Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 Early Review

(In my best elderly Rose voice from Titanic) It’s been 3 years since we last received any new episodes of Stranger Things and for the first time in what has seemed to be much longer, we will finally be transported back to Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s. Additionally, season 4 offers a larger-sized portion delivered in two parts, the first being 7 episodes each clocking in at 85min each while the 7th is a wonderful 1hr38min. The second part will be the final two episodes of the season with the finale coming in at just over 2.5hrs. Needless to say, the Duffer brothers are making up for lost time now on the other side of a grueling shoot that has endured both puberty and a global pandemic.

This season picks up several months after the events of last season which saw the Byers family (plus El/Jane Hopper) travel across the country to California in search of a fresh start after the presumed death of Chief Jim Hopper after the battle for Starcourt concluded. As they forge a new life on a new coast, the remaining group members all are trying to adjust to high school life. Mike and Dustin have found their tribe by way of 3x senior Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), who commands The Hellfire Club, the local D&D campaigners, while Lucas receives a taste of popularity through his success on the basketball team. Meanwhile, Max is left to discover her own path shirking both athletics and fantasy as options to belong. Meanwhile, the elder teens are in a similar position as they too are attempting to discern their meaning in their senior year along with post-high school. Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, and Jonathan Byers are all in places of limbo at the beginning of the season and it isn’t until they are once again thrust back into the role of town/world heroes that they begin to discover their purpose.

But this trip into nostalgia is short-lived as this season’s villain, Vecna, is quietly lurking in the shadows preying on unsuspecting victims in Hawkins who are susceptible to his reach leading to more and more teenagers showing up dead causing a town-wide panic in hopes of stopping this serial killer amongst them. As Vecna’s powers grow, the gang finds themselves undergoing separate adventures yet again spanning not just across Hawkins but leading them across the country and even the world in order to bring a stop to the Upside Down’s newest champion hell-bent on destroying El/Jane and her friends at all costs.

With her powers still dormant, El/Jane is left to rely on an opportunity to regain her powers that leads her into a similar place she once thought gone forever while Mike, visiting California on Spring break, teams up with Will, Jonathan, and newcomer (and potential season MVP) Argyle (Eduardo Franco) to race to her rescue. Back in Hawkins, the others embark on different paths centering around Vecna’s motives, past murders, and what could be his weakness in hopes of being able to destroy him. This leads them to adopt Munson, the town outcast, who is being hunted in connection to the recent Hawkins murders, as a member of their group while they seek to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, several thousand miles away, Joyce and Murray come together after receiving a cryptic message from Russia stating that Hopper is alive leading them on a cross-world adventure bolstered by a shred of hope to find him.

This season marks a welcomed return to form for the immensely popular Netflix series. While the majority of our heroes embark on adventures that find them separated from each other, a tactic similar to season 3, they share a common goal and understanding – they are always stronger together. The series masterfully handles the children’s aging and through this is able to take on a much darker tone that last season flirted with but this one fully immerses itself into. This is important on several levels as it shows the series’ ability to lean into darker material through this current season, and hopefully the finale, but also shows promise for what lies ahead in the fifth and final season. While the series has always navigated the thematic depths against the kid’s ages, it feels completely untethered throughout season 4 creating much higher stakes and a stark fear for the unknown in relation to continually triumphing over the evil occupying the Upside Down.

Overall, this latest season of Stranger Things provides an incredible return to a world that grows increasingly more interesting the longer viewers are allowed to spend in it. The series proves its ability to balance the challenging evolution of both good and evil through the lives of the Hawkins group experiencing love, loss, and happiness against Vecna and the Upside Down’s increasing omnipotence which in Part 2 will inevitably reach an exciting conclusion on July 1st.

Until then, viewers are treated to 7 well-paced and narratively driven episodes of near-feature-film length.

still courtesy of Netflix

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