It's been three years since the third season of "Stranger Things," and the Duffer Brothers and their collaborators have made good use of the time. In a year where we've seen such a crush of prestige streaming series, and Disney+ has been pushing high priced Marvel and "Star Wars" properties, "Stranger Things" is far and away the most impressive series on any platform. The production rivals anything currently playing in theaters, and totally outclasses any imitator on streaming. It feels like this is one of the only pieces of media of its kind - a true longform series told with all the resources of blockbuster filmmaking.
There have been debates on the relative merits of the last few seasons, but this year of "Stranger Things" feels like a significant step up. All the kids except Erica are now in high school. The adults are almost totally absent - Joyce and Murray spend the whole season traveling to Russia to rescue Hopper from a Soviet prison camp, while the kids are split up between Hawkins and California. Satanic panic finally reaches Hawkins, as a series of murders puts the high school DnD group, the Hellfire Club, in the crosshairs, with its leader Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) as the prime suspect. The actual culprit is a new villain from the Upside Down that the kids dub Vecna. Preying on troubled kids, Vecna can psychically murder his victims and seems unstoppable.
This season's biggest stumbling block is that there are too many characters. Joyce, Hopper, and Murray are joined by "Game of Thrones" alum Tom Wlaschiha for a very self-contained storyline that is honestly fine as typical action movie fodder. It's the least impressive part of this season, but it's better material than what these characters have usually had to work with. The California crew consist of the Byers brothers, Jonathan's new stoner pizza delivery pal Argyle (Eduardo Franco), a visiting Mike, and Eleven - who is quickly whisked away to a secret lab by Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) to try and get her powers back. The boys get some hijinks and eventually a road trip, but not much else. The show has been dancing around Will possibly being gay, and Jonathan's relationship troubles with Nancy for two seasons now, probably because it doesn't know what else to do with them.
Back in Hawkins, the older teenagers - Nancy, Steve, and Robin - mostly have romance on their minds as they help the others delve into the secrets of Vecna and local maniac Victor Creel (Robert Englund). Eleven, Lucas, and Max are the major characters who become the focus of the season, and actually get full character arcs. Lucas has joined the basketball team, under the leadership of bullying jock Jason Carver (Mason Dye), and is being pressured to turn his back on his nerdier friends. Max is still struggling with the aftermath of Season Three spoilers, and becomes one of Vecna's targets. And then there's Eleven, who gets a chance to confront parts of her past as she tries to reboot herself. Dustin and Eddie are also pretty prominent, eventually getting a subplot during the big finale all to themselves.
All the actors are as good as they've ever been, but the villains this year are especially vital, creating palpable threats to everybody in the show. The horror elements in "Stranger Things" have always been great, and now they Duffers are tapping into the slasher side of the genre, specifically the gruesome Freddy Krueger energy that so many '80s horror flicks had. The nightmare imagery of the Upside Down is more expensive looking, and more varied, giving us new locations and new things to be scared of. The effects crew really outdid themselves, and as a result "Stranger Things" has never been more exciting or fun to watch as pure spectacle. As teen drama - well, your mileage will likely vary. The creators get away with a lot of messy and uneven writing this year, because it's clearly setting up for Season Five, which will reportedly be the last.
It's clear that the Duffers and Shawn Levy are starting to get too indulgent. While I generally support variable episode lengths, there was no reason that the finale had to be two and a half hours long, riddled with unnecessary slo-mo shots, and so haphazardly edited. Splitting the season up into two volumes was smart because it generated a lot more chatter and momentum for the second half, but I think the audience would have been much happier if those two episodes were either much shorter, or just reworked into four episodes.
More on specific story issues and Vecna next time, with spoilers…
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