TV #31 of 2022:
Stranger Things, season 4
Late-stage Stranger Things has a character problem, in that there are simply too many of them at this point for the narrative to function remotely efficiently. Even with the cast (somewhat clumsily) split into four or five geographically separate storylines, this season often finds six or more of the protagonists all sharing a scene together. In that sort of chaos, it’s hard for anyone’s personal dilemmas to register, and so we end up with a lot less specific character work in the writing, and more dialogue that’s just trading exposition back and forth. I can’t help but compare this to Game of Thrones, which for all its eventual faults understood throughout that you build compelling arcs primarily out of scenes with 2-to-4 people, max. Swapping them around can still let you manage a massive ensemble that way, without individual voices getting lost in the crowd. The best moments on this show tend to be when pairs or trios do find a way to steal away from the bigger party they’re in and have some quiet conversations, but that’s obviously more difficult to orchestrate the more folks there are crammed into a single location.
The bloating also manifests in a certain degree of plot armor, where despite how deadly Hawkins / the Upside Down can be in general, our numerous heroes are continually making it out of their scrapes unscathed. I know it’s silly to talk about realism in a series with psychic children and mind flayers and all that, but the absurd lack of consequences to any of the supposed danger — setting aside the finale, which I’ll try not to spoil — does limit my audience buy-in. And since new additions continue to join the pack and its accompanying protective umbrella, this is an issue that’s only growing worse with time. At one point this year four of the teens are stranded out in California — Mike, Jonathan, Will, and new dude Argyle — and I couldn’t help but think about how little any of them are actually adding to the main story. A more disciplined creative team could have written off that entire delegation, whether terminally or not, but instead, we spend valuable minutes each episode checking back in on them in a delayed plot that serves only to eventually reunite them with El. Elsewhere, Joyce and Murray are on a similar zero-progression quest to sneak into Russia and link up with Hopper again.
It’s all frankly a bit of a mess. Vecna at least presents a big-bad antagonist with some personality for once, and I do love the Kate Bush runner and how it’s apparently doing unexpected wonders for her real-life music career. Overall the program is skating by on inherited investment in familiar faces and its fun 80s horror pastiche vibes, but this penultimate outing hasn’t exactly been its finest hour. Hopefully the upcoming final season can straighten out its act to give us a proper meaningful conclusion.
[Content warning for gun violence, violence against children, and gore.]
★★★☆☆
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