Streaming on: Netflix
Episodes viewed: 6 of 7
Friends may not lie, but they do grow up — and grow apart. This is the challenge facing the Stranger Things kids as we meet them in the fourth season, long before any kind of dimension-hopping demon rears its inevitably ugly head. After the events of the Season 3 finale, they’re more scattered than we’ve ever seen them before. In California, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is struggling with school bullies and the absence of her powers, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) is getting high with new friend Argyle (Eduardo Franco), and Joyce (Winona Ryder) is working in telesales. (Will is… painting? That’s all we know; Noah Schnapp’s soulful performance is, yet again, neglected).
In Hawkins, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) are part of new D&D group the Hellfire Club, lead by drug-dealing anarchist Eddie (Joseph Quinn), and feel like Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) is drifting away after joining the basketball team; Max (Sadie Sink, a particular standout) is still grieving brother Billy (Dacre Montgomery); Nancy (Natalia Dyer) is editor of the school newspaper; and Steve (Joe Keery) and Robin (Maya Hawke) are navigating dating drama while working at the local video store. Somehow, Hopper (David Harbour) has returned, very much alive and trapped in snowy Russia as a Soviet prisoner. The distance between the characters — whether geographically, emotionally, or both — sets the scene for Stranger Things’ most grown-up season yet, in all kinds of ways.
New villain Vecna is a chilling, Freddy Krueger-esque presence; sinewy, with huge claws, he uses your worst nightmares as his most terrifying weapon.
With previous runs of the show seeing kids possessed, killed, and melted down to become part of the Mind Flayer, this has never exactly been fun for the whole family, but this new batch of episodes really dials the darkness and horror elements up to, well, Eleven. The central conundrum is finding the culprit behind a string of incredibly violent, disturbing deaths. New villain Vecna is a chilling, Freddy Krueger-esque presence; sinewy, with huge claws, he uses your worst nightmares as his most terrifying weapon. It touches on alcoholism, bulimia, suicide and depression — ‘Chapter Four’, the best of the bunch, climaxes in a narrow escape from the void almost as emotionally gut-punching as the use of the bagel-shaped black hole in Everything Everywhere All At Once. It’s not all doom and gloom – the show’s witty, nostalgic sheen is still ever-present – but the more adult lens, plus the shift in location for Eleven (in earlier episodes especially) makes for a much-needed refresh and reinvigoration that the sunny setting of Season 3 didn’t quite achieve.
The trickiest thing for the show to tackle is the now fairly unwieldy ensemble. With the addition of several new faces, there are nearly 20 key characters that the screenplay has to juggle — and we’re verging on storyline overload. Hopper’s thread feels entirely separate, unnecessary, and barely in touch with the show’s lore, with David Harbour vastly underused so far. We’re rushing from one plot point to another, not always sure where we’re heading and why, and while you’re always having fun with whoever’s on screen, it leaves little time for true character development — there are only glimpses, mostly given to Max, Eleven and Mike.
Though it feels over-crowded at times, what remains is the compelling comfort and charisma of the world first introduced nearly six years ago. The clean, colourful cinematography, pockets of pure chemistry, and sprawling, Scooby-Doo-style mysteries that make Hawkins such a fun place to hang out (even with all the Demogorgons) are all present and correct. This time, it’s taken up a notch with extra filmmaking flair — most evident in the camera swinging seamlessly into the Upside Down, and an impressive out-of-the-blue one-take shootout — and tying in timely themes like the Satanic Panic, Vietnam aftermath and increased Cold War hostilities. If you’re looking for evidence of the Duffers’ grand plan going into the fifth and final season, it hasn’t come to light just yet — but that doesn’t make the journey any less entertaining.
