Deepa Oommen

As a 90's kid who enjoyed reading Stephen King and also watching Are you Afraid of the Dark, I enjoyed the series immensely. Considering there were 8 main characters, I am assuming Mike Flanagan wanted to do justice for all their back stories and their psychology of fear as they had "believed" their ends are near. Some of the episodes I cried and could relate to a lot of the young adults fear like (SPOILERS!!!!), who would remember us after we die, do I still need to be perfect when I could grieve for myself, clinical depression understanding in the 90's, fear and the little available knowledge of AIDS / HIV transmission, being an immigrant when you are away from parents and dealing a lot on your own, yellow pages directory (my favourite), how to keep the faith despite fighting a losing battle and so forth. Yes, towards the end the stories did drag a little but I feel this is one universe where it tried to answer as many impending questions which involved the creatures involved in the jump scares, the presence of Bright Cliffe as a character on its own. Also, remember these kids are on heavy medication despite not responding to chemo or radiation. The class of medicines that was used to treat at that time had a lot of side effects compared to the class of drugs used now in hospice care, so it definitely made them wonder whether their mind was playing games in seeing things and was it due to the medication. I do hope Netflix renews for a second season as I feel there is a lot of potential for this metaverse :)