Heading into the first season of Stranger Things: Tales from '85, we knew that the show would not feature the deaths of any main characters from the original series. After all, while the show would be telling a new story, Stranger Things: Tales from '85 was described as being set between seasons 2 and 3 of Stranger Things and described as being canon, meaning the show is officially part of the continuity of the franchise.
This created a unique viewing experience for Stranger Things fans who entered each new season of the live-action series worried about whether any fan-favorite characters would die during the events of the season. Rather than going into the season worried about who would or would not survive, we knew that Eleven and the gang would all make it out of Stranger Things: Tales from '85 alive.
Knowing that the core group of Stranger Things characters from the live-action show would be safe, fans went into the show knowing that any character deaths would be connected to the new characters introduced in Stranger Things: Tales from '85. Honestly, we even went into the show expecting that many of the new characters would not survive, as it would help to explain why they played no role in Stranger Things.
Sadly, though, Stranger Things: Tales from '85 continued a frustrating trend from Stranger Things with high-stake situations and few actual life-or-death consequences.
Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 has more fake-out deaths than actual deaths
Although we knew Stranger Things: Tales from '85 would not feature any major character deaths, there was still the question of whether any of the newly introduced main characters would be in danger – or even some of the side characters introduced to round out the animated show’s ensemble. Right out of the gate in the premiere, it looked like the show was going to take some big swings with character deaths.
In the first episode, we see the pair of bullies chasing after Dustin get attacked by the series’s new monster, and we jump to the understandable conclusion that the pair of bullies had been killed by the monster. We come to learn over the course of the episodes that followed that the two boys were not killed, with their death scenes being nothing more than fake-outs.
The same was true for Dustin’s crush Rosario, who appeared to be killed by a monster in Episode 3, only for us to learn minutes later that she was very much still alive and her death was also a fake-out.
The only deaths that actually seemed to stick across the stretch of episodes were the deaths of Old Man Plow and Daniel Fischer. Though, we never did see their bodies, and as Stranger Things has taught us, this means there is a chance they might not be as dead as we thought either.
While we didn’t expect or want to see a high body count, it was frustrating to see Stranger Things: Tales from '85 continue Stranger Things’ trend of relying on fake-out deaths for shock value rather than actually following through with the deaths of key characters.
It would have been nice to see Stranger Things: Tales from '85 actually follow through with the deaths of the supporting characters rather than undermining itself at every turn by revealing that the presumed dead characters weren’t dead after all. This was a running issue with Stranger Things as well.
While the show featured many notable deaths, the show backtracked on most of its major deaths, going the fakeout route instead of committing to actually killing off the characters. This caused a lot of frustrations among the fandom, and sadly Stranger Things: Tales from '85 keeps the trend going, leading to a series of fake-out deaths that are sure to have fans rolling their eyes as they watch.
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