Language: English
Six years ago, Matt and Ross Duffer came out of nowhere and created a season of a show — dunked in loving 80s’ nostalgia — that ended up becoming a phenomenon. Introducing “the upside down” into our collective vocabulary, Stranger Things had an ingeniously simple ruse for a sci-fi period horror show. In many ways, the show’s overnight popularity revealed many of the misgivings of the genre, in particular, its knack to alienate a sizable chunk of the audience. Stranger Things corrected that by crafting an alternate dimension that reflected the horrors of life itself: grief, loneliness, pain. It was by every measure, a defining moment in streaming-era television, one that reaped dividends as the years went by, gifting and reviving the acting careers of its cast.
Today, six years later, the show is on its way out. Netflix dropped seven episodes of the fourth season which make up volume one of the finale. On July 1, the streaming giant will drop the last two episodes, a marketing move evidently designed to monetise fandom curiosity and nostalgia. Still, if the seven episodes are any proof, the Russo brothers have more or less earned the extended red-carpet (episode seven for instance, is one hour 38 minutes long and the finale is set to be the longest episode of television in recent history). The final season of Stranger Things remains both true to its origins and takes a detour into lands unknown, settling into a gripping, bloodied version of itself that isn’t afraid to take a few gambles to experiment with its own voice. In a way, the Russo Brothers crafting such a season feels like the perfect send-off simply because experimentation is hardcoded into the very DNA of Stranger Things. We remember the show as a phenomenon only because the experiment worked.
The action in the fourth season picks up six months after the Starcourt Mall climactic battle. We return back to 1986 Hawkins, the Indiana town with a portal to a mortal-infiltrated netherworld but also cruise to Russia and California where Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) have relocated. The season understandably takes its own time to find a rhythm but even at its most middling, it never resists to come of age.
If there’s one thing that the Russo Brothers understand clearly, it’s that it’s essential for the show to undergo a tonal makeover simply because neither the audience of Stranger Things nor its actors are the age they were when the show first started. In fact, nothing is the same as it was. It’s this line of thinking that influences most of the dramatic purpose of the show, which heads into abjectly terrifying territories. There’s a change even in the language of horror — tragedies for instance, aren’t implied as much as they are weathered. Sample the meditative eight-minute opening sequence which articulates the burden of tragedy on a close-knit community such as Hawkins. It’s matched ably with a psychological narrative heft that doesn’t shy away from making eye contact with a host of demons.
Every episode here is nothing short of a mini-movie. In fact, the finale that is estimated to run at two and a half hours, is capable of rivaling a Martin Scorsese joint. Granted, much of the supersized approach of the fourth season is influenced largely because of fan-service. Still, there’s something to be said about two creators being able to successfully expand on their already expanded vision.
The storytelling takes the kind of leaps that befits a show that was struggling to find a way forward in the last two seasons. That’s not to say that the fourth season isn’t a lot to go through — at times, it might also seem overwhelming. But with only two episodes remaining to cap off this show, the fourth season is indeed a gift for its loyal fans. It’s not everyday that you come across a show that isn’t interested in being openly liked or desperate to safeguard its legacy — Stranger Things manages to be a rare season of television that intends to polarize viewers, simply because it wants them to make up their own mind about its efficiency. It’s why I feel almost duty-bound to not reveal the plot of the show as much as just discuss the relevance of the storylines. I suspect you might feel the same after watching it too, irrespective of which side you fall on. In a sense, Stranger Things comes full circle — bidding goodbye as accomplished and inventive it strived to be in its very first season.
Stranger Things Season 4 Vol 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
Poulomi Das is a film and culture writer, critic, and programmer. Follow more of her writing on Twitter.
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