We need to talk about Bob in Stranger Things 2

Oh Bob, we hardly knew ye.

The divisive new addition to the Stranger Things cast, played by Sean Astin, met his end in the latter stages of Stranger Things 2 after being mauled by a miniature Demogorgon while helping Joyce, Hopper, Mike and Will escape the research facility outside of Hawkins.

Like poor Barb before him, Bob occasionally rubbed some of us up the wrong way with a few too many dad jokes (he calls his car the "Bobmobile"), but he met an poignant end after getting mixed up in the lives of the Hawkins regulars.

Now I can't help wondering: is it time to start a #JusticeForBob campaign for season three?

Hear me out. While Joyce is indeed grieving the loss of her doting boyfriend, it seems like Bob's heroism could be easily forgotten, what with Eleven swooping in late in the game and closing the gate to the Upside Down with some Dark Phoenix, float-in-the-air freakery.

So let's just celebrate Bob's input to the gang during his short spell in Hawkins.

One minute he was just a regular 1980s tech dork. The next, his burgeoning relationship with the perma-worried (who could blame her) Joyce Byers found him holed up in a creepy government research facility with a possessed kid, a gaping portal to a hell dimension and a load of demodogs.

He handled it admirably, too. Most men would have hot-tailed it in the other direction upon seeing the demented scrawlings in the Byers household, but not Bob.

No, Bob adapted to the situation, using his puzzle skills (he's a dork, remember) to figure out where Chief Hopper was in the underground Upside Down tunnels. His years spent playing games helped save Hopper's life.

Bob then came to the rescue once more after Upside Down Will had sold his family, friends and the G-Men at the research facility down the river, unleashing demodogs throughout the building.

He heroically offered to venture out of their safe haven to a computer from which he - and he alone - could open the doors which had been locked down to engineer an escape route for Joyce, Hopper, Will and Mike. However, his heroism sealed his fate. It's an old horror movie trope: if you venture off on your own, you're as good as dead.

Plus, Bob was too chirpy, too kind a person to make it out alive. Like Chunk in The Goonies – in which Astin also starred – he was always likely to be the butt of the joke, and this time around it was a gruesome one.

Rest in peace, Bob. Let's hope you get the same royal treatment that Barb received (eventually) in the afterlife.

Stranger Things 2 is available on Netflix NOW

This article was originally published on 27 October 2017