Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed in this review are solely those of Marlon Wallace and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of WBOC.
This series spent seven weeks as #1 on Netflix’s Global Top 10. It spent 15 weeks in that list’s top five. At the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards, the program was up for 13 Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series. It won five this year, including Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup, Outstanding Sound Editing, Outstanding Sound Mixing, Outstanding Stunt Coordination and Outstanding Music Supervision. That last category might have been the most deserved win. Music Supervision has to do with finding, securing and utilizing previously recorded songs. This spring, this fourth season went viral on the Internet specifically because of this show’s music supervision. Namely, the show found, secured and utilized the previously recorded song “Running Up That Hill” (1985) by Kate Bush. The song was utilized so well that it caused the nearly 40-year-old song to rise to the top of the Billboard charts for the summer.
A good song can be strategically placed into a film or television series and be effective, but, specifically, “Running Up That Hill” was integrated into the plot and the narrative. It was done so incredibly well that it’s probably the best use of diegetic music in a TV show this year, other than “The Forever Now” by Mandy Moore in NBC’s This Is Us, which got nominated for an Emmy but sadly didn’t win. “Running Up That Hill” became not only a metaphor but also a literal tactic in the plot and narrative of this series. Breaking that plot and narrative takes some doing because the Duffer Brothers who created this series wrote a very complicated story where they probably indulged more than they needed to do, but, nevertheless, they weaved it all together in brilliant and very clever ways.
Millie Bobby Brown (Godzilla vs. Kong and Enola Holmes) stars as “Eleven,” who is now a teenager in high school in 1986. We learn that she was the subject of a scientific experiment, which gave her supernatural powers, specifically telekinetic abilities. She lives in a small town called Hawkins, Indiana. She was adopted by the police chief, butat the end of the third season, her adopted father seemingly died, so the police chief’s girlfriend took her in as a surrogate daughter. Eleven gets moved to a new town in California where she and her veritable stepbrother are trying to start over.
It’s difficult for Eleven because she spent most of her childhood in a laboratory. She’s very socially awkward. She doesn’t know how to relate to other teenagers or children her own age. She doesn’t know how to act, so she mostly remains quiet. Unfortunately, some of her quirks makes her the subject of bullying. Eleven’s bullies in California are particularly mean. As a result of how the third season ended, Eleven doesn’t have her super-powers any more, so she can’t even fight back against the bullies.
David Harbour (Black Widow and Hellboy) co-stars as Jim Hopper, the aforementioned police chief who adopted Eleven when she showed up in Hawkins. He was an overweight alcoholic who became that way following the death of his biological daughter and his divorce. Eleven becomes very much Hopper’s surrogate daughter. That relationship was a very central thing in the previous seasons. The third season ended with Hopper seemingly dying. This season reveals that he was instead taken to a Russian prison. It’s funny because prior to this season, Harbour was in Black Widow in which he played a character stuck in a Russian prison.
Strangely, the Duffer Brothers wrote that Hopper stays at this Russian prison for the entire season. The relationships that he had in Hawkins with Eleven and his girlfriend are all but gone. It makes Hopper more of an action star than his chubby nature in the previous seasons would indicate. Hopper’s story line takes up a significant chunk of this season, but it ultimately felt superfluous to the main plot involving Eleven and the events in Hawkins, which are obviously more important. Hopper as an action star and seeing him interact with various Russian operatives are entertaining, but it wasn’t vital to the overall story.
Sadie Sink (Fear Street Part Two: 1978 and The Glass Castle) also co-stars as Max Mayfield. Like Eleven, Max was also a new girl in town and in school. She didn’t connect with Eleven until later. She first connected with Eleven’s circle of friends, which included her boyfriend and their nerdy or geeky friends. She’s essentially a nerd or geek too. In the previous season, her brother died and Max is still dealing with the grief and trauma of losing him. It doesn’t help that she lost her brother in a very horrifying way.
Max’s brother named Billy was killed by a demonic creature or force, known as the Mind Flayer. It’s a monster that invades and takes over people’s brains to control them. The Mind Flayer was yet another monster that came from the Upside Down, an alternate reality or a parallel universe that looks like the real world but has a dark, reddish cloud over it and where monsters exist. The Mind Flayer was able to leave the Upside Down and come to the real world through a portal, which looks like a sinkhole in the ground. Eleven used her telekinetic powers to close the portal, so that the monsters couldn’t bother anyone any ore, but Max and Eleven’s friends are still in danger from the Upside Down and another monster living there.
Without spoiling anything, this season’s new monster builds off the idea of the Mind Flayer. A lot of the creatures and dangers here seem to be inspired from films and TV shows in the 1970’s and 80’s. For example, Stephen King’s Carrie (1976) is very much present here. The Duffer Brothers also pull from horror films, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). The monster in question this season feels very much a take on Freddy Krueger. The burned face and body, as well as having veritable knives for fingers. This homage is reinforced by the fact that the actor who played Freddy Krueger, namely Robert Englund, guest stars this season.
The cast here is incredibly large that it would take a long time to go through each character and explain what their role is and what they’re doing this season. The narrative revolves around a murder mystery where the majority of the characters are trying to figure out who the killer is. Several teenagers are murdered in brutal fashion and it’s believed that Max is one of the killer’s targets. A lot of the plot centers on Eleven’s friends trying to protect Max from the killer. How that plays it is terrifying but also thrilling and amazingly heartbreaking.
STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Jamie Campbell Bower as Peter Ballard and Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022
The other main thrust of the narrative goes toward diving into Eleven’s backstory, her history. The series explains her origins. Basically, we learn how she got her supernatural powers and why. In super-hero films, I’m not a fan of origin stories, but the way the Duffer Brothers weaves it into the murder mystery narrative, as well as to other things occurring is nothing short of powerful and is an absolute knockout.
Rated TV-14.
Running Time: 9 eps.
Available on Netflix.
