And came the day of fourth season of Stranger Things 4, after three years of inaction he returns today the cult series from Netflix which successfully blends science fiction, horror, adventure, period drama and teen. But not all of it, only the first part consisting of 7 episodes; the last two will arrive on July 1st. To keep faith with the format that made it popularit does more complex, more frightening, more quotingmore nostalgic and almost monumental, inflating content, form and duration into colossal dimensions.
The last episode, lasting an hour and forty, is in effect a film: the serial version of the typical blockbuster drive-in summer. More, like their audience even the protagonists of the series they are beautiful than grown up. And indeed this Volume 1 it is striking because it is significantly more violent, darker and with distinctly horror tones.
Stranger Things 4: in the meantime where we left off
The events resume six months after the furious battle of Starcourtduring which Billy – half-brother of Max (Sadie Sink) – he was first subjugated by the sinister Mind Flayer and finally killed.
In the fight, Eleven’s telekinetic powers (Millie Bobbie Brown) have canceled, and Joyce (Winona Ryder) has seen fit to remove the girl and her children Will and Jonathan from Hawkinsa town populated by mad scientists and monsters from another dimension, the Upside down. They end up in California, in a charming provincial style town Dawson’s Creekwith Eleven and Jonathan separated from their respective boyfriends (Mike and Nancy), and the whole gang of Dustin, Lucas, Max, Steve and Robin.
Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) and Noah Schnapp (Will Byers). (Netflix)
But now that they are high school, these Goonies of Indiana, they are also somewhat divided: Lucas wants to become popular and joins the basketball team; Dustin and Mike reaffirm their nature with the nerdiest act possible: join the club Dungeons & Dragonsthe Hellfire Club led by Eddie (played by Joseph Quinn), repeating metalhead and anarchist. Eleven is instead bullied for its otherness; and her abuses remind her of the secret laboratory where she and the other children were being prepared for their future as weapons. Hoppersurvived the explosion of the Soviet device created to create contact with the Upside Downends in a gulag.
And while each of them tries to regain possession of a normal life it happens that Hawkins appears some horribly slaughtered corpses: the new one threat this time has a specific name, that of monster renamed Vecnalinked to a chilling past made of haunted housespossessions and insane killers.
A bulimic season
What is understood since the first exchanges of Stranger Things 4 is the will to give a structure to mythology. Especially through the disturbing flashbacks of Eleven’s guinea pig childhood, pass towards other narrative lines which, combined, make sense of genesis of the Upside Down.
The problem is that many elements clash, and not just the fact that three years from last season now i little protagonists look like young adults. The subplots multiply, undermine general attention and are somewhat implausible, for example the entire Soviet narrative arc: so much little adherent to the contemporary reality of the cold war that in Stranger Things 4 there are ordinary Americans who know Russian perfectly, Russians fluent in American, and housewives they receive parcels from Moscow without being kidnapped by the CIA.
Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield) and Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson). (Netflix)
The quotes
You know, Stranger’s writers, the Duffer brothers, grew up on bread and the ’80s. And much of the success of the series lies precisely in the setting between 1983 and 1986, the inevitable nostalgia effect and the marked quotationism. Still present with references to The Neverending StoryWar Games, States of Hallucination And Carrie – Satan’s gaze. But the strongest reference, since the goal of the fourth season was to pay homage to the horror classics of the time, is a Hellraiser, It and especially the saga of Nightmare (the appearance of Robert Englund – interpreter of Freddy Krueger – clearly illustrates it; however, mixing it with The silence of the lambs).
The horror, the horror
The shivering crunch of broken bones, eyes popping out of their socketshaunted houses, creepy birds resembling monstrous bats, a villain which looks like Swamp Thing. Horror is everywhere this season. However, the most thrilling horror is the subtle one exhibited in the flashback scenes that recall the captivity of Eleven, coaxed by that sociopathic scientist named Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine). Who calls himself Dad by the children he tortures in that typical Kinghian narrative line linked to young telepathsdestined to turn into monsters or heroes.
Millie Bobbie Brown (Eleven) (Netflix)
In contrast to so much gloomthe mid-80s high school present made of liters of lacquer, giant bows and neon socks, it’s a breath of fresh air. While the scenes with the group consisting of Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Steve, Nancy, Robin and Eddie – in search of a square to the drama – are the tastiest. The comic talent of Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) is worthy of a future stand-up comedian, yet, on balance, this series emerges Joe Keery (Steve) able to be funny always, as a couple and alone.
More than the Brownmore than the risen one Wynona Rydermore than anyone else, he is the real star of the showimpossible cross between a (former) bully with a fluffy hair and a (im) fearful hero.
When too much is not too much in the end
With the cast split into two groups, the Soviet storyline and the flashbacks of Eleven, Stranger Things 4 broad the classic formula of the series up to too much: too many characters, narrative lines, places and twists, at the expense of verisimilitude. However, if the use of the episodes is sometimes tiring, the dark twist makes the show much more intriguing and engagingcertainly for a part of the public.
The innocence of the first two years is by now lost, but however stratified and bulimic, terrifying and nostalgic, this staple series for Netflix – and on which the platform focuses a lot after the announced decline in subscribers – I remain the same small hymn to the losers of all time, Americans and elsewhere. Destined – hopefully also in reality – to be heroes.
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