Stranger Things is created by the Duffer Brothers.
The long awaited(?) season 4 of the 2016 phenomenon Stranger Things is here. The story Mike and his band of nerds teaming up with the superpowered Eleven to defeat a Demigorgon from the Upside-Down electrified everyone around the world.
Then Season 2 rolled around, and the raving died down to more of a dull roar. The season lacked the novelty of the first, and the episode The Lost Sister went down about as bad as an episode could go.
After that, predictably, Season 3 came after Season 2. It didn’t have the standout The Lost Sister episode, but the quality as a whole was not as high as before.
So expectations weren’t necessarily high coming into this 4th season, and then it was announced it was the dreaded double season. Part now, with more coming in July. Unfortunately, the splitting of the season is more of a marketing gimmick than one driven by storytelling necessity.
And that is unfortunately where the new season of Stranger Things finds itself. Season 4 finds itself in the same place as two of its predecessors, a good season of television stuck in the shadow of a great one.
Longer Things
To me, the new season did not start out on the right foot. The first episode, The Hellfire Club is filler, plain and simple. Its important to see where these characters are after the time jump between seasons, but it takes so much time in doing so.
Okay, so Lucas has drifted a little apart from his friends due to his involvement with the high school basketball team, and the others need another kid to help them with their Dungeon and Dragons campaign.
Those two storylines are important to show where our characters stand after a time jump, but it could easily be condensed into half the time. The important parts of these storylines are the introductions of Eddie Munson and the bully basketball team. But it takes it time in doing so, in an unnecessarily bloated season.
Too Many Cooks
So the first episode introduces Eddie, the bully basketball team and Eleven’s bullies. Which technically is fine. The bullies are minor antagonists and Eddie is an important secondary character spread across two main storylines and two main locations.
The problem is that even without these new characters, the cast already feels too big. Will and Johnathan, once main characters in the show are regulated to the sidelines if they are remembered at all. There are so many characters fighting for screen time and relevance that inevitably some will fall away.
Which almost punishes the viewer for caring about the characters. A big part of the previous seasons was the relationship between Johnathan and Nancy, who have not had any interactions at all this season. Nancy is embroiled with the main story, but all Johnathan has to do is hang out with his stoner friend (another new character!).
This isn’t to say that Nancy and Johnathan need to be together. Its just that they are major characters, and the fizzling out of their relationship offscreen feels cheap, especially when there isn’t time to dwell on it because we have to move to one of the other characters or storylines.
Why are the basketball players here? Couldn’t the police be looking for Eddie, the main suspect in a murder investigation and function as the show’s ticking clock? It would save the time of showing these cliché, one-note villains which could be spent on better things.
But television shows add new characters all the time. What makes Stranger Things different?
Toothless Horror
Stranger Things is a horror/thriller show, that surprisingly doesn’t have a lot of death in it. Which isn’t surprising. It takes big inspirations from 80s horror, specifically those starring pre-teens and Stephen King, staples of which are ensemble casts and little character death.
And those work in a short movie style, or extravagently long book. Movies don’t need to keep adding new characters, and a book can be as long as the author wants to to explore these characters.
Think of it this way. How many characters have died in Stranger Things? Like real, recurring characters, with real names. You have Barbara, naturally. Bob in season 2. Billy. Connie, I guess in season 1. Chrissy and Fred if you stretch it.
That is not a lot of deaths for a show that started with a large cast already that just keeps on getting bigger.
And the Duffer Brothers admitted it. They said they regret killing Bob in season 2 and Chrissy in this season. Chrissy! Who was just introduced this season just to die!
Her death is the catalyst for the story. Without it, there is no reason for Eddie to go into hiding, the basketball bros to form a mob, and the characters to learn about the main antagonist Vecna.
She was created to die, and the Duffer Brothers didn’t want to kill her. So imagine how hard it would be to get them to kill a main character, something the show desperately needs.
This not only leads to a bloated cast, but it hamstrings any moment of tension because it’s hard to believe anyone of note will die.
Including:
The Scene
Everyone is talking about the scene with Max in the Upside-Down. It was good enough to get Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill charting again.
And to be fair, it is a technically great scene. Everything comes together and works really well. The music, special effects, flashbacks are all used really well.
But watching it, all I could think of was: Man, I wish I could care about this.
I don’t dislike Max as a character at all. You could replace her with any other character and I would have the same reaction. Because there was not a second that I believed Max could or would die.
And that’s the crux of the scene. But three seasons have taught me that main characters do not die. I wish I could have enjoyed the scene as much as others, but Vecna seemed neutered in the Upside-Down, his terrain, to facilitate Max’s escape.
And this press cycle has quashed my hope of tension in the future. There is constant mentioning of the death or a main character. Thanks for telegraphing it.
Tension is built on surprise. Saying a major character will die sets a precedent that might follow and haunt the show. I don’t want to know, but Stranger Things and the Duffer Brothers seem incapable of keeping secrets and building tension.
But I guess we shall see after what amounts to Stranger Things season 4: Part 2: The Movie.
The Sensations of Storytelling 