Warning: This article contains Season 3 spoilers.

One of the major advantages television shows have over movies is that they’ve got a lot more time to play with, and the best ones relish that free time to develop and evolve their characters and the storylines they’re wrapped up in. In its 8-episode third season, Netflix’s “Stranger Things” continues to prove that on the character front, there’s nothing else like it on TV.

Above all else it’s the characters who call Hawkins home that make its fictional world such a joy to hang out in, and it’s the show’s excellent writing and performances that have allowed each of them to grow far beyond ’80s tropes. Much has been said and written about the entertainment that inspired “Stranger Things” and its Easter egg tributes to the past, but all of that stuff is actually the *least* interesting thing about the show. It’s all just nostalgic set dressing for what’s really important: letting a wonderful set of characters shine.

And the best of them all may very well be Joe Keery’s Steve.

Initially, Steve Harrington was a walking, talking ’80s trope, the personification of the handsome high school jock we’ve hated in so many movies over the years. And if “Stranger Things” was a 90-minute movie, that’s precisely who Steve would’ve been throughout the entire runtime. But across three seasons now, Steve has surprisingly become one of the most likable characters on TV, evolving so far beyond the trope that the Steve of season three is hardly even the same person as the Steve of season one. Mind you, Steve’s redemptive arc began in the latter half of season one, and continued with the fan-favorite “babysitter Steve” storyline in season two, but it’s in season three that Steve reckons with who he once was.

Bloodied, imprisoned, and facing certain death in the Russian lab underneath the Starcourt Mall, Steve shares a beautiful moment with fellow Scoops Ahoy employee Robin in episode 6, which kicks off with Robin sharing a high school memory. Robin tells Steve that she was “obsessed” with him (we’ll get more into that in a minute) in sophomore history class, sitting behind him for a whole year without ever being noticed. She was, after all, a “band dweeb,” while Steve was “the King of Hawkins High” – and in high school, never the twain shall meet.

“Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just bullshit,” Steve responds to Robin’s story, acknowledging that the person she’s talking about and the person she’s talking to are not at all the same. “But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right? You know, I wish I’d known you in Click’s class.”

Later, in episode seven, Steve pours his heart out to Robin, confessing that he’s got a crush on her and that he only didn’t talk to her in high school because his friends – the same friends who spray-painted obscene messages about Nancy and Jonathan back in season one – would’ve made fun of him. For Steve, the scene is the completion of a wonderful character arc – “Mr. Cool” is in love with a “nerd” – but for Robin it’s something else entirely. After Steve pours his heart out, Robin gets honest with herself, revealing to Steve that she’s a lesbian. She wasn’t obsessed with Steve because she was into Steve, but because Steve wouldn’t give the girl she had a crush on the time of day. “I wanted her to look at me,” Robin tells Steve.

Rather than going down the expected path and setting up Steve and Robin as the hot new couple in Hawkins, “Stranger Things” instead hits us with a powerful curve ball, one that reminds how good the show’s writers are not just at evolving characters but also creating them. Equally impressive is how well cast and acted the show is, with Maya Hawke shining bright as Robin, another new character who seamlessly fits right in with the rest of the gang that we already love. Going forward, it’s looking like Steve and Robin will be friends, an infinitely more interesting dynamic than if they had become a couple. The Steve of old would surely never believe you if you told him who his two best friends would become.

Season three of “Stranger Things” is loaded with these interesting dynamics, and the show’s writers always seem to know which pair-ups we want to see most. Joyce and Hopper spend most of the season solving the Russian mystery together, flirting with a relationship while they uncover secrets, work together to beat up the corrupt mayor, and even take one of the Russians hostage in the pursuit of information. Joyce continues to be one of the most proactive and intelligent characters on the show, figuring things out long before anyone else catches on, while Hopper’s approach in season 3 is the polar opposite of Joyce’s calm intelligence – moreso than ever before, Hopper is a total brute, rampaging his way through the case. Yes, the show finally made Hopper and Joyce the buddy-cop duo you didn’t know you needed in your life, and it’s a highly entertaining good cop, bad cop dynamic that’s rife with sexual tension.

Some of the most interesting character work going on in season three, however, is Hopper’s internal fight. When we catch up with him in 1985, Hopper is a raw nerve on the verge of a breakdown, dealing with a daughter who’s growing up and a town that has for the *third time* been overtaken by monsters. Given everything he’s been through, up to and including the death of his biological daughter and the dissolution of his marriage, Hopper is an emotional wreck in season 3, and that hurt manifests itself in some pretty unsavory ways. In many ways, the Hopper of season three is a far cry from the Hopper we know and love, and David Harbour wonderfully paints a portrait of a flawed man who’s just barely holding it all together.

And don’t even get me started on those final moments of the season, which deliver “Six Feet Under” levels of emotional devastation. That note. That song. Beautiful storytelling.

But as heartbreaking as it was to see Hopper give his life to help save Hawkins and the people he loves, it was equally heartbreaking to see Dacre Montgomery’s Billy do the same in season three. Billy, a character who wasn’t exactly a pleasant person even before the Mind Flayer got into his head, has a surprisingly redemptive character arc this season, with the writers cleverly using Eleven’s powers as a way of taking us on a little trip down the Hargrove family’s own personal memory lane. Through these stylized flashbacks, enough light is shed on Billy’s childhood to clue us into why he is the way he is, and he gets a nice little final moment where he temporarily holds back the Mind Flayer’s control over him and becomes the hero Hawkins needs… if only for a moment. You know a show is firing on all the best cylinders when you’re wiping tears from your eyes over the death of a character like Billy Hargrove.

Of course, you can’t talk about “Stranger Things” without talking about the kids, who share an overarching storyline in season three. They’re not quite the little kids they were when we first met them, and now that they’re teenagers, there’s a sense of nostalgia that the season has for the show’s own past. In particular, Will can’t come to terms with the fact that his friends no longer want to sit around playing Dungeons & Dragons like they used to – after all, Lucas, Mike and Dustin now have girlfriends to worry about – and it’s devastating to watch along as he desperately tries to recreate the fun of the past. For Will, childhood has been ravaged by the creatures from the Upside Down in a way that his friends never quite experienced, and so it makes perfect sense that he’s the one trying to hang on to every last second. Thankfully, Will finally gets something a bit different to do in season 3, with his connection to the Upside Down serving as something of a Spidey sense-like superpower of sorts. After two seasons of Will being a victim, it’s nice to see Noah Schnapp getting to dig into some new material.

Like many fans, I had wondered if the show would become less charming as the actors got older, but season 3 suggests that “Stranger Things” is only going to get more interesting from here. Growing up presents an entirely new set of struggles that bring fresh subplots and dynamics to season 3 – the show itself, I’d argue, has done a bit of growing up too, getting darker and more dangerous this season – with one of the big highlights being the relationship between Max and Eleven. It’s through a friendship with Max that Eleven starts to really discover who she is and what she wants, developing her own style and figuring out how to deal with boys. It’s been a real treat to watch Millie Bobby Brown evolve the character.

Also great to see? Erica Sinclair, a season 2 scene-stealer, becomes a full-on main character in season 3, and actress Priah Ferguson knocks her material out of the park. Erica, who had been too cool for the “nerds” that her brother hangs out with back in season 2, spends much of the season paired up with Dustin, Steve and Robin, and every scene she’s in is another opportunity for Ferguson to steal the show – which she does, every single time. Erica even gets a little arc of her own that presents itself when Dustin realizes that she’s, well, a total nerd!

The monsters are cool and the retro aesthetics continue to fill me with warm nostalgia, but it’s the characters that make “Stranger Things” an all-time great show. They’re the reason it has evolved from a show that pays tribute to iconic pop culture properties to a pop culture icon in its own right, and season 3 is a new benchmark for character-based storytelling on the small screen. Whether it’s expanding upon existing characters or creating brand new ones, “Stranger Things” makes it all feel so effortless. Here’s hoping other shows start taking some notes.