Stranger Things Season 4 (Part 1)
Spoiler warning: If you have not watched the first seven episodes of season 4 of Stranger Things, be warned, there are spoilers below.
Leading up to this season I’ve posted a blog entry of my favorite things from each season (one, two, three). Since they’ve split season four into two parts, here are my favorite things about part one.
The moment you know Eddie isn’t a bad guy: he’s happy Erica rolls the natural 20. A bad DM, especially an adolescent DM, would see the game as them versus the players. Eddie wants to make it challenging for the players but he’s as happy as they are that they overcome the challenge. The way the natural twenty in the D&D game is juxtaposed with the buzzer beater in the basketball game is also brilliant.
The kids at Will and El’s high school are supposed to do a presentation on their hero and Will has picked Alan Turing. I think Stranger Things does great character work with often subtle things like this. A lot of writers rely entirely on dialogue, or some clumsy plot point. In a quick flash of a sign he’s carrying we get a big hint that Will is gay. Also if someone learns about Alan Turing because of the show, the show has done the world additional service.
Episode 4 had so much I liked it easily could have had it’s own blog entry.
Music: Kate Bush. I was happy to hear “Running Up that Hill” this season in the earlier episodes, but playing it in the pivotal scene in Episode 4 where Max has to escape Vecna was brilliant. Speaking of that scene, the Dahli meets Bosch nightmare realm of Vecna was very interesting.
Bringing in Robert Englund for a role in a season clearly inspired by Nightmare on Elm Street was some shrewd casting.
One of the things I love about Stranger Things is unlike most storytelling, I’m often surprised in the directions it takes. In episode four I was expecting a lot of reluctance on the part of the California crew to go out and look for Eleven. A typical story might have had a big “what can we do” refusal of the call trope here, and instead, surprise shootout. Got to run, armed men shooting up the home. And speaking of which, after four seasons of her homes getting destroyed, can Joyce still get insurance? Also that shootout… I love how the two agents they made it seem like would be total schlubs were extremely effective in that firefight.
Microfilm Research: I’ve said repeatedly that part of what I love about this show is that we constantly see the kids researching and applying what they’ve learned. In this scene Robin and Nancy looking up old newspaper articles on microfilm. I’m sure a lot of people had no idea of the existence of microfilm, but I can assure you that there are still many sources out there not digitized and that if you’re ever planning on doing historical research, loading up and searching through microfilm is a good skill to have. (Just be sure to take your dramamine before scrolling through microfilm if you’re the sort to get seasick.)
More Stranger Things art projects: first Nancy pieces together Max’s drawings to figure out that they’re pieces of Vecna’s house, and then Dustin, Lucas, Erica and Max use a lightbright set to communicate with Eddie, Robin, Nancy, and Steve across dimensions.
I loved the choices the directors made filming Eleven’s memories of getting her abilities in the Hawkins Lab. The uses of the mirror to reflect her younger self was a clever means of showing that it’s the older character remembering it while showing that her younger self experienced it. Also the use of focus and blurring out the sides helps it have this dreamlike feel.
“I think someone spooked a skunk.” One of the things that’s so great about Stranger Things is the ability to have things be scary, sad, and often very funny all in the same episode. Suzy’s house was another surprise and a welcome blast of levity, from her feral siblings, to the sneaking around her conservative father, to Argyle and Eden getting stoned in the van.
Loving seeing Erica continue to steal scenes and to call it like it is at the town meeting: “This is some bullshit.”
The sheet rope through the dimensional gate was brilliant. Up is down, down is up. It reminded me of reading a Max Tegmark piece about possible other universes and the possibility that just because physics work the way they do in our world doesn’t mean that they must in others. Fringe delved into this a bit in the episode with a created pocket universe. In episode seven it is merely that the gate is on the ceiling of the same building, so going through it means that once through up switches to down. And the best thing about this is the problem solving: the kids move a mattress to where they expect their friends to land, and Dustin reasons that the sheet rope will hang in place on its own since half will be in the other dimension being pulled down by the gravity of the Upside Down and half is in our world.
Joyce and Hopper seeing one another. What a great emotional moment. Relief and happiness, but also sadness and worry knowing they’re both still in the Soviet Union and far from being out of danger.
Speaking of far from being out of danger, the cliffhangers at the end of episode 7… I’m glad they delayed the last two episodes because even taking just two weeks to watch the first seven episodes it was difficult to evade spoilers, but at the same time I’m going to worry for these characters until I see the resolution!
