Stranger Things 4 has taken the world by storm - it is the second Netflix show to reach more than 1 billion hours streamed and has propelled a song from 30 years ago to the top of the charts. Fans (myself included) have waited 3 long years for a new season, which was released in 2 volumes. But was it worth the wait? Let’s discuss!

SPOILER WARNING: The following review contains spoilers for the entirety of Stranger Things 4, including Vol. 2 which was released on July 1, 2022. Read at your own risk!

Stranger Things 4 poster

The Good

The production value of Stranger Things has never been better – and good thing too, because Netflix reportedly spent $30 million on average per episode. The production design, costumes, VFX, cinematography, and use of licensed music was on point. Most of the cast (both new and returning) were also outstanding in their performances, so bravo to casting director Carmen Cuba for finding these talented actors. I bet it wasn’t cheap to hire a starring cast of around 20 people! I’m also glad that Netflix had the confidence to allow the Duffer brothers to play around with the episode lengths (the last 2 episodes were about 1.5 and 2.5 hours, respectively), because it allowed the story to breathe a bit with the 4 different plotlines going on.

This season was also a return to Stranger Things’ horror roots from S1 with Vecna’s gruesome kills, lots of time spent in the slimy Upside Down, and a scene with the Demogorgon absolutely ripping apart the prisoners in the Russian prison. In comparison to the fun summer blockbuster vibe that S3 had, it really upped the stakes and there were several moments, especially in the 4th and 9th episodes, where I was truly unsure whether our favorite characters would make it out alive. The season finale was, without a doubt, the most stressful finale I have watched in my life so far, and the writers did a (mostly) good job of throwing up death flags for a lot of main characters.

I also enjoyed the writers’ willingness to take some narrative risks, such as the team’s first major “loss” when Max “died,” causing Hawkins to be split into quadrants and unleashing the Upside Down into the real world. It was a bit confusing for the characters to seemingly have no reaction to this besides the long stare into the distance in the final scene, but I’m excited to see where the writers take us for the next and final season.

Stranger Things 4 also succeeded in giving many of the main characters a moment to shine. Here were some of my favorites:

  • Max “running up that hill,” or rather out of Vecna’s mind lair (episode 4), which served as a powerful metaphor for overcoming depression
  • Max’s confession about wanting Billy dead (episode 9), which brought much more nuance to her relationship with her brother
  • The reveal that the “friendly orderly” was 001/Henry Creel/Vecna (episode 7), which was creepy, mind-blowing, and featured an awesome fight between him and El
  • Lucas defeating Jason and overcoming his desire to “fit in” with the “cool kids” (episode 9)
  • Robin’s feminist monologue which allowed her and Nancy to talk to Victor Creel (episode 4), which proves just how good Maya Hawke is at reading lines exceptionally quickly yet also organically
  • Will clearly talking about himself and not El (episode 8), which made me simultaneously sad that Will was hurting, angry that Mike was oblivious, and annoyed that the Duffer brothers are still leaving room for ambiguity in Will’s sexuality which they promised they would resolve in Vol. 2
  • Eddie shredding Metallica’s Master of Puppets while all hell breaks loose (episode 9), which was just plain awesome
  • Mike’s “I love you” speech to El (episode 9), which felt earned despite it being cliche in nature
  • El bringing down the helicopter and not forgiving Brenner for abusing and manipulating her (episode 8), which I appreciated because (1) it was badass and (2) redemption arcs should only be given to characters who are worthy
  • The Sinclairs winning their respective games (episode 1)
  • Eddie and Chrissy’s talk outside school (episode 1), which was surprisingly charming and full of chemistry. Too bad they both died :(

Finally, I wanted to praise Jamie Campbell Bower for his incredible performance as Vecna, who is now my favorite Stranger Things villain. Human, complex, creepy, personal, cruel, (somewhat) successful in defeating our young heroes, and apparently thirst-inducing, Vecna is the perfect antagonist for this darker, more intense season.

The Meh

This season the cast of Stranger Things is bigger than ever, with about 20 starring actors. As a result, it makes sense for the writers to split them into distinct groups, with each of their own distinct storylines (as suggested in the teaser poster for this season). However, not all storylines were created equal.

As always, the Hawkins storyline with the mystery of Victor Creel and Vecna was the most gripping. The California storyline seemed to be the writers’ “we don’t know what to do with these characters” purgatory, the Russia plotline could’ve been much shorter*, and Eleven’s arc with Brenner and Owens was important to the reveal that Henry Creel is One is Vecna and El getting back her powers, but I missed her dynamics with her friends. The Jason and Sullivan plotlines were also a bit cringe-worthy because of how outrageously incompetent those antagonists were, but oh well I suppose we have to have both human and monstrous villains.

*As a brief aside, I am one of those Stranger Things fans who thinks Hopper should have stayed dead, and I say this as a person who cried when he “died” in Season 3. I felt like him being “alive” was a very “Somehow Palpatine returned” moment that undercut the emotionality of his death. But alas.

The cast shines when the actors are able to play off of each other, but unfortunately having such a large, split up cast was not very conducive to that. Even Millie Bobby Brown agrees that the cast needs to be pared down. While we don’t need characters to die left and right, Stanger Things has a predictable habit of introducing new, lovable (side) characters just to kill them off in the same season, which makes it seem like the main characters have plot armor. It also means that there isn’t enough screentime for all of the main cast to shine and develop; instead we get scenes like the one in the finale where Jonathan, Will, Mike, and Argyle basically just sit around while El battles Vecna in Max’s mind.

It also didn’t help that the Duffer Brothers, the cast, and even the Volume 2 trailer overhyped up the amount of death that would happen in Volume 2:

  • “The Duffer Brothers on Stranger Things 4’s big reveals, cameos, and why ‘everybody is in jeopardy’” -EW
  • “The Duffer Brothers Say We Should All Expect a Dark Stranger Things Season 4 Finale” -IGN
  • “Noah Schnapp In Tears Over ‘Stranger Things’ Finale As Fans Worry For Will: Photo” -Hollywood Life

Even the fans have started memeing how formulaic Stranger Things is becoming, and that’s not a promising sign.

I was also one of the fans who was eagerly anticipating some sort of explicit confirmation of Will’s sexuality, since he has been ambiguously queer since season 1 when Joyce tells Hopper that Lonnie called him a homophobic slur. Season 3 saw Mike’s outburst at Will where he said “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” which further leaned into the idea that Will was perhaps gay. Season 4 leaned into this even more with Will’s heartfelt speech to Mike (among other things) about how El will always love him and that Mike is the heart of the group, which was clearly not about El but about himself. Yet there is still no explicit confirmation. The season 1 line can be interpreted as Lonnie just being a jerk. Season 3 can be interpreted as Mike not grieving for the loss of their childhood as much as Will. And the season 4 scene can be interpreted as Will just being really, really close friends with Mike. It smells like queerbaiting, and I’m not sure how much longer fans are willing to wait for a definitive answer. Of course, one does not have to come out in order to be gay, and being out in the 80s was probably not a great experience for most people. But this is not real life. In media, representation is important. And that representation can’t happen if it’s being used as an ambiguous plot device.

Additionally, I found Eddie’s and Max’s death scenes both predictable and therefore not very moving. I couldn’t turn off the writer part of my brain who was thinking to herself, these deaths don’t make sense. Yes, we get closure of Eddie’s “I always run away” arc, but he died a somewhat meaningless death – there had been no indication so far that the demobats would follow Dustin and Eddie into the regular world (where they both could’ve gone in the amount of time they had), and the editing made it seem like at the moment that he decided to stand his ground, Steve, Nancy, and Robin still weren’t ready to attack Vecna. Plus, if Eddie shredding to Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” was all that was needed to distract the demobats, why didn’t they just record it and then blast it from speakers from a safe distance? Eddie was also throwing death flags everywhere, such as the scene in which he tells Dustin to “never change,” which made me anticipate his death rather than it being an emotional shock. This predictability is compounded by the fact that Stranger Things loves to introduce side characters only to kill them off, as I mentioned earlier in this review.

Similarly, Max’s death scene was predictable in a sense that her resurrection * was predictable. There was no way the writers were going to end her character’s arc of struggling with grief by breaking all of her limbs and killing her. Yet, the writers also had to somehow get to the point where I assume they wanted to get in Season 5, which is that the Upside Down is leaking into the real world (more on that later). Thus, they needed Vecna to kill Max. Moreover, they probably wanted to “kill” off one of the main characters in order to establish some sort of stakes going into the fifth season. The result of these conflicts of interest was the writers trying to have their cake and eat it too: they kill Max to get the emotional effect and setup for Season 5, but resurrect her with El’s ambiguous powerset.

*Brief aside 2: I know many fans on the r/StrangerThings subreddit claim that there was no magical resurrection since El has canonically manipulated people’s body parts (such as when she made the bully Troy pee himself in Season 1) – El simply did long-distance CPR. But that is exactly it – El’s powers do not reach that far, and quite frankly, they shouldn’t otherwise there would be no stakes. Thus, Max’s resurrection felt like the cheaply shoe-horned in force-healing that happened in Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

Another issue I had with Max’s death scene was the way it was written. It is supposed to be this huge emotional moment, but I think it had 3 key issues that made me not really connect with it emotionally:

  1. It felt like a re-hash of Tom Holland’s tear-jerking “I don’t wanna go” performance in Avengers: Infinity War, which inevitably made me compare that scene to the one I was currently watching. In both scenes, a young character is dying in the arms of someone they hold dear, and both young characters are afraid and don’t want to die. While Tom Holland is given the opportunity to act the hell out of the scene (stumbling, grasping Tony Stark’s shoulders, collapsing to the ground, voice cracking, speed of voice increasing to a desperate panic), I don’t think Sadie Sink was able to do the same thing because it was written in the script that all of her limbs were broken (thus she can’t physically act).
  2. Additionally, Max’s eyes were still white from Vecna’s curse, which somewhat added to the rising feeling of dread when she announced that she couldn’t see anything, but it also meant that we couldn’t really see Sadie Sink’s performance. Acting with the eyes is one of the most important ways for actors to connect to their audience emotionally, but the decision to make her character blind eliminated that opportunity.
  3. Even if I had been devastated by Max’s apparent death, the sadness I was feeling would have been immediately undercut by El’s resurrection of Max.

Some other more minor things that irked me but I was willing to overloook:

  • Clearly the writers didn’t plan for it to be “Vecna all along,” but they did a good job of tying everything together from previous seasons to make it seem that way
  • The fact that the writers forgot Will’s birthday (lol)
  • Nancy didn’t aim for Vecna’s head when shooting him
  • The solution to a lot of their problems is the power of friendship (e.g. episodes 4 and 9), but I think it was well done enough to not be cringy
  • Angela and Co.’s over the top bullying
  • Will’s haircut (lol)

The Bad

The two days later time jump in the finale felt very jarring, with barely any acknowledgement of Eddie’s death by the main characters (besides Dustin, but he was already there when Eddie died) and Hawkins acting so normal despite it being SPLIT INTO ANGRY RED QUARTERS WITH TENTACLES STICKING OUT. No, this was not an earthquake!!!

I also extremely dislike El having the ability to bring people back from the dead. That opens so many terrible writing doors, I’m shuddering at the thought of it.

Jonathan, Will, and Argyle did basically nothing besides a couple heartfelt speeches and stoner jokes. In season 5, I am begging the Duffer Brothers, please don’t do the “Will is kidnapped/possessed” or “Will touches his neck in fear of the Upside Down” plot again.

The re-hashing of the Nancy-Steve-Jonathan love triangle was exhausting. Just have Nancy pick someone or let her be her own independent woman.

While the first half of the finale was intense, the last half just felt like a combination of rushed reunions and season 5 setup. I wish they spent more time resolving what had just happened, like the team mourning Eddie.

Lightning Round

Current season ranking: 1 (classic) > 3 (well paced, good balance of humor, heart, and horror) > 4 (ambitious, dark, back to true horror roots instead of summer blockbuster feel, high stakes, but not great pacing) > 2 (pretty alright)

Favorite character this season: Max, no contest. She had the most character development and I just want her to be happy in Season 5. I need more wholesome Lumax moments!

Least favorite character this season: Argyle. He seemed like he was a convenient writing solution to the dark tone of the season and the fact that team California needed a lot of salt for El’s bath in the season finale.

Favorite episode this season: Episode 4 Dear Billy. Great emotional stakes and pacing. Plus, it introduced me to Kate Bush.

Least favorite episode this season: Episode 5 The Nina Project. Just felt like we were running in place, especially after the high of Episode 4.

Favorite lines this season:

  • “I piggybacked from a pizza dough freezer.” -El
  • “Normal’s just a raging psychopath.” -Lucas
  • “I’m still here.” -Max
  • “Try before you deny.” -Argyle (yes, I love pineapple on pizza. Fight me.)
  • “This is music!” -Eddie
  • “Crit hit!” - Erica

Favorite use of licensed music this season: Tie between:

They’re both just too emotional and epic to choose!

Questions for S5

  • How did the Upside Down become a snapshot in time of Hawkins if it was originally “untouched by man” as Vecna describes it?
  • Will Max wake up? If she does, will she be blind? Paralyzed? Completely fine? Is it just that her “soul” is stolen by Vecna?
  • What was the significance of Max’s memory of skateboarding as a young girl when El was trying to find her in her mind? Was it just foreshadowing that her bones would break? That she always fights back?
  • Where are Murray, Dimitri (Enzo), Yuri, Sullivan, and Dr. Owens? Did they really just leave Dr. Owens there, lol?
  • If everything that Nancy saw when she was cursed by Vecna is true, does that mean her entire family is going to die?

The Verdict

8.5/10

Stranger Things 4 is an ambitious, dark, and intense 4th season that expands the show’s lore and scope, but it’s also weighed down by too many predictable plotlines and characters.

Stranger Things 4 is out now on Netflix. It stars Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven / Jane Hopper), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Matthew Modine (Martin Brenner), Paul Reiser (Sam Owens), Jamie Campbell Bower (Henry Creel / One / Vecna), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), Eduardo Franco (Argyle), and Joseph Quinn (Eddie Munson).