The most badass characters on Stranger Things are actually the mums

In season 5, Karen, who has always been kind of unaware about the whole Upside Down of it all, is suddenly confronted by a demogorgon who is after her youngest daughter, Holly. And, against all odds, she, like Joyce, suddenly transforms into a fearless warrior. She hides in the bathtub under her bubbles with her daughter, then, breaks her wine bottle and attacks the monster to keep her daughter safe. Once again, I found myself wanting to let out a riotous cheer.

While this might look like Karen’s first fight, it is, of course, anything but. Because, as the show subtly implies, every mum goes through their own quiet, unrecognised battles long before they ever encounter their first demogorgon. And while they may not involve actual monsters, these fights are just as real.

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For Karen, it’s the fight to keep her three children and husband’s lives in order. You see her balancing demands from her teen daughter, while spoon-feeding her youngest, while also calmly asking her husband, Ted, for help. She’s always the one to answer the door or the phone. She’s always the one to ask where her damn kids actually are. She’s always the one doing pretty much everything. (I will give Mr. Wheeler some credit for racing at the monster with a golf club rather than running off to leave Karen and Holly to fend for themselves.)

Courtesy of Netflix

Courtesy of Netflix

And, although they may have smaller roles in the show, the other mums in Stranger Things are just as powerful in their own ways. There’s Max’s mum, Susan (Jennifer Hargrove), a woman who finds herself married to an abusive husband and doing her best to keep him calm for the sake of her children. Later, after he leaves, we see just how much a struggle being a single mum is (and perhaps a reason why she married the guy in the first place). In season 4, Susan is living with Max in a trailer park, struggling to make ends meet and sinking into depression and addiction. Her one moment with Max, though, shows that she’s trying to keep fighting for her sake. Then there’s Lucas’s mum, Sue (Karen Ceesay), who is also shown balancing pressures from multiple directions in her domestic scenes. When her son is being questioned by the police, she winds up fighting his corner.