Stranger Things Stretches Out the Upside Down For an Endearingly Familiar Season 4: Review

The post Stranger Things Stretches Out the Upside Down For an Endearingly Familiar Season 4: Review appeared first on Consequence.

The Pitch: While it’s been three years (and an entire pandemic) since we last saw Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), and the rest of the denizens of Hawking, Indiana in the third season of Stranger Things, for them it’s only been six months. The Battle of Starcourt Mall kicked off a host of changes for our heroes, both young and old, with Eleven choosing to move to California with the Byerses, leaving Mike, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and the others to struggle with the cliques and clashes of high school on their own.

And growing up is hard, even for Demogorgon slayers — Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) has joined the basketball team in an attempt to shake off the nerd cred Mike and Dustin cling to, while Max (Sadie Sink) is still mourning the death of brother Billy last season. And don’t forget El/Jane, who’s lost her powers with the closing of the gateway to the Upside Down, and feels even more lost at sea.

It’s no easier for the grownups: Joyce (Winona Ryder) still clings to hope that Hopper (David Harbour) is alive after getting zapped through the closed door, which (as last season’s teaser of him in a Russian prison showed us) isn’t far from the truth. And the Upside Down isn’t done with any of them yet, as a series of mysterious murders imply that otherworldly (and, compared to previous baddies, more intelligent) forces are at work in Hawkins once again — this time in the form of a “dark wizard” from the Upside Down the kids dub Vecna (after the villain in their latest TTRPG campaign). Even separated (and absent El’s abilities), they’ll all have to do what they can to save Hawkins and the world, once and for all.

The NeverEnding Story: At this point, there are people who are probably just as nostalgic for Stranger Things as Stranger Things is for the 1980s. One of Netflix’s biggest hits of the last decade, The Duffer Brothers and Shawn Levy’s loving pastiche of Stephen King, The Goonies, and more Reagan-era kitsch than you can shake a Swatch at became a certified pop culture phenomenon.

Its young cast are bonafide movie stars now, especially Wolfhard and Brown (and even Harbour), and its influence can be seen in just about every nostalgia-bait legacyquel you’ve seen in the last five years. And now that the show is gearing up for its final act (a fifth and final season is coming down the pike), it’s definitely dragging its feet on its way out.

Stranger Things Season 4 (Netflix)

One thing to know about this new adventure is that it’s long, like long-long; only one or two of the seven episodes slated for release this weekend are anywhere close to 60 minutes. The rest are nearly-feature length, with the seventh episode clocking in at a whopping 100 minutes. (All indicators are that the final two episodes of the season will total three hours.)

Honestly, considering the way the cast of the show has expanded in its last two seasons, that makes sense. In order to give everyone something substantive to do, the story flits between no fewer than four major plots at once: The kids in Hawkins dealing with the new threat (and a Satanic Panic blaming the D&D club for bringing demons to the town), El and the Byerses (plus some visiting Wheelers) watching those consequences ripple through to California, Joyce’s attempts to get Hopper back from Russia (alongside Brett Gelman’s karate-wielding paranoiac Murray, returning from Season 3), and Hopper’s own attempts to survive his stint in a Kamchatka gulag.

All that juggling means some characters, many of whom you’d consider protagonists in prior seasons, getting short shrift. Most notable among them is Mike himself, maybe the closest the original gang had to a lead character; whether it’s due to the writers having little to do with him, or Wolfhard’s own busy schedule as a hot up-and-coming film actor, he’s largely relegated to some charged heart-to-hearts with Will (Noah Schnapp, who’s always felt like the poor also-ran of the group after Season 1) and some time spent with El in the first few episodes.

Hopper is almost entirely cordoned off in his own Russia subplot, which robs us of the fun-loving chemistry Harbour had with the cast. Then there’s Ryder, of course, whose Joyce has to be a little less Joyce-y than normal in the shadow of Gelman’s headstrong comic chops (though they have a fun dynamic). Even El herself doesn’t get much time with the others before she dashes off on her own subplot to (potentially) regain her powers, only to learn the ways this latest mystery might just tie into the origin of her powers.

Running Up That Hill: But paradoxically, the sidelining of prior seasons’ lead characters makes room for the supporting cast to do the big Stranger Things-y things, like solving mysteries with wild theories and doing clandestine investigations right under the adults’ noses.

In Hawkins, that largely leaves Dustin, Lucas, Steve Harrington (Joe Keery, whose hair refuses to stop), Max, Robin (Maya Hawke, a welcome return from last season), and Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) heading up the investigation into a “dark wizard” that’s picking off traumatized teens one by one. They’re even joined by rebellious, D&D-loving high school burnout Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn, who eventually endears despite coming off a little strong from the jump), who proves a welcome addition to the gang.

Like a lot of latter seasons, the fun lies in watching the kids banter, absent any supernatural beasties; we’re invested in the mystery because we care about the characters and love watching them use their plucky resolve to get out of their spooky plights. In this aspect at least, Stranger Things has very much not changed, save for recognizing that the new kids should get a chance at the mystery-solving bat.

That freedom gives us some much-needed focus on some of the kids who’ve had less to do since their arrival, especially Max — whose issues with her dead brother, and how they might build a connection with this season’s new Big Bad, make for the season’s most compelling sequence at the tail end of Episode 4.

Stranger Things Season 4 (Netflix)

You Spin Me (Right Round): Of course, it’s not Stranger Things without an Aladdin’s Castle full of ’80s pop culture references, and eagle-eyed fans of that stuff will find a few fun new gems. Steve works at that glorious Midwestern video store chain, Family Video; Max develops a deep (and eventually important) connection with Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”; we finally get a sequence at that most iconic of ’80s kid’s retreats, the roller rink.

Robert Englund arrives in a fun, Silence of the Lambs-inspired cameo as one of Vecna’s previous victims — the very same episode Dustin makes a crack about Freddie Krueger. Depending on your tolerance for this kind of nostalgia-bait, it can either endear or grate; but since you’re watching Stranger Things, it’s easy to imagine what side of the fence you may be on.

The Verdict: Despite some relatively minor shakeups to the cast dynamic, and a few fun new characters, Stranger Things 4 is content to keep itself firmly ensconced in the familiar. A lot of that is part and parcel of this season’s commitment to bringing our main cast of kids full circle for the eventual finale: So much of Eleven’s story revolves around reconciling her time at Hawkins Labs with her mentor/father figure Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), and the main Party of kids we started with are faced with what happens when they realize how much they’ve truly grown apart.

The ’80s references and dopamine-hungry song choices come as fast and furious, and the story still comes down to ordinary kids riding bikes down suburban streets to bravely contend with otherworldly forces at the end of the day. Plus, the expanded narrative scope and the multi-pronged nature of the story still mean some major players get left behind, no matter how much bloat they add to the runtime.

And yet, it’s hard not to get swept up in the warm, cozy blanket of these familiar settings and endearing characters, and the sweeping blockbuster nature of the thing. Like a lot of the previous seasons, Season 4 remains a cozy retread of familiar ground, shaking up formulas only enough to keep things interesting without truly innovating.

Still, when you’ve got such steady hands on the property, and an alchemically-perfect cast on which to rest your preposterous premises, it’s hard to mess with perfection. As Stranger Things pedals mightily to its eventual conclusion next season, Season 4 takes a beat to value its deep bench of supporting players, and for that it should be admired.

Where’s It Playing? Stranger Things 4 kicks off its extended campaign with most of the season dropping May 27th on Netflix (Part 2, featuring Episodes 8 and 9 closes out the season July 1st).

Trailer:

Stranger Things Stretches Out the Upside Down For an Endearingly Familiar Season 4: Review
Clint Worthington

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