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Stranger Things Season 4 Review

The fourth season of Stranger Things represents a return to form for this series after its lackluster predecessor. It’s also truly one of a kind excursion into epic TV storytelling.

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“There is no shame in running“

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I honestly found the last season much weaker than the first two and this is where I lost interest in this entire series. Thankfully, this fourth season brought me back to this show due to its much more interesting storyline and a better monster. Vecna truly is the best monster that we’ve had so far. He is also the prime villain of the entire franchise and his backstory not only makes perfect sense, but it was also perfectly aligned with all the previous seasons.

His raspy voice, his intimidating presence and his powers all made him a force to be reckoned with. The death scenes were surprisingly grim for what is supposed to be a teenage show. Seeing teenagers brutally murdered by this horrible monster set the bar very high in terms of suspense, though the second half saw very few actually meaningful deaths.

The problem with this season is that it features three separate storylines and they were not all that well connected unfortunately. Only in the very last episode do our heroes finally reunite, but it came a bit too late. Hopper and Joyce were straddled with the Soviet storyline that just wasn’t as interesting as the rest of the show. It almost felt like detour, though David Harbour and Winona Ryder were just as likable as they were before.

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Murray was particularly funny in these stretches and his personality was so cool and he had many very amusing lines of dialogue. I also liked Yuri. He was over-the-top, but pleasingly so and Nikola Djuricko excelled playing this goofy, fun dude. He did elevate those otherwise rather grim and tedious Russian parts of the story. Enzo was also very likable.

As for Eleven, I also found her storyline limited as she was confined way too much to this facility and to her relationship with her “Papa” without breaking through and kicking some ass before the final episode. But her relationship with One was very well realized and what led to his rise in power was very well explained.

As for the main grouping, Mike did not get a lot to do in this season and the same goes for Jonathan, but Nancy got to have some quite cool action sequences and the dynamic between Steve and Dustin continues to be the heart of the show. Their bickering was hilarious. I did find the love triangle between Nancy, Steve and Jonathan overly prolonged and very dull as it’s obvious that she’ll choose Steve in the end.

Lucas and Max fared much better in the romantic department and Max was especially amazing in this season that basically saw her become a protagonist in a way. Her scenes with the monster are epic and Sadie Sink gave the best performance of the bunch. Will is now a closeted gay guy and that story was well handled, but he needed more stuff to do in relation to the villain. As for Robin and Eddie, she is a bit annoying and his scenes relied too heavily on metal music, but he was still a lot of fun and his death was definitely impactful.

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This season of Stranger Things benefits from a bigger budget, which led to much better special effects and more epic action sequences. The finale is famous for being over two hours long, and although the entire season is slowly paced and sometimes featuring pure filler material (the bullying subplot was ridiculously implausible and just annoying), most of the season was engaging enough and it was a true spectacle in terms of ambition and scope.