Summary: A new threat arrives in Hawkins: Vecna. He kills Chrissy and Eddie is framed for the murder. Dustin, Max, Steve, and Robin start investigating and eventually recruit Nancy when her partner Fred is also killed. They learn more information about Vecna and realize Max is his next victim. They discover that music gives her a way out and they save her using her favourite song. The group discovers a new gate in Hawkins and they hatch a plan to defeat Vecna. Meanwhile, El is bullied in LA and gets arrested after an outburst. She is then taken by Dr. Owens to restore her powers and she revisits her memories. Her memories reveal that Vecna is One, another test subject, and that El banished him to the Upside Down. El regains her powers and assists in the plan to fight Vecna. El manages to defeat Vecna, but Eddie is killed and Max is comatose. Vecna manages to open up an enormous gate in Hawkins despite being defeated. Meanwhile, Joyce learns that Hopper is alive and goes to Russia with Murray to save him. Hopper is in prison and makes a deal with Dmitri to escape, but the plan goes wrong. Joyce and Murray infiltrate the prison and save him.
The Good: Season 4 felt like a return to form for "Stranger Things" with horror and mystery once more taking center stage to make for the most engaging and interesting season since the first. Mystery and horror were what initially made this show so unique, so I was extremely pleased to see it take center stage again, at least in the Hawkins storyline. The deaths were all done in an unsettling and terrifying way to play up the horror, and there was a genuine mystery to uncover surrounding Vecna, his history, and his powers. Because of this, the story in Hawkins was easily the best part of the season, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing everything unfold. As for the specific characters, Max's story was a definite stand-out. She's been one of the more forgettable new additions to the show, but her arc in this season was excellent. It was a powerful story about how easy it is to get lost in grief, and about the importance of staying open with the people that you are close to. It's an optimistic and beautiful story which allows Sadie Sink some time to shine, and nicely incorporates Lucas, giving him a greater purpose as her love interest to further the themes of the story. This is a big step up since in previous seasons Lucas and Max simply felt like an additional couple because the show had no idea what to do with these characters. This season gave Max and Lucas some great moments to shine. The episode "Dear Billy" was a stand-out for this story as it focused on Max's arc and featured a wonderfully tense scene as Max manages to escape from Vecna with her life in very real danger. Another highlight is the conclusion of Max's story. Max ending up comatose is a sad yet fitting conclusion for the season. Max has learned to value the people around her, and Lucas has stood by her ever since she almost died, but they don't get a happy ending. It's a win for Vecna, which creates a somber feeling of loss to conclude the season. It's a downer ending that sets up nicely for the final season. The other characters in Hawkins are a lot of fun too. Dustin, Steve, Nancy, and Robin are as fun as ever and I thoroughly enjoyed their interactions with each other. This is a good crew of protagonists to experience the mystery through. Nancy is clever and resourceful, Steve has heart and is unabashedly loyal, Dustin is the brains but also offers a lot of witty comedy, and Robin is the new recruit who is a bit of a wild card in terms of what she does and what she figures out. The characters play off of each other well and they are a good unit. But the standout character in my opinion is Eddie. Eddie isn't always there, but he is a breath of fresh air. He's portrayed well and is immediately likeable as a charismatic and unexpectedly well-rounded quirky character with a good character arc. Eddie is a good guy, but he starts the season running away instead of taking any risks, and as the season goes on, he gradually learns from everyone else about the value of being a hero. This leads to a great story in the season finale where Eddie decides that he is going to be a hero, and he gives his life to ensure Vecna's defeat. It's a simple arc, but effective mainly because of how well-written and well-cast Eddie was. The LA story isn't as effective as the one in Hawkins, but it has its moments. Specifically with El as she goes to recover her powers. This was always going to be her story for the season, and it was surprisingly engaging to experience El's suppressed memories, uncovering what exactly happened. I'll talk more about Ballard/Vecna later, and I'll instead focus on what this means for El as a character. The show teased that El's violent streak as we saw with Angela may be a lot more sinister than what we expected, and this story forced El to come to terms with who she really is. The twist is that it turns out that El actually doesn't have to accept that she's a violent brute, but to acknowledge that she is still a good person even if she happens to be violent at times. At heart, El is not a murderer, and it gives her more personal clarity when she realizes that, allowing her to confidently re-emerge with her powers. Another bit of depth to this story comes from El's relationship with Dr. Brenner. Brenner's return is a bit absurd (seriously, HOW is he alive?), but it is good to see the toxic nature of his relationship with El once again, emphasizing El's need to break away from any sort of relationship with him. Brenner's death scene is excellent because he does love El and he gives his life to save her, but El does not give him emotional satisfaction, because Brenner's love was misguided and he never cared about El as a person. Seeing El break free from his manipulations at the end was fitting and emotional. The rest of the LA story isn't much to write about, but I did like the introduction of Argyle, who offers some much-needed comic relief. He is the kind of character that could get tiresome extremely fast, but the show uses him sparingly and gets the most out of him. Now, I'm going to talk about Vecna, arguably the best thing about this fourth season. After three seasons of having monsters as the main villains, it is so refreshing to have an active character take over the role of the big bad. Vecna was fantastic in this role because it was immediately clear that he was more sentient than the Demorgorgon and Mind Flayer, making the character an interesting hook for the season. We spend much of the season gradually learning more and more about Vecna, until in the midseason finale we finally learn everything about him. And I won't lie, Vecna completely exceeded my expectations. The series of reveals about who he is was glorious, and I would be surprised if anybody watching managed to connect every single dot about who he is before that episode. Even with the reveals, what pleased me most was how directly connected Vecna was to El. This connection gives El a personal reason to take him down, given that she was the one who freed him and trapped him in the Upside Down. Furthermore, Vecna is extremely powerful and intimidating because of how unstoppable he is. He carries an enormous threat factor, and there is a palpable sense of danger when he is on screen. That's the sign of a good villain, one who is certainly worth building an entire season around. The decision to bring in Vecna as a villain is certainly one of the best writing decisions in this season, and I am excited to see where this character goes in season 5. The comedy and character interactions are a high point of this season. Almost every character is fun to watch, and there are plenty of laughs to go around in every episode. Whether it's Argyle being woefully uninformed, Dustin being a witty asshole, Robin getting freaked out, or something totally different, the show manages to make you laugh consistently. Comedy is an essential aspect of almost every TV show, and I think that "Stranger Things" nailed it in this season. The characters continue to develop fun relationships. While not every relationship is a winner, I did end up caring about a lot of the new connections in this season. Joyce teaming with Murray was lots of fun, Dustin's relationship with Eddie was a joy, and I liked the new connection between Nancy and Robin. This show always does a good job of making its characters connect with each other, and this fourth season is no exception to that. The presentation this season is better than it has ever been. Even with the excessive length, this season looks better than the previous three with hugely impressive special effects, tremendous editing, and memorable directing choices that gave this season some extra visual flair. I have no doubt that this is the best looking season of "Stranger Things", and every episode offers some sort of impressive looking sequence to watch. The Bad: This season's biggest problem is its length. Not that it's 9 episodes long, but that every episode is at least 60 minutes long, with several being much, much longer than that. The average episode is 75 minutes, and in some extreme cases, the episodes are even longer than that, with the season finale being nearly two and a half hours! This is way too much. TV shows are meant to be hour-long for a reason, because it is tough to craft engaging episode-long stories that can remain interesting for more than one hour. That is the problem that plagued "Stranger Things" this season. It was very rare that an episode in this season was consistently engaging for its entire runtime. Every episode had scenes that either went too long, or felt unnecessary to the show as a whole. This made it tougher to keep engaged with the story being told, and it brought down the quality of the season overall. Had the Duffer Brothers not overindulged into the story, this would have been a stronger season. One reason for this season being so long-winded is because the show is now bloated with characters. Every season introduces new characters, and that becomes a problem when the show is not removing characters at the same time. The result is that there are far too many characters who are being given storylines, leading to an excessive amount of storylines. Several characters felt extraneous this season. Robin feels like the odd character out in Hawkins because she isn't doing very much of note, and her main story is a romance that I'm not interested in. Steve and Nancy are teased heavily as well because the show is forced to give them a story. Meanwhile, the LA story suffers because nobody there is interesting. Jonathan, Will, and Mike all have nothing to do this season, and the characters are all spinning their wheels, making for a storyline that feels somewhat pointless overall. The worst offender is Will, whose whole story is bent on the fact that he may or may not be gay with a crush on Mike. The season spends nine episodes toeing around this, and doesn't even make any progress because it is never confirmed! This was immensely frustrating, and despite Noah Schnapp doing a really good job, he can't save a storyline that spends more time teasing than actively progressing. The worst result from having so many characters is that some storylines feel pointless, and as I mentioned before, that's exactly what happened. The LA story is the biggest example since nothing about it is important outside of El. I was always itching to get back to the main story whenever we spent time with the LA group. Even worse is the Russia storyline. Joyce reuniting with Hopper always should have been resolved in a single episode, but instead we ended up witnessing a season-long side story as Joyce saved Hopper. This story was nowhere near interesting enough to justify how much time was spent on it, and it had absolutely zero relevance to the main plot. Sure, there were some good scenes, but this story desperately needed to be condensed and streamlined because it was limited in storytelling, and uninteresting the entire way through. Much like with the LA storyline, I was always eager to get back to Hawkins whenever we spent time with Joyce, Murray, and Hopper. It's a bit of a shame because I did like Dmitri and Yuri as side characters, but we spent far too much time in this storyline for me to fully appreciate the few good things about it. This show has a bit of a problem with how it develops its plot. I noticed this about halfway through the season. It happens so often where the plot develops because a character intuitively happens to figure out exactly what they need to figure out to move on to the next situation. A lot happens because of coincidence and characters getting lucky, and when it keeps happening back to back, the plot becomes completely uninteresting and even frustrating. Its been a flaw in previous seasons, and it still is not fixed here. Best Episodes: E04 Dear Billy: This episode was powerful, mainly because of Max's excellent storyline as she stared down death. There was great suspense and emotion throughout this episode. E07 The Massacre at Hawkins Lab: One of the show's best ever episodes, mainly due to the superb Vecna reveal, and a surprisingly strong sequence of scenes in Russia. E08 Papa: A strong episode of set-up that was aided by the emotional significance of El finally standing up to Brenner. Worst Episodes: E02 Vecna's Curse: The second episode of the season was plagued by the silly Angela storyline, and the feeling that some of these side stories were pure filler. E05 The Nina Project: "Stranger Things" doesn't do well when it has episodes with limited character scenes and focuses on accelerated plot developments. This was one of those weaker episodes. E09 The Piggyback: This episode had good content, it was just way, way, way too long. It's a shame because the story was really good, I was just utterly exhausted by the time the episode ended. The execution let this down. Character of the Season: Eddie. Conclusion: Season 4 was a mixed season, like every season of "Stranger Things", but I think that it was easily the most enjoyable since the first. This season was ambitious, took risks, and had some really memorable moments. It did have the major flaw of being far too long and poorly paced, but if you can overlook that, almost everything here was really good and this season provided the exact sort of popcorn-flick entertainment that I'm looking for when watching a show like "Stranger Things". This season was never going to be great, or a masterpiece, or anything like that. But it was adequate entertainment and I have no regrets watching it.
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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