WARNING: Wondering why you can’t find Stranger Things S1-3? Simply put, I haven’t done them yet (as of July 15th). I’m starting off with S4 because this season is the freshest in everyone’s minds. No worries though! I will do S1-3 soon. With that being said, YOU ARE ENTERING A SPOILER ZONE! If you haven’t watched Stranger Things in its entirety, STOP READING NOW! I will discuss previous seasons for context, theories, BTS tidbits, and more.
Trigger Warning: This season is much darker and more mature than in previous seasons. Due to HOW the villain goes after his victims, there is a TRIGGER WARNING. In this article, there might be brief discussions of drug use/abuse, eating disorders, physical/mental abuse, and more.
Continue into the Upside Down at your own risk.
Welcome (Back) to Hawkins
Stranger Things 4 picks up 6 – 8 months after the events at the Starcourt Mall. However, the group has been separated, Joyce, Jonathan, Jane/El/Eleven, and Will have moved to California, where Eleven struggles with not only the loss of Hopper but also the loss of her abilities and is now the punching bag for bullies in her new school. Joyce has a new job as a telemarketer and tries to figure out the meaning behind a porcelain Russian doll she received; Jonathan has a new friend called Argyle as he tries to figure out how to tell Nancy that he isn’t getting into the same college as she, and Will seems to struggle with something internal, a love interest perhaps?
In Hawkins other issues have arisen, Mike and Dustin are a part of a D&D group called the Hellfire Club (Lucas has also joined this group, but struggles with making time between his two extracurricular activities) that is looked after by Eddie Munson, while Lucas, who is tired of being bullied, has joined the basketball team (mostly as a benchwarmer) and is trying to reconnect with Max (they broke up) as she grapples with her life being overturned and losing her brother, Billy. She frequently seeks guidance from the school counselor, Ms. Kelly. We are also introduced to a cheerleader, Chrissy Cunningham, who is haunted by disturbing visions of a ticking grandfather clock, reaches her breaking point, and seeks help from Eddie by attempting to buy drugs from him. Unfortunately, it’s too late for her as she is possessed by some kind of humanoid, tentacle creature and is killed by it in front of Eddie.
Remember that porcelain Russian doll Joyce received? She reached out to Murray (who still lives in Hawkins) to figure out the significance of the doll. With great care, Joyce breaks open the doll and finds a note within it. This reveals that Hopper is indeed still alive and imprisoned in Russia.
Before I cover the next segment, there is an opening scene for the first episode. This is a flashback to 1979 with Dr. Martin Brenner and shows him and his team of scientists experimenting on a group of children with supernatural abilities. For reasons not shown, something happens that leads to all the children minus Eleven being killed in a horrific manner.
With Hopper confirmed alive, Joyce and Murray head to Alaska to negotiate his release. Mike has traveled to California to visit Eleven, and witnesses that everything that she told him in her letters was a lie. Eleven, who has had enough of Angela’s (her main bully) brutality, retaliates by hitting her in the face with a roller skate.
After Chrissy’s gruesome death, Max tells Dustin that she saw Eddie run away from his trailer the night she died. Dustin is firm in his belief that something Upside Down is related to Chrissy’s death, and doesn’t want to believe the police that Eddie is responsible. With Robin and Steve, they find Eddie and explain everything to him, and Dustin names the creature Vecna.
Nancy, who is a reporter for her high school newspaper, investigates Chrissy’s death with a fellow reporter, Fred Benson. Eddie’s uncle, Wayne Munson, tells Nancy about similar murders that happened to a family in the 1950s. He tells her he believes the killer is Victor Creel, who has been institutionalized since his family’s death. During this time, Fred is taken by Vecna’s curse.
Dr. Sam Owens makes an appearance as Lt. Col. Jack Sullivan visits to find out where Eleven (who he believes is responsible for the deaths in Hawkins) is.
Eleven, who has been arrested for assault, but Owens intervenes and explains what is happening in Hawkins and gives her a choice. Return with him where she can get the opportunity of having her powers return (a project that he’s been working on), or continue to live in California with her family. Eleven agrees to go with him and Mike, Will, and Jonathan find themselves under the protection of agents that follow Owens.
Nancy and Robin find out more about what happened to the Creel family. Victor Creel, who had been indicted for the murder of his wife and daughter, blamed a demon for his family’s death. They believe this demon to be Vecna.
Jason Carver, the team captain, and boyfriend of Chrissy, goes on a manhunt with the basketball team to find Chrissy’s murderer, Eddie. He pulls Lucas into this, but he ends up abandoning the basketball team to warn his friends.
Max, Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Nancy break into the high school to access the school counselor records as Max recalls seeing Chrissy leave Ms. Kelly’s office. They steal Chrissy and Fred’s records and begin connecting the dots that, like Max, they all suffered PTSD. Max hears Vecna and the grandfather clock ticking.
Joyce and Murray have been traveling to Alaska to deliver the ransom payment to Antonov’s contact, Yuri. However, they’re betrayed by Yuri, who has intentions of turning in Antonov, Hopper, Joyce, and Murray to the Russians for more money.
Will, Mike, and Jonathon, who have been planning their escape to reunite with Eleven, find themselves under attack by Lt. Col. Sullivan’s men. With the help of Argyle, they are able to escape with an injured Agent Harmon (who unfortunately dies later from his wounds).
Nancy and Robin get into the institution where Creel resides by posing as psychology students and are able to get a five-minute interview. Creel recounts the murders. Virginia and Alice Creel are killed in the same way as Chrissy and Fred, but Victor has been institutionalized since 1959. They wonder why there was an almost thirty-year gap between kills.
Max, who is running out of time, writes letters to all her loved ones, including Billy. She visits Billy’s grave to read the letter to him and is possessed by Vecna. Max finds herself in some kind of altar inside his mind. Meanwhile, Lucas, Dustin, and Steve learn that music can help break the spell from Nancy and Robin. Max’s favorite song is Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush. They can find the cassette tape and play her the song, allowing Max to return to them.
Owens and Eleven arrive at an abandoned ICBM silo in Nevada, where she finds out that Brenner is not only alive but is one of the minds behind The NINA Project. The isolation tank (NINA) is specialized to allow Eleven to explore repressed memories. When trying to escape, she finds that she still has her powers, and this convinces her to continue forward with the experiment.
Agent Harmon, who has died, gave Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle a clue to find Eleven. A pen containing the number that connects them to the NINA Project. They enlist Suzie, Dustin’s girlfriend, to help them find the NINA Project.
Eleven, through NINA, can relive memories and finds that she has befriended a “Friendly Orderly” who warns her about Brenner and his lies. Eleven is ostracized and bullied by the other subjects, which leads her to believe she was responsible for the incident in the rainbow room.
Hopper finds out that the Russians have a Demogorgon and tells the others that they have no chance of surviving against it. He comes up with a plan to steal liquor and a lighter from a guard after expressing that the Demogorgon’s only weakness is fire. Joyce, Yuri, and Murray (who have disguised themselves to break into the prison) are given a tour of the prison and a special look at the Demogorgon killing pit.
Jason, who has been on a relentless mission to find Eddie, begins turning minds against what he believes is a Satanic Cult or also known as the Hellfire Club. Steve, Dustin, Robin, and Nancy, who have found Eddie (after escaping from Jason’s group) realize that Dustin’s compass is acting oddly. Dustin, having seen this happen before, tells the rest that there is a gate nearby to the Upside Down. Dubbed Watergate, they trace it back to Lover’s Lake, where Steve investigates, only to be yanked through it by bat-like creatures later called Demobats. Nancy, Robin, and Eddie follow him through the Watergate on a rescue mission.
Joyce, Murray, and Yuri witness Hopper and the other prisoner holding their own against the Demogorgon. Joyce and Murray spring into action by subduing the guards and opening the prison doors to free Hopper and the surviving prisoners in the killing pit.
Dustin, Lucas, and Erica (Lucas’s sister) theorize how the Watergate got to be in Lover’s Lake. They come up that every site where a murder took place, there must be a gate to the Upside Down. Meaning that there is a gate at Eddie’s trailer, on the road where Fred died, and the last one where Patrick died on Lover’s Lake.
Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Eddie can communicate with Dustin and the others, and they reunite at Eddie’s trailer. Eddie and Robin make their way back into Hawkins, but Nancy is possessed by Vecna. She becomes locked in Hawkins Lab as Vecna tells her to send a message to Eleven and to “tell her everything you see,” and shows her the destruction of Hawkins.
We also find out more about Vecna, too. He is the son of Victor Creel. Henry Creel was born with psychokinetic abilities. Always feeling different and continuing to stretch out his powers, he finds out that not only is his family afraid of him, but also that they’ve contacted a doctor to help. Angry, he lashes out and kills his sister and mother, but he can’t kill his father and falls into a coma where he is placed into the doctor’s care, Dr. Brenner specifically.
The Hawkins group determines FOUR gates are needed for the vision to be true. Currently, only three are open, which makes Max the fourth. Their plan is to use Max as a lure for Vecna, and as he enters his dimension to take Max to have Dustin and Eddie distract the Demobats, while Robin, Steve, and Nancy sneak in to kill him while he’s meditating. Lucas and Erica help to signal the rest of the group and protect Max.
Eleven, who has been slowly regaining her abilities thanks to The NINA Project, works out what the group in Hawkins is planning to do. Scared, she convinces Owens that it’s time to go back to Hawkins and help. Brenner has other plans because he believes Eleven is far from ready to face a threat as menacing as Vecna. Drugging Eleven, he imprisons Owens and continues the experiment on Eleven to further prepare her to face Vecna. However, it’s cut short when Lt. Col. Sullivan finds their base and kills the staff before turning his attention to the escaping Eleven. Brenner is killed trying to help her escape, and before dying, asks for her forgiveness, but Eleven isn’t ready to forgive him and everything that he’s done to her. Mike and his group arrive in time to gather up Eleven and escape from the surviving soldiers under Sullivan.
In Russia, they have found that the Russians not only have a Demogorgon but also a pack of Demodogs and a fragment of the Mind Flayer underneath the prison. They are able to escape before all hell breaks loose.
The Hawkins group is ready to follow through with their well-thought-out plan. Max, Lucas, and Erica remain in the Creel house in Hawkins while Robin, Nancy, Steve, Dustin, and Eddie descend into the Upside Down. Eddie and Dustin fortify the trailer in the Upside Down as the others make their way to the Creel house. With their plan set in motion, now it’s time to wait for Vecna to take the bait.
The California group rigs an isolation tank at the Nevada’s Surfer Boy Pizza (Argyle’s place of employment) and piggybacks on Max into Vecna’s mind. Eleven fights Vecna to protect Max from being taken, but he overpowers her. Pinned, she has doubts about beating Vecna as he turns his attention to Max.
Max, in trouble, tries to fight him off as best possible, but the once well-thought-out plan is falling apart. Lucas and Erica are fighting with Jason and Andy, which disrupts the original plan of saving Max by using the cassette player (which Jason broke). Jason is demanding for whatever they’re doing to Max to stop, but Lucas can’t. He’s trying to explain what is happening and what happened to both Chrissy and Patrick.
While Lucas fights Jason, the plan is further crumbling. Robin, Nancy, and Steve are pinned by Vecna’s tentacles. Dustin and Eddie are being overpowered by the sheer number of Demobats, and Max is being possessed by Vecna. Mike tries to reach Eleven, convincing her to fight against Vecna, and this gives her enough to force the tentacles off of her and face Vecna. But it’s too late for Max and Eddie.
Eleven is able to bring Max’s body back, but she died long enough for it to count as Vecna’s fourth and final gate. The vision that Vecna revealed to Nancy becomes true as Hawkins is quartered by expanding gates that converge at Hawkins’s Library.
Two days later, Hawkins is recovering from the “earthquake.” The groups are reunited at Hopper’s cabin. However, Will is sensing that Vecna is still alive, and he won’t stop at anything. Hawkins is slowly becoming the Upside Down.
Production
Stranger Things 4 has been in development since September 2019 when Netflix announced a multi-year t.v. deal with the Duffer brothers.
Like past seasons, the Duffers regularly meet with their writing team to make sure that they aren’t writing themselves into a corner. They’ve repeatedly said that they typically start by painting the season in broad strokes before focusing on the finer details.
Stranger Things 4 not only saw a shift in runtime (this is their longest season to date) but also scale (characters, sets, CGI/VFX) and tone (which shifted into a darker, maturer tone compared to previous seasons). They also moved away from Hawkins, a first for them, and followed multiple groups through Nevada, Russia, and Hawkins.
Casting began in November 2019 and saw ten new cast members added to the already established ensemble. These additions ranged from high school cheerleader/basketball player to a Russian prison guard. Some recurring actors (like Maya Hawke) were promoted to regulars with the new season.
In February 2020, the Duffer brothers and Netflix announced ST4 had started filming at Lukiškės Prison in Vilnius, Lithuania, which played as the backdrop for Hopper’s imprisonment in Russia. When they wrapped up filming, they returned to Atlanta, but filming would only happen for about two weeks, as production was forced to shut down because of the pandemic. Filming wouldn’t pick up again until September 2020, 6 months after initial filming started. Filming wouldn’t be completed until September 2021.
Conclusion
I rate ST4 a solid 4.5/5. By far my favorite season. It was darker and more visceral, and the actors that we’ve watched grow up were tackling difficult topics and scenes and they were absolutely superb. It was a pleasure watching them stretch out those acting muscles and I look forward to seeing what projects they pick up in the future.
If you want to hear me answer a few questions, and talk more about behind-the-scenes goodness, and theories that I have for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, check out the podcast coming out next week.
Until next time – Cheers!
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