Stranger Things Season 4 is Strangely Disappointing – Something You Should (maybe) See

“Danger Strings”

In the ever-expanding universe of Weirder Stuff, Odder Objects, and Stranger Things, the strangest thing to me is that I don’t like it as much as I used to, but somehow, everyone else seems to like it so much more. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about season 4 of Netflix’s hit sci-fi show, but something about it just rubs me the wrong way.

For some background to show you I’m not just a pop culture contrarian (not that anyone would get that impression of me, I’m sure); I loved Stranger Things when it first came out almost six years ago (what? where has the time gone?). I binged the first season, contemplated skipping classes in college to watch the second season (I went to class anyway, teacher’s pet that I am), and although I was at Philmont for the third season and missed its initial release, Cheyenne and I caught up on it together later and were both in love with it. I have the Lego set, for Pete’s sake. I had really, really high expectations for this fourth season, especially since we’ve had to wait some extra two years for it to come out, what with the pandemic and all. And when it finally released a couple Fridays ago, Cheyenne and I sat down, made some demogorgon-shaped pizzas to celebrate, and watched pretty much the entirety of Season 4 Part 1 (I think it’s stupid to break it up into two, by the way) in a day. And then we looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “meh.”

To be fair, Cheyenne was actually the harsher critic here. Several times during the show, she said to me, “this is stupid,” or, “this show is losing me, and it better pick soon or I’m gonna stop watching.” Invariably it did “pick up,” and we watched the whole thing, but we didn’t feel good about it by the end. But where Cheyenne saw the whole thing as a big waste of time, I saw it as a sort of interesting problem. Why am I not in love with it this time around? Why is everyone else heaping praise on it as some sort of grand return to form after season 3? For the record, I really liked season 3. But what is the difference here? Is it me? Is it the show? I genuinely do not know. But I’m gonna try and collect my thoughts a little and figure out why.

For some background on the show, if you’ve somehow never been exposed to it before; Stranger Things follows a group of kids from the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana as they navigate adolescence, friendships, and personal growth while also fighting monsters from another dimension and shadowy government agencies. One of the kids even has superpowers! It’s a little bit Goonies and E.T. meets Stephen King, though season four is definitely heavier on the horror than its previous seasons. Honestly, season four is less Stephen Spielberg 80’s movie and more Nightmare on Elm Street with a dash of Silence of the Lambs thrown in for flavor, like some sort of fried liver dish. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with this. I’m a horror fan through and through, and the more gruesome visuals and creepier atmosphere do a lot to draw me in. But something still feels like it’s missing.

To be fair, it doesn’t help that everyone in the show looks way older than the characters they’re supposed to be playing. I’m constantly having to both ask Cheyenne and remind myself how old these people are supposed to be. Is Nancy in high school still? How old is Robin? Are Mike, Lucas, Will, and Dustin freshmen in high school or, like, twenty? Part of this is logistics; this season takes place only six months after season 3, but it’s filmed so much later than all the rest. But still, one of the new characters, Eddie, looks and acts like he’s straight out of a college basement band, not a high school garage band. And there is a difference there, I promise you.

That’s a minor gripe, though, when faced with everything else that the show is and isn’t. Like the previous seasons, season 4 is less of a single contained narrative and more of several subplots that revolve around each other and will, presumably, all converge together in the finale. But here’s the thing; some of those subplots aren’t worth the screentime they get! The show is so bloated and long, so full of stuff that could quite readily be cut from the show itself, that when other import characters or plot points show up and don’t get the screen time I feel they deserve, it’s so much more jarring. You spend two hours on Hopper’s escape from a Russian gulag but are (comparatively) totally ignoring characters like Will, Erica, or Eddie? Where’s the heart?

It’s pretty hard to find under all the fluff and stuffing of the thing. I think maybe that ends up being my biggest problem; by attempting to bite off way more than it can chew, the characters that do get proper development do exceptionally well, but everything else feels flat in comparison. The entire story with Joyce and Murray going to Russia to rescue Hopper feels like an entirely different TV show and is, frankly, almost boring to watch. I was so convinced at the end of season 3 that Hopper survived by going into the portal to the Upside Down, that when, really, he just kind of “missed” the explosion, I was really disappointed. And then, (spoilers!) when he escapes the gulag the first time and gets recaptured, I groaned. Not out of empathy for his plight, but because it meant the show was gonna have to do more of that shit. Just let him be dead or get him back already!

Then there’s the whole plotline around Mike going to see Eleven in California, which quickly becomes Eleven going on an exposition dump about some sort of previously unknown backstory where all the other test children died, and Mike gunning it around California with Will, Jonathan, and new friend Argyle as they try to track down Eleven. It’s fun, but there’s, like, two moments that I would consider character-driven instead of just things happening. And as much as I love Argyle, he’s basically a Cheech and Chong knock-off. He’s got his moments but it feels very out of place.

That being said, the plotlines that take place in Hawkins are just as good as ever, even with their missteps. Robin, god-among-men Steve Harrington, and Dustin are just as lovably endearing as ever, and it’s a pleasure to see Robin play off of characters other than just Steve, too. Nancy and Robin’s field trip to the asylum is something that feels both tense and character-driven, setting them both up for some development. Max’s whole storyline with the Vecna demon in episode four, while maybe not as impactful to me because I have largely forgotten what went on in all the other seasons, was done really, really well. And that being said, while I don’t like the new big bad as much because he feels way too formulaic and well-trodden, his powers and method of destruction are pleasantly frightening, and feel like they have real weight (although the way of getting around it is kind of dumb). I’m more a monster kind of a guy, so having a Freddy Krueger stand-in isn’t my cup of tea, but it’s an interesting change of pace, at least.

But then there’s all the stuff that feels like it was swept up off the cutting room floor and stapled back into the show. Erica lacks any sort of screen presence after the first episode or so. Eddie is fun for about one episode and then just becomes background noise. The gang of jocks that have it out for Eddie are weird and have a real kind of executioner vibe to them, which is maybe on-brand for the (very real) Satanic Panic vibe of the 80’s that that plotline is going for, but it’s woefully understudied. If you’re gonna throw in a group of people who are basically looking to murder someone for a crime they didn’t commit, and then whip up the whole town into a weird rage-fueled frenzy, you had better find a way to confront that. Sure, the target of the mob is white, so it kind of sidesteps the inherent racial aspect of that plotline, but it’s still kind of weird to include it and then do nothing with it, especially considering that those kinds of things still happen today. Honestly, it’s a part of the season that gave me the most chills, weirdly enough. Maybe more will happen with it in the part two of the season, but I kind of doubt it.

And speaking of things left hanging around, there’s a big deal made in the first episode about Lucas’s basketball game versus the Dungeons and Dragons campaign being on the same night, and then, subsequently, Lucas joining that weird mob in order to hunt the alleged killer (he doesn’t stick around, though). There’s some emotional tension there! They’re setting up something interesting for the friendship of these kids! And then there is zero payoff. It feels like the show forgets what happens in the first episode by episode three. And it keeps happening.

It just doesn’t feel like something that I can care as much about anymore. Why get invested if half the interesting stuff won’t get the same screen time as Joyce and Murray’s shenanigans in Russia? But maybe part of that is because I’ve grown up and changed? Maybe I’m the one that’s different now, and I’ll feel the same about the rest of the seasons, too, if I go back and watch them again. Which is kind of a sad thought, really, because I do still like the show, in a lot of ways. I’m going to watch the rest of it, whenever it comes out, and I, unlike Cheyenne, don’t regret my time watching it. Although I can’t necessarily say that it needs to be as long as it is. And maybe that’s the heart of it, here; the best parts of it are still just as good as I had hoped they would be, I think. The kids back in Hawkins trying to figure everything out, and the gruesome murders that go on there, are easily the best part of the season. Eleven’s subplot in the secret government facility is kind of neat, kind of eh. Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle somehow take up too much time and not nearly enough time on screen. And everything else going on is kind of swirling in some sort of weird ether around it all.

Plus there’s that twist ending! I won’t tell you what it is here, but I guessed half of it by the beginning of the episode seven, and had guessed even part of that much earlier. The part I didn’t guess is kind of neat, kind of confusing, otherwise alright, I think. It isn’t like some sort of world-shattering twist, but it’s a good plot development. I don’t even know if I’d call it a twist so much as “oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, actually.” But maybe that’s a good thing, and shows that the show at least has a strong hold on its internal logic. I don’t know! I think it’s alright.

But maybe you’ve got a good idea, now, of why Stranger Things Season 4 hit me different than the other seasons did. It’s like the show has outgrown its own premise, and now it’s just making stuff up on the fly and throwing it around to see what sticks. But what does stick, unfortunately, is only maybe 40% of the show itself. To see something that was, at one point, 80% to 90% “sticking” fall to, like, 40% is really weird. What’s good is still great, but what isn’t so good feels like too much. Perhaps, too, I’ve grown, and my tastes have grown, and I want more out of the media I consume. Not a bigger show, with “more” story, but more character, more interesting interactions, and more intentional plots. Sometimes visual spectacle (like Doctor Strange) is enough, but for a show that I loved because of the characters, season four feels like a disappointment. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. I guess I just expected better.