After three years, Stranger Things is back. It's bigger, longer, and... somewhat better than before? This is a very overstuffed season but its high points are very noticeable.
Stranger Things introduces a new antagonist to the series in the form of Vecna, a monster from the Upside Down who possess people in pain before killing them in gruesome ways. The sheer brutality makes this guy incredibly terrifying, and makes Season 4 probably the scariest and darkest season of the show to date. It also really helps that the people leading the charge are Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Max, easily my favorite clique of the show. Their dynamic is still absolutely fantastic, and the addition of Nancy to the group was a stroke of utter genius. Her dynamic with Robin, in particular, is priceless and I think they're my new favorite ship. Max was the real surprise star of the show though, she has a great subplot about grappling with Billy's death last season that ties directly into the Vecna stuff pretty much perfectly. But what really solidifies Vecna as one of Stranger Things' best bad guys is all the lore surrounding him. As per the usual, Eleven has a focal point as she basically gets experimented on by Brenner to bring back her powers, and while the storyline is otherwise a bit overly depressing, the payoff in what it reveals is absolutely phenomenal, and makes Vecna, Eleven, and Brenner all more interesting characters because of it.
But even in addition to Vecna, I adore the side villain of the season, Jason. When Chrissy (the first victim) dies, he takes it very poorly and accuses metalhead Eddie Munson, sparking a satanic panic in Hawkins over all of the horrible things that have been happening. Stranger Things usually pays homage to the 80s, but since the satanic panic actually happened (and ruined a lot of lives), it's so cool to see the writers give the era a slightly more unflattering look. Vecna is terrifying, but there were and are many Jasons out there, making his storyline even scarier. I also think it's fascinating how Jason feels like a Riverdale character, Archie in particular. He's the popular kid, a "lovable" jock, and a total heartthrob. When the town experiences a shocking death, he rallies the town and steps up to try and solve it, all the while never giving up his morals. But Jason's morals are entirely religion-based, and he can't solve a mystery because he's a high school student, so as much as he thinks he's the protagonist, he only ends up causing more harm. It's like the showrunners are taking direct potshots at Riverdale and I'm here for it. (I swear, one of these days, I'm writing about that show, it's such an awful mess and I hate-love it so much).
However, while this season has its many high points, I do have a solid amount of criticisms towards it as well. Starting with the elephant in the room, these episodes are too long. I've always been against this trend of TV shows becoming more like movies, but Stranger Things having episode lengths ranging from an hour to 2.5 hours is just plain ridiculous. The writers could have easily cut the season into around 18 standard length episodes and it would be perfectly fine. To compare, I looked at two other shows with infamously long episodes. Sherlock's episodes are all an hour and a half long, but there's only three of them per season compared to Stranger Things' exhausting nine. Games Of Thrones' final season made a lot of buzz over its episode lengths, but its longest episode (The Long Night) is only four minutes longer than this season's first episode. I'm sorry, but this is not normal, and it put me off of watching the season for quite some time because I had to allocate time in my busy schedule to actually do so. The funny thing is that I actually think the editing is on point, it's super punchy and creative, with plenty of truly stunning cross-cutting sequences and even a long take in Episode 4! Instead, the problem is the sheer amount of storylines we have.
While everything surrounding Vecna, Eleven, and Hawkins is fantastic, Season 4 really divides up the cast to the point where we have like half a dozen major storylines, and a decent number of them kinda suck. The worst one is easily the one about Hopper in a gulag. Putting aside the fact that I think Hopper should've stayed dead, as his being alive cheapened the impact of the fantastic Season 3 finale, storylines about characters in prison are always overlong, depressing, and repetitive, and this one is no exception. Joyce and Murray trying to rescue him is a bit better since their dynamic is fun, but it's not enough to save the storyline as a whole, especially considering Joyce could've played a really interesting role in the aforementioned satanic panic storyline. The other bad storyline is the road trip one about Mike, Will, and Jonathan trying to find Eleven, which ends up feeling really aimless and dull. I'm sorry but these three characters haven't been interesting for two seasons and sticking them in a car together for the entire second half of Season 4 didn't help matters.
Highlights:
Dear Billy: While it progresses the plot as much as any other episode of Stranger Things, what I like about Dear Billy is that its main storyline also works as a standalone high concept story, about Max trying to break out of Vecna's possession while also confronting her PTSD and grief. I'm a sucker for when shows take supernatural stories and have them also be metaphors for personal struggles (part of why Buffy is so good) and Dear Billy does that masterfully, culminating in a final few minutes so powerful and well-done that it finally managed to top Holly Jolly as my favorite episode of the series. The fantastic long take as soldiers shoot up Will's apartment and the fun interactions between Nancy and Robin only sweeten the deal, it's yet another case of the fourth episode of a Stranger Things season really shifting things into high gear.
The Massacre At Hawkins Lab: Holy mother of loredrumps, I have no idea how much this series was planned out from the start but the revelations in The Massacre At Hawkins Lab are so good, unpredictable but make total sense. The highlight for me was the reveal that the Upside Down is Hawkins frozen in time, but all the lore about Vecna/Henry/One is fantastic too and makes him a far more interesting antagonist. Add in Steve's group having to survive in the Upside Down and Hopper finally being broken out of prison and you get a pretty massive episode, definitely a good point to have that hiatus, as much of a dumb concept I thought it was.
The Piggyback: At a whopping 2 hours and 30 minutes, this finale is too long, and because of that, it's probably the weakest one so far. However, even the worst Stranger Things finale is pretty great. There are just a lot of really strong moments scattered through the finale, like Max's confrontation with Vecna, Eleven's "mind fight", Eddie performing Master Of Puppets, Jason's (deserved) death, and that insane cliffhanger.
Overall, Season 4 of Stranger Things is probably the most uneven season of the show yet. I adore the main storyline about Vecna and everything that stems from it, it's dark and ambitious and tense, and it's only carried further by the hard-hitting satanic panic subplot, the fun interactions within Steve's group, the fantastic character arcs for Max and Eleven, and the tight and confident editing. On the other hand, this season is overstuffed and overlong, and is dragged down by two pretty bad storylines. At its best, Season 4 has some of the best episodes in the whole show, but it's just not as consistently strong as its predecessors.
4/5 Stars
