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Like many people in summer 2016, I watched the original Stranger Things on Netflix after hearing positive reviews. Sure enough it was a captivating show with believable drama and decent horror with an adorable cast.
However I have felt disappointed with the subsequent seasons of the show. Season 2 didn't have the same impact as season 1. It lacked cohesion, Finn Wolfhardt was in the popular movie series, It, and so was not available for filming much of the time. Instead they focused on the adults and young adults, developing Hopper and Joyce as well as redeeming Steve's character.
Season 3 of the show was better, I've seen others not like this season as much, but it was undeniably fun and had captivating character arcs. However they undermine the overall impact of Hopper's self-sacrifice by revealing he lived within 10 minutes of his on screen death. The Russians being the enemies was a bit of campy fun and they didn't overplay it and better yet didn't make a political statement.
Season 4 was much more like season 2 than season 3.
Starting out with things I liked, Eleven's dark side was interesting. After the opening scene where it appears she has murdered the rest of her test-siblings, it makes you wonder if we can really trust Eleven. Really most of Eleven's solo story and internal battle with Papa was quite good. I also liked how they treated the satanic panic, not making people overly bloodthirsty, most people doubting what the boy pushing it was saying. People didn't suddenly lose their mental capability as soon as Satan was mentioned. I liked Hopper's escape and the way the audience was kept in the dark for his plan. Overall the visuals for the show were quite good. I had far fewer "This is CGI" moments than previous seasons.
But that's about it...
We saw way too much of the villain, initially he looked creepy, but after the fifth time I couldn't help but notice how goofy he looked. Like Jim Carrey's Grinch was shaved and had a feeding tube installed in the side of his neck. Additionally Dustin's banter was a little much sometimes. Finally can we stop naming all the villains after DND villains? It was cute when they were little kids but I can't take them seriously when a bunch of almost adults feel like they need to name the murder demon.
Lets start big picture then work down from there. The overall story was far too disconnected. Half of the kids were in Hawkins, the other half was on a road trip for most of the season, Eleven was doing her own thing, and all the adults were in Russia. They only meet up at the season finale. This had me constantly thinking, "what are they doing again, why do I care about this group of kids?", which is the last thing you want your audience to be asking. Despite the already bloated cast, this did not stop them from adding even more characters! A stoner who is friends with Jonathan and a metal-loving, DND player who becomes the lead suspect of the murders, Eddie.
We don't learn anything new about the established cast. I guess that's not true, Max's character has some development, but the fact I forgot about her even existing before I started watching the show this time around makes me not want to include her in the established cast. Will still just wants to be a kid and is still upset with Mike for having a girlfriend, just like last season. Lucas becomes a basketball player in the school's team but that is dropped after episode 3 when he joins back up with the Hawkins kids. The first 3 episodes feel like they were killing time before the actual story starts.
They attempted to have a motivated villain for this season (good), but failed to give him any motivation (bad). There was an underlying message about trauma being bad, but whatever they were trying to say was lost by the tentacle monster man being too distracting. He attacked people who had past trauma and told them they were bad for causing the event. The first girl had bulimia, the second guy had survivors' guilt from a car accident where the other person died, and Max had lost her brother in the finale of the previous season. This was an interesting plot point, seeing as most of the cast could be a target with their own fair share of traumatic experiences. However, this was pretty much dropped all together once we discovered that the villain was actually One; And One's motivation? He was treated poorly by Papa which made him evil and wanting to take over the world by merging it with the upsidedown. The same goal as all the other villains except this time he can speak.
Every few episodes they needed an emotionally wrenching moment and each time it felt undeserved. They would get a close shot of the actor for the scene, the actor would give a half cry about something, sad music would be playing, and I would be almost laughing at how poorly it was done. "WE NEED AN EMOTIONAL MOMENT ON SET, EMOTIONAL MOMENT IN 3 ... 2 ... ok look sad, say how much you love them, a little more tear, ok done". It never felt like the scene was earned, it felt like they needed to move the story forward with a quick heart to heart that then gets thrown away within minutes. The worst part is that this show knows how to have an emotional moment because last season they handled them perfectly. There were only a handful of emotional scenes and all two of them I remember were earned: Hopper's death and Billy's death. Both deeply impacted all the characters of the show in some way. Billy was Max's brother and Hopper acted like a father figure to pretty much all the kids at one point. However with this season, emotional scenes were thrown in willy nilly. Eddie and Steve get one where Eddie sees that Steve is actually a good guy and sees why Dustin likes him. Now mind you it was sweet what he said, but it puts the whole story on halt just for the show to remind us Steve is in fact a good guy, something which has been established since season 2.
Additionally, Eddie's death was idiotic. It's not really explained well why they must kill the bats, I assume it weakens the main villain because he showed pain when the other monsters were killed. Eddie decides instead of running from the fight to plunge himself head-first into certain death. This did not come off as brave or satisfying since he ran away in the first scene, but rather as a naive self-flagellation resulting in pointless death. Since this character has been on screen so little I didn't even really care he died, yet it's written to seem like we should
I hate what they did with the character of Robin. Last season she was a fun addition and served as a good fish-out-of-water compared to the original cast. Last season they revealed she was actually a lesbian, cool, it would have been cooler if Steve had a more negative initial reaction with an ultimate better understanding and acceptance, but Netflix needed to have an additional representation token and I'll let them take it. This season however they completely changed her character, making her a stereotypical band lesbian who also somehow managed to lose any social skills she had between the last season and now. I thought her sexuality was an interesting development to her character and they could do so much given the setting of small-town Indiana, but they threw her away and brought in a bland replacement to get bonus points for.
The majority of the adult section this season does not work. Joyce decides to leave her entire family to go save Hopper from Russia with a days notice. Now mind you Jonathan is older now and could watch after them, I accept that, but after losing her son multiple times to spooky monsters the past few years you would think she'd be a tad more worried when mysterious murders start occurring. More than that, these scenes are tonally completely different. They feel much more like the campy, fun romp of season 3 than the darker season 4. This is most notable when they cut between the stories; Suddenly after seeing a child get their skull caved in and their arms snapped in two we see a man fight a peanut-butter smuggler using karate on a plane flying into Siberia. It's to the shows detriment that while we have 2 serious stories, the main villain story and Hopper's experience in the camp, we have a very light-hearted, silly story tying them together. It's like hitting an emotional brick wall every time you swap between them. However I did enjoy the goofy parts. This show is best when it's having fun and it had a lot more fun with Joyce and Murray than any other characters.
Hopper's story was actually pretty good. He portrayed having experienced working in a prison camp very well; This was a much wiser Hopper. Everything he did had purpose and he had gotten over some of the pride he had in the first few seasons. Purposefully breaking his ankles to escape was hard to watch but communicated very well the stakes he was willing to go to escape.
When it got to the end of season 2 I was wanting more. When it got to the end of season 3 I was wanting it to be over. At the end of season 4 I'm wanting both. It ends on a cliff-hanger where the upsidedown is shown entering into Hawkins. The ultimate climax was a let-down of a battle between One and Eleven where they force-throw each other around a few times. You could tell immediately that this unfortunately would not be the last season of the show. Season 3 felt like it had wrapped up pretty much everything and it should have ended there but they wanted to finish Hopper's story so they had to make season 4. Since nothing much happened in season 4 I feel like I want more from the show. I invested more than 12 hours into this last season, at least give me a cohesive ending that wraps our journey to Hawkins with a nice little bow. Alas we get neither something to look forward to nor a satisfying ending.
I hope they just make season 5 a really long episode that makes this whole last season worth it. I've put too much time into this show and hell I guess I sunk too much time into this to stop watching now.