that it's a real-world event, making you feel stressed or care about the characters.
