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A Review of “Stranger Things Season 4 (2022)”

 

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Stranger things returns after a long 3-year wait. While I enjoyed Stranger Things season 3, it leaned way too much on the cheesiness and comedy than the tense drama and horror.

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Stranger things season 4 feels like a return back to form and it is wonderful. This season also contains one of the best antagonists of the series so far in Vecna. He is genuinely a proper threat to the cast and for the first time properly, it is hard to say if the cast will make it out alive. There is also a new character who sort of joins the crew and that is Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn). He is a great addition and has meshed well with the younger and older crews of Hawkins.  The story continues to be extremely engaging. We have the cast at Hawkins dealing with gruesome murders, we have Hopper trying to escape Russia while Joyce and Murray try to save him, we discover more about Eleven’s past and her training arc, and Max becomes a bigger focus with her dealing with the aftermath of her brother’s death.

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Unfortunately, some of the cast get the short end of the stick in season 4. Mike, Jonathan and Will have the most boring story in the season. All their story is focused on is chasing down a MacGuffin. None of them has a proper character arc or development thus making their story just padding for time. Mike’s story is just him being insecure about saying I love you to Eleven, Jonathan got completely butchered as a character and is now a stoner and a liar, Will is gay and that’s it. I was gutted that the creators couldn’t make a more interesting story for them.

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Additionally, while I did enjoy the Russian story, despite it being very cheesy, it’s the only story that doesn’t connect that much with the main conflict. The final episode tries to make it connect but it feels very forced. They also bring back Nancy’s and Steve’s romance story again which I was very mixed about. The romance part doesn’t amount to anything and it is a little jarring that Nancy’s story seems to always revolve around some kind of romance issue when I thought we moved past this in season 3. There is also a plot point concerning Steve that is brought up in the show but is never brought back even when the season was finished which is just weird.

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Overall, it is great to see the show back. Even though I did nitpick a lot of things that I had problems with, the show is still thoroughly entertaining. It fixes most of the issues I had in season 3 and focuses more on the drama again which I appreciate. Stranger Things has been consistently a great show and I can’t wait for the final season to see how this show will end.


Check out my quick review of the previous seasons of Stranger Things
https://moviewarfarereviews.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-quick-review-of-stranger-things.html
 

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