Hi there,

Just finished Stranger Things Season 4 (also finished the other seasons the couple weeks prior). I definitely enjoyed it so gonna do a review.

Sometime has passed since the end of season 3. El, Will, Jonathan, and Joyce have moved to California.The “kids” are now freshmen in high school. El is bullied and doesn’t have her powers anymore. Jonathan is a stoner. Joyce is a telemarketer. Will cares about El but feels mixed because he has thing for Mike. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are all in a high school D&D club Hellraisers. Mike is heading over to El for spring break. Lucas is on the basketball team and values being with them. Dustin is about the same. Max has been dealing with the mental strain of losing her brother. Steve and Robin are at the video shop worrying about relationships and Steve is much more chill and controlled than season 3. Hopper is in a Russian prison (wow lots of people).

After the setup, we get 3 groups with different goals that eventually will converge: Joyce looking for Hopper, California looking for El, and Hawkins looking for Vecna. They want to save Hopper, get El her powers and not killed by the government, and find the creature (Vecna) that is killing teens from the upside down.

There’s a lot of points to cover but each group goes like this: inciting incident, group is slightly fractured but sees the weirdness, events slowly bring people together and information is discovered, a big + potentially traumatic event brings everyone together and gives them a final way to fight the badies, and then the final fight with the badies.

(e.g., El is bullied and taken away by good government + others are at home on house arrest. El sees here memories and learns about her past to gain her powers + others have to run towards her and find her location. Bad government attacks the base, El says goodbye to the bad doctor, and everyone regroups. El then goes into Max’s head to help).

Ultimately, Vecna/Henry/One is beaten but it’s a hallow Pyrrhic victory. Eddie is dead. Max is in a comma. THERES GIANT HOLES IN HAWKINS SPITTING OUT SPOOKY DUST. Vecna is gathering strength.

There was a lot to like about the season. The season had more of that haunting suspense that the first 2 seasons had and didn’t feel as over the top as season 3. The pacing of the show was great. There was enough time given to knowing how each character feels to show us where they were at but not enough that it dragged on. It was really smart for them to layer in the Vecna horror. We got the spookiness of something happening without it interrupting the lives of the main characters. The story lines of each character felt natural. I liked to pop music more this season and I’m pretty sure this season made Running Up That Hill popular again.

The season gave each actor a chance to act. There was a lot of heavy shit each character had to go through. And the season did a fantastic job of dealing with trauma. Max in particular. Going through losing her abusive brother. The suicide analogies. Having music be one of the key reasons why she got through her negative thoughts.

Also while I glossed over it in the overview, seeing Dr. Brenner again was lit. I thought it was really interesting to have the evil scientist be the only hope / Yoda for El to get her powers back.

Lastly, I want to reiterate how good I thought the pacing was. Despite this season being LONG (2.3 hours is not a tv episode it’s a long movie), the show didn’t feel like it wasted too much time. I was with the story. I kept clicking next episode. What the show did really well was mix the timings of the 3 storylines really well. At the start when there’s no spookiness, have a new character be haunted (that will ultimately introduce a new hero, villain, and plot). In the none set piece parts of the season, balance out the lulls of one team with intensity of another. Then when there’s a set piece, have each team have an intense moment so the speed of the story doesn’t slow down to much (also having the extra time per episode helps here because you don’t have to cut too quickly. I wonder if more shows have/will do this to drastically chant time per episode in later season when there’s more characters. )

(also quick shout out to Jonathan and Will’s relationship. That one scene with each other made me feel things).

I thought this was a good season of Stranger Things with not a lot of flaws (for what I expected and wanted out of Stranger Things). It wasn’t too over the top. The romance was sprinkled in enough to add to the story without being TOO much of the story. So in terms of how I felt I got most of what I want out of it.

The biggest thing I didn’t like was the logic seemed off and it made me hard to connect. The actions characters took didn’t always make sense to me. Because it’s Stranger Things I give some leeway because they have some trends they’ve established (e.g., Bob didn’t keep running and died + characters jump into situations where they should die, thinking that it should help and lucking into actually helping). Because of this I was ok with chasing El in a pizza truck, barging into a secret Russian prison, or going into the upside down WITHOUT getting help from anyone else.

But some of the logic here made no sense to me and I was shouting at my tv for bad decisions a little too much.

Why couldn’t they wait longer before setting the trap for Max? Why did burning the demagorgans hurt the hive mind but none of the other times? What the fuck was Dustin expecting to happen when he went back (ok this one was a little too extreme for me. I get wanting them together but why not have Eddie run away to save Dustin)? Most episodes there was something that bothered me like this. Especially, Eddie not running away at the end. I get that this is a theme throughout the show. It worked well in other seasons. But man. This time Eddie hurt people by not running away. The bats are now distracted for less time. All it would have taken was giving Eddie a reason to stop running that wasn’t a thought in his head. Dustin being trapped. The bats getting bored. But no. He has to not run because the plot demands it.

A small thing was as the season went on the comic horror lessened. I love the mystery of the visions at the beginning and the feat that came from the unknown. We got a lot less of that as time went on. And I get that it’s hard to keep those elements when you need to explain the reason for things rather than it being a mystery. But you did it in season 1 and 2. I also think part of it is the theme of standing up and fighting. But I didn’t jive too much with that choice. The characters felt completely unafraid of the upside down at the end. And that makes it hard for me to feel afraid. It also means that I don’t have any idea when the upside down is scary. Not in a tension building way but rather in a “the plot will make it happen” way. And I wasn’t really surprised by characters fighting at the end. El’s fight felt like an anime’s power of love and friendship power-up. They were good moments that the show has previously done better.

I liked this season a lot. They story was fun. A lot of the horror was back (especially on the earlier episodes). The theme of getting over trauma was done amazingly. There’s definitely going to be a little character interaction that you relate to heavily. I’m excited for season 5.

Bye,

Lucas

ps

I wanted to say after seeing Season 4, I liked season 3 a bit more. They went for a larger than life style and I appreciate that difference. Also, because it was more over the top, I didn’t feel that over the topness as much when season 4 did something (like breaking into a Russian prison).

Hi there,

Just finished Stranger Things Season 4 (also finished the other seasons the couple weeks prior). I definitely enjoyed it so gonna do a review.

Sometime has passed since the end of season 3. El, Will, Jonathan, and Joyce have moved to California.The “kids” are now freshmen in high school. El is bullied and doesn’t have her powers anymore. Jonathan is a stoner. Joyce is a telemarketer. Will cares about El but feels mixed because he has thing for Mike. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are all in a high school D&D club Hellraisers. Mike is heading over to El for spring break. Lucas is on the basketball team and values being with them. Dustin is about the same. Max has been dealing with the mental strain of losing her brother. Steve and Robin are at the video shop worrying about relationships and Steve is much more chill and controlled than season 3. Hopper is in a Russian prison (wow lots of people).

After the setup, we get 3 groups with different goals that eventually will converge: Joyce looking for Hopper, California looking for El, and Hawkins looking for Vecna. They want to save Hopper, get El her powers and not killed by the government, and find the creature (Vecna) that is killing teens from the upside down.

There’s a lot of points to cover but each group goes like this: inciting incident, group is slightly fractured but sees the weirdness, events slowly bring people together and information is discovered, a big + potentially traumatic event brings everyone together and gives them a final way to fight the badies, and then the final fight with the badies.

(e.g., El is bullied and taken away by good government + others are at home on house arrest. El sees here memories and learns about her past to gain her powers + others have to run towards her and find her location. Bad government attacks the base, El says goodbye to the bad doctor, and everyone regroups. El then goes into Max’s head to help).

Ultimately, Vecna/Henry/One is beaten but it’s a hallow Pyrrhic victory. Eddie is dead. Max is in a comma. THERES GIANT HOLES IN HAWKINS SPITTING OUT SPOOKY DUST. Vecna is gathering strength.

There was a lot to like about the season. The season had more of that haunting suspense that the first 2 seasons had and didn’t feel as over the top as season 3. The pacing of the show was great. There was enough time given to knowing how each character feels to show us where they were at but not enough that it dragged on. It was really smart for them to layer in the Vecna horror. We got the spookiness of something happening without it interrupting the lives of the main characters. The story lines of each character felt natural. I liked to pop music more this season and I’m pretty sure this season made Running Up That Hill popular again.

The season gave each actor a chance to act. There was a lot of heavy shit each character had to go through. And the season did a fantastic job of dealing with trauma. Max in particular. Going through losing her abusive brother. The suicide analogies. Having music be one of the key reasons why she got through her negative thoughts.

Also while I glossed over it in the overview, seeing Dr. Brenner again was lit. I thought it was really interesting to have the evil scientist be the only hope / Yoda for El to get her powers back.

Lastly, I want to reiterate how good I thought the pacing was. Despite this season being LONG (2.3 hours is not a tv episode it’s a long movie), the show didn’t feel like it wasted too much time. I was with the story. I kept clicking next episode. What the show did really well was mix the timings of the 3 storylines really well. At the start when there’s no spookiness, have a new character be haunted (that will ultimately introduce a new hero, villain, and plot). In the none set piece parts of the season, balance out the lulls of one team with intensity of another. Then when there’s a set piece, have each team have an intense moment so the speed of the story doesn’t slow down to much (also having the extra time per episode helps here because you don’t have to cut too quickly. I wonder if more shows have/will do this to drastically chant time per episode in later season when there’s more characters. )

(also quick shout out to Jonathan and Will’s relationship. That one scene with each other made me feel things).

I thought this was a good season of Stranger Things with not a lot of flaws (for what I expected and wanted out of Stranger Things). It wasn’t too over the top. The romance was sprinkled in enough to add to the story without being TOO much of the story. So in terms of how I felt I got most of what I want out of it.

The biggest thing I didn’t like was the logic seemed off and it made me hard to connect. The actions characters took didn’t always make sense to me. Because it’s Stranger Things I give some leeway because they have some trends they’ve established (e.g., Bob didn’t keep running and died + characters jump into situations where they should die, thinking that it should help and lucking into actually helping). Because of this I was ok with chasing El in a pizza truck, barging into a secret Russian prison, or going into the upside down WITHOUT getting help from anyone else.

But some of the logic here made no sense to me and I was shouting at my tv for bad decisions a little too much.

Why couldn’t they wait longer before setting the trap for Max? Why did burning the demagorgans hurt the hive mind but none of the other times? What the fuck was Dustin expecting to happen when he went back (ok this one was a little too extreme for me. I get wanting them together but why not have Eddie run away to save Dustin)? Most episodes there was something that bothered me like this. Especially, Eddie not running away at the end. I get that this is a theme throughout the show. It worked well in other seasons. But man. This time Eddie hurt people by not running away. The bats are now distracted for less time. All it would have taken was giving Eddie a reason to stop running that wasn’t a thought in his head. Dustin being trapped. The bats getting bored. But no. He has to not run because the plot demands it.

A small thing was as the season went on the comic horror lessened. I love the mystery of the visions at the beginning and the feat that came from the unknown. We got a lot less of that as time went on. And I get that it’s hard to keep those elements when you need to explain the reason for things rather than it being a mystery. But you did it in season 1 and 2. I also think part of it is the theme of standing up and fighting. But I didn’t jive too much with that choice. The characters felt completely unafraid of the upside down at the end. And that makes it hard for me to feel afraid. It also means that I don’t have any idea when the upside down is scary. Not in a tension building way but rather in a “the plot will make it happen” way. And I wasn’t really surprised by characters fighting at the end. El’s fight felt like an anime’s power of love and friendship power-up. They were good moments that the show has previously done better.

I liked this season a lot. They story was fun. A lot of the horror was back (especially on the earlier episodes). The theme of getting over trauma was done amazingly. There’s definitely going to be a little character interaction that you relate to heavily. I’m excited for season 5.

Bye,

Lucas

ps

I wanted to say after seeing Season 4, I liked season 3 a bit more. They went for a larger than life style and I appreciate that difference. Also, because it was more over the top, I didn’t feel that over the topness as much when season 4 did something (like breaking into a Russian prison).