“Stranger Things 4” TV Review

By Quinn Marcus

It’s no question that the fourth season of Stranger Things, a show that managed to garner massive amounts of popularity and success amongst critics and audiences had its anticipation from fans waning throughout a massive, COVID incited delay for three years, ever since the third season dropped on July 4th of 2019. I was one of the many, after becoming addicted to the 80s nostalgia, Spielbergian-Esque storytelling, and Stephen King-like horror Stranger Things provided to slowly lose interest due to such an extensive gap between seasons. Well, as the cast grew older, so did the fans, and one question that I continuously pondered about was where the Duffer bros. would take the show next. After all, the show had primarily maintained a consistent style and tone, with the third season (my personal least fav) mixing things up a tad with a new neon-dripped aesthetic and a shift towards goofy comedy, which was a bit of a turn-off for me, as my favorite part of this series had been the intriguing drama between the characters, with splashes of well-written jokes throughout.

The Duffer bros. needed something different, the target audience that began the show as younger teens were steadily aging, and the overall structure of the show would soon wear out. The characters I’d grown to love had begun to lose the traits that made me adore them in the first place, and the villains just weren’t cutting it anymore, with every season providing a new monster that crossed further and further over the line between terror and absurdity (I could care less about the giant flesh/blood monster in ST3). What I love about Stranger Things 4 is that it took all of my previous flaws and (mostly) chucked them out the window, giving me what has become my favorite season thus far, and heightening my excitement for what promises to be an epic fifth and final season. Tonally, the show hasn’t just found a perfect balance between comedy and drama again, it introduces a newfound sense of horror and increasingly dire stakes that had me riveted throughout every episode, with only two of the nine that I found to be weak (5 and 8).

This season, our characters are always on the move, with the Duffer bros. making the smart decision to split them up into groups due to the growing array of cast members, resulting in constant excitement and anticipation from scene to scene. Now, that doesn’t mean all of the subplots are equally interesting. In fact, one or two of them were, on occasion, annoyingly useless (Mike, Will, and Jonathan’s felt particularly of little importance) but what’s great is that everyone is ultimately working towards a common goal, only for the various storylines to satisfyingly converge for an incredible, action-packed finale; carrying the audience on a truly phenomenal adventure that made this show feel like an event again. I never thought I’d say this, but I need to talk briefly about Max’s arc this season, she went from a bottom-tier character to one of my personal favs on the show, becoming the sole drive for the most emotionally resonant sections of this season. Sadie Sink’s performance has matured, and so has Max’s writing, her character feels so much fuller than it used to, with Max’s grief and relationship with the world being explored through excellently crafted, profound bursts of tension, a terrific example being the end of episode 4 (my fav episode of the season), bolstered by fantastic practical effects, CGI, and the best needle drop this show has ever seen: Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.

However, it isn’t just Max who’s given the spotlight, Eleven, once again played excellently by Millie Bobby Brown, finds a new, fascinating story of her own: the struggle to get her powers back, a force that had begun to act as a convenient solution for the main groups biggest problems without much consequence. The unique qualities of what made Eleven so awesome are completely restored, and she’s given a few extremely badass moments of her own, namely a striking helicopter action sequence in episode 8. I loved the new addition of Eddie Munson, portrayed very well by Joseph Quinn, he felt like a perfect addition to the weirdness of the show. Matthew Modine (Papa) and Paul Reiser (Dr. Owens) return with some great moments of chemistry. Winona Ryder’s performance as Joyce continues to improve with every season, and she had fantastic moments of comedy with Brett Gelman, who’s once again a standout as Murray. David Harbour’s Hopper, after a sillier turn for his character in ST3, is back in action and better than ever before, the Russian prison scenes were riveting to watch. Maya Hawke’s really good, Joe Keery (Steve), Gaten Matazzaro (Dustin), and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) play off each other well, pretty much everybody is at the top of their game here. The only performances I found to be slightly more forgettable, perhaps because they’re written fairly poorly, are Noah Schnapp (Will), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), and Charlie Heaton (Jonathan) who all weirdly felt stuck in limbo this season, as if the Duffer bros. didn’t quite know what to do with them.

The crew’s latest and greatest threat yet, a “dark wizard” named Vecna, voiced and performed by Jamie Campbell Bower is the show’s most interesting villain yet for one reason alone: he actually has a voice. Vecna having a proper, well-conceived of motivation for what he’s doing is what makes the character so scary, where the previous villains were mindless servants of a supposed king of the Upside Down, here we actually meet the king, and he’s terrifying to watch. I was immediately struck by the level of gore in this season, Vecna’s kills are truly gnarly and occasionally quite gruesome, which took me aback at first, but made me relieved to know that the Duffer bros. were finally willing to let the show mature with its audience. My only issue with Vecna is that it sometimes felt as though he appears when the plot needs him the most. There are entire episodes where he’s just randomly absent, which is fine considering our main cast is so entertaining, but I guess I could have had more of him, and the chilling visions he inflicts upon his victims.

From a technical standpoint, this is easily the most impressive season. The Duffer bros. have become far more confident in their craft, and it shows in the now complex, bigger-budget, dark fairytale visuals that I knew this show could pull off from the beginning. The soundtrack is also amazing, and the show somehow managed to pull off making a few feature-length episodes (the finale clocking at around 2hrs 20mins) without dragging too much, mainly because this season is so full of plot and character development that it largely fits it’s now gargantuan ambitions. This season felt like the Avengers: Infinity War of Stranger Things, yes, it is a larger-scale story that could feel bloated and messy every now and then, but it finds thrilling action, moments of terrific humor, hope, devastation, and depth that the previous seasons lacked quite a bit of. I binged through it with friends and had a blast, and the crazy thing is if the Duffer bros. figure out a way to tighten what they were going for in season 4 just a little more, season 5 could be a triumph because I still believe this show has the opportunity to be better than it already is.