Stranger Things’ Barb resurrected at Golden Globes

The Netflix show's cult character is celebrated in the cold opening to last night's Golden Globe awards

Article by The Skinny | 09 Jan 2017

This year’s Golden Globes opened with a glorious song and dance routine paying tribute to the musical La La Land, which went on to be the big winner on the night. Among the sketch’s many delights was the resurrection of Barb, the cult character from Stranger Things who meets a grizzly fate in that TV series’ alternative universe, the Upside Down.

As host Jimmy Fallon sings and dances through a red carpet traffic jam of limousines, riffing on the opening number of La La Land, he passes various stars of the big and the small screen, including Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams and Sarah Paulson, before finding the kids from Stranger Things. "I’ve got a little secret, don’t repeat or tweet it: Barb is still alive," rap the show's young stars (Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Materazzo) in the sketch.

We then cut to Shannon Purser, dressed in her 80s Barb garb, emerging from a pool before a full-on Esther Williams-style water ballet sequence begins, with multiple Barbs plunging into the pool. The show’s creators Ross and Matt Duffer insist there is no hope of a miraculous return for the much-loved character, but she won't be forgotten.

"We'll make sure there's some justice for Barb," Matt Duffer told IGN. "People get very frustrated, understandably, that the town doesn't seem to be really dealing with Barb. That stuff is all happening. We're just not spending any screen time on it… Part of what we want to do with hypothetical season two is to explore the repercussions of everything that happened."

Watch Barb’s return below.