Fast forward to the present time. It’s March 1986, eight months after the Starcourt Mall incident. Eleven now lives with the Byers in California and is currently attending high school after losing her power and her foster dad, Jim Hopper (David Harbour).
However, a powerful child like Eleven can not simply outrun her past as easily as that. Soon enough, Dr. Brenner and Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) show up on her doorstep to convince her to regain her power to fight a new evil brewing at Hawkins. She agrees, and they take her to a super secret facility at the heart of a barren desert.
After Eleven’s departure, Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) got themselves entangled with the cops. But with the help of Jonathan’s friend Argyle (Eduardo Franco), they managed to work their way around the authorities to come after Eleven. With no clue where to go, they detour to Dustin Henderson’s girlfriend, Suzie (Gabriella Pizzolo), to find El’s location. As they race against time and the police, the evil lurking gets more powerful by the moment.
Back at Hawkins, Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) struggles to move on from the death of her brother. Nightmares, headaches, and nosebleeds. Max seems like she’s experiencing signs of trauma or prolonged guilt and grief. But when a group of teenagers, experiencing the same things, end up dead, something is definitely afoot. Even though the authorities suspect that it was the eccentric student Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) who killed them, the manner of their death is very unnatural. Max knew it was far more wicked than a high schooler. So she enlisted the help of Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson) to help her identify what it is.
Meanwhile, Jim Hopper, the hero of the Starmall incident, was presumed dead by Hawkins authorities. But it was revealed that the Russians kidnapped and tortured him, partly because of his involvement in their experiment on the Upside Down. During his time in prison, he got a little help from one of the guards, Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha), to send a message to Joyce (Winona Ryder). Upon learning that Jim was alive, she asked her friend Murray (Brett Gelman) to join her and save him in Russia. They traveled to Kamchatka only to discover the Russians' sinister plans for the Demogorgons and the Upside Down.
Like the previous seasons, "Stranger Things Season 4" follows multiple, separate, and interdependent storylines, all of which will converge into one by the finale. Although it's a huge story with a loyal following, this season is an uphill battle in terms of expectations. Not because the previous season was unsatisfactory, but because of the stakes.
"Stranger Things" is Netflix’s prized possession. It’s the series that jump started the popularity of the streaming platform, and it continues to be a reliable source of income and eyeballs as the show reportedly crashed the app upon the release of its two-part finale. Heck, the company even spent $30 million per episode for the new season. For what it's worth, the show appears to be the streamer’s last beacon of hope to entice new members to their already dwindling subscriber count. This all means that if this latest season flops, it might spell the end for the beloved series or platform.
But that problem is all for Reed Hastings and company to worry about. Our worry is whether our favorite characters in this series will develop into the kind of people we hope they’ll be. With more than a dozen characters to juggle around, the series needs to give everything it's got to offer to celebrate and deepen them.
Unfortunately, it struggles to develop all of its main and supporting players as the narrative progresses. Not everyone can get a fair share of the limelight. So some characters remain the same as they were, while others regress, and only a few progress.
Mike Wheeler has been a terribly written character with zero personality since day one. Compared to his peers, he has no quirks that make him stand out. The series frames him as the heart of the group. But we all know that that title unofficially belongs to Dustin and Eleven. His only relevance to the show is that he’s El’s boyfriend. Nothing more. And season four did nothing to change that or to launch him as the kind of hero we wanted him to be.
The opposite happens to Lucas Sinclair. The once (and always will be) nerdy boyfriend of Max Mayfield surprisingly has the most compelling development of all the characters. Season four opens with Lucas as part of the Hawkins basketball team. After years of bullying, he's one of the cool guys now. But popularity comes with a price. His decision to try and fit in with the team strained his relationship with his girlfriend, friends and family. Soon, he realized that he had been hanging with the wrong crowd when the basketball team showed their true colors. It's up to him now to save his friends from the ensuing chaos.
Characters such as Will, Robin, and Steve also saw exponential growth. But it’s hard to say the same thing about Joyce, Nancy, Jonathan, and others.
As for the story, it’s a mix of many things. The overarching story is compelling as always and the series finally embracing its horror side is brilliant, but it suffers from too many storylines. The four unfolding narrative do not share the same beat, and it often finds itself eating up the energy of another story to compensate for the lack of zeal of another.
The Hawkins plot with Max and the old gang is by far the best story, but telling it besides the dragging and boring adventure of Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle or El and Dr. Brenner’s experiment keeps it from truly delighting and engaging. The simultaneous storytelling only makes sense every time the Duffer Brothers draw a parallel between them. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
For this season, Netflix decided to delay the 8th and 9th episodes. Honestly, I see no reason for doing that, as it only delays the show. There is no additional media people can consume while they wait, not even a revelation from the showrunners to expand the story. It might’ve been a marketing strategy, but it comes off as annoying and weird.
Anyways, Episode 8 cranked up the pace, the action, and the emotion in preparation for the finale. It has some brilliant moments, though one could wish that all of these were explained and explored during the first seven episode run to save time. As the pace picks up and the expectations rise, the reveals and emotional parts are quickly forgotten.
The last episode of the series feels like an extension of the 8th. It's dragging. It sees all these characters endearing themselves to us before they put themselves in danger again. But as the second half ensues, it's clear that the Duffer Brothers only want to leave the best for last as they set up this epic and bloody collision course to confront the big baddie. Mad Vecna, killer bats, violent teens, wild demogorgons, synth-pop version of "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush, and bold death scene(s); in a one swift move it throws everything it has to offer to the audience... And it works.
In that moment, everything feels worth it. The investment pays off as we cheer and feel for these characters. Even if there were unnecessarily long episodes and slow and confusing expositions sprinkled all over this season, Stranger Things managed to run up that hill of expectation and cap off a convoluted story with splendor.
Of course, this is still not the end for Eleven and company. Netflix won’t let go of their prized possession yet, not now since they’re losing subscribers. There’s always another hill to climb and another danger that lurks. Bigger. Badder. And it will end right where it started. In Hawkins.
3.5/5
