Stranger Things: Season 4 Review

Murray: Your children, bless their mischievous souls -- they like to get involved. This way, what? They play too much Nintendo, eat too much junk food, smoke some ganja, pound some beers, experiment sexually. What's the worst that can happen?

Season 4 of Stranger Things has some good and some not so good. We get information that explains how much of this came to pass. Alas, we also get filler and some tired storylines.

As Season 4 has been out since 2023, and this review is being written in 2026, there will be spoilers, as that makes the review more interesting. There! You have been warned.

Season 4 is set in the spring of 1986. I like how the show chose different seasons for the different years. Anyway, Season 4 mostly takes place during spring break, so the kids do not need to be in school for most of the episodes.

Let’s start with where the characters begin. Joyce is out in California with Jonathan, Will and Eleven, as they believe Jim Hopper is dead (of course he isn’t, which the audience knows because David Harbour is the second person in the credits). The Byers and El are in the boring town of Lenora, where Joyce has a great job selling encyclopaedias over the phone (she’s really being supported by Dr. Sam Owens, who relocated them).

Jonathan is there to help out his family – and they need it – but mostly he seems to be relaxing by smoking pot and wondering what he should do about Nancy. Will is struggling with something (Jonathan has an idea of what it is) but won’t talk about it. Eleven is going to school and she’s struggling.

El's difficulties at school make perfect sense. She has lost her dad. She has lost her powers. She’s never been in school before. Her problems are earned – but I did not care for the high school drama, which I’ve seen a dozen times before. Also, it seems wrong for her to be lying to Mike, pretending that everything is good when it is not. Eventually she hits back – hard – gets arrested and is suddenly in the system (although in 1986 that system was much more primitive than it is now).

Let’s move back to Hawkins, where we have Max and the other three boys (Mike, Dustin, Lucas). They’re all high school freshmen now. Max is also struggling because she is still traumatized by the death of her stepbrother, Billy. Her mother and her stepfather broke up and she’s now living with her mother in a trailer park: it’s no wonder she broke up with Lucas and is turning away from others. Still, when someone is in trouble – Chrissy, Eddie, even her mom – Max reaches out.

Lucas has made the basketball team, which is in the championship tournament. Mike misses El and is leaving for California. Dustin – and the others – have joined Hellfire, a D&D group run by Eddie Munson.

Robin and Steve are working at a video rental place. I really like how much they figure out about people from the movies they rent. Nancy is also in Hawkins, and she has decided not to visit Jonathan over spring break, which is kind of weird. But she’s still into journalism and she makes a pretty good detective (a true Nancy Drew, as much as that was supposed to be an insult in Season 3, but hey, Nancy Drew inspired a lot of girls).

Our characters will mostly be in their separate groups during the season. Joyce gets a package from the Soviet Union. She contacts Murray Baumann (who fortunately has been taking karate) and they wind up going to Russia to get Jim out of a Soviet prison (it’s always snowing). There was logic to this arc – in 1986, the Soviets were major global players and they were some of the baddies in Season 3. But mostly this storyline felt like a way to get the real grown-ups away from the younger folk and to leave them on their own. Although there were some funny bits, I got tired of them escaping from and then returning to that prison.

El, after being arrested for assault, is taken to a facility with the horrible Dr. Brenner in order to get her powers back. We get some important history, especially the introduction of One, and we get closure with Dr. Brenner, who thinks he means well but is really a control freak. This is necessary information, but again, much of the arc consisted of emotions I have been through before (in other shows, not personally).

Jonathan, Mike, Will and a pizza guy named Argyle are driving around the desert looking for El. They do finally find her, but aside from a conversation between Mike and Will and an understanding look in the rearview mirror from Jonathan, there’s little growth.

Robin, Steve and Nancy make an interesting triangle / not triangle (Steve has to keep telling people he and Robin are just friends, without revealing she’s a lesbian). Robin and Nancy do some good sleuthing together, especially when they manage to visit Victor Creel. Nancy also gets some one-on-one time with Vecna; Steve grows (although he complains about always having to babysit).

Dustin’s new hero is Eddie, the leader of the Hellfire group that plays D&D. Eddie (who is apparently repeating his senior year) also sells drugs. Eddie is a mixed bag in this show; I was surprised, when going through the dialogue, how much of his lines I liked. Hellfire and the drugs make him a target for the uptight Jason. To be fair to Jason, his girlfriend was found dead in Eddie’s home. Eddie was a throwaway character, but he worked pretty well.

By far the best arc, in my opinion, belongs to Max with Lucas as support. Max realizes she is next on Vecna’s kill list, and although she’s afraid, she does what is right. And Lucas, who cares most for her, reaches out again and again. (He says he didn’t try hard enough, but he tried plenty.)

It is cool how the groups all work together from their different parts of the planet. The separation – the fact that 1986 only had a rudimentary internet (thanks, Suzie) and no cell phones – is the big hurdle. Yet, despite being so far apart, they all come together.

Bits and pieces

By 1986, I was already grown up, so I remember it well. There are touches to the episodes that ring so true. Pineapple on pizza. Encyclopedias. The infancy of the internet. Microfiches in libraries. Card catalogues in libraries! The cars. The obsession with RVs. The stores renting videos. And yes, we all had a whole bunch of phone numbers in our heads.

And the styles. I wore those styles!

In so many high school dramas, the mean (popular) guys are blond. That’s what they did in both Lenora and Hawkins. Sigh. I’m blond(ish). But I wasn’t popular.

Kamatchka is that peninsula that sticks out from Russia. Not that far from Alaska.

The children in the Mormon household were fun, but so many seemed about the same age.

Quotes

Robin: You ask out a girl and she says no. Big deal. Nothing happens. Maybe your ego's a little bruised. I ask out the wrong girl, and bam, I'm a town pariah.
Steve: I'd buy that, except Vickie is definitely not the wrong girl.
Robin: We just don't know that, do we?
Steve: She returned Fast Times paused at 53 minutes, 5 seconds. Know who pauses Fast Times at 53 minutes, 5 seconds? People who like boobies, Robin.

Counselor Kelley: Is she still drinking?
Max: Like, yeah, a little, but…Well, she's working two jobs- So, it's not easy.
Counselor Kelley: It must not be easy for you either with your stepdad gone.
Mas: It's kind of better, honestly.
Counselor Kelley: Better how?
Max: He was an asshole. So, there's less assholery.

Chrissy: You know, you're not what I thought you'd be like.
Eddie: Mean and scary?
Chrissy; Yeah.
Eddie: Yeah, well, I actually kinda thought you'd be kinda mean and scary too.

Erica: My name is Lady Applejack. And I'm a chaotic good half-elf rogue, level 14. I will sneak behind any monster you throw my way and stab them in the back with my poison-soaked kukri. And I'll smile as I watch them die a slow, agonizing death. So, we gonna do this, or we gonna keep chitchatting like this is your mommy's book club?
Eddie: Welcome to Hellfire.

Jason: You all right in there, Sinclair?
Lucas: I'm good.
Jason: First hangover feels like you're gonna split in two, but you'll live.

Max: The look on his face. He was scared, Dustin. Really scared. Maybe he was scared because, you know, he --he just killed someone, or – maybe -- maybe be – because – don't – I don't know, maybe –
Dustin: Something else killed her.

Dustin; Eddie. We're on your side. I swear on my mother. Right, guys?
Steve: Yes. Yes. We swear. On Dustin's mother.

Mike: Guess I don't really understand. Why didn't you tell me what's going on here? I mean, you know I'm not exactly Mr. Popularity back at home. I mean, you've seen it. I've been bullied my entire life. I mean, I… I know what it's like.
Eleven: No. You don't.
Mike: Okay. What don't I understand?
Eleven: I am different. I do not belong.
Mike: You mean in Lenora?
Eleven: Anywhere.

Hopper: So, he’s a criminal.
Dmitri Antonov (aka Enzo): Of course! Who do you want to do this job, Gandhi?

Steve: Wipe your feet. On the outside, not the inside! Always the babysitter. Always the goddamn babysitter!

Max: Yeah, but, I mean, what if there was a serial killer on the loose in my neighborhood? Did Chrissy mention anything? Anything about who might have done this?
Counselor Kelley: Max, I'm -- I'm sorry, I really can't discuss this. You wouldn't want me talking to any other students about you, right?
Max: If I were dead and it would help catch the killer, then yeah, I most definitely would.

Robin: Holy shit. The Weekly Watcher. I can't believe they have this.
Nancy: Don't they write about, like, Bigfoot and UFOs?
Robin: First, UFOs are absolutely real. Bigfoot I'm still on the fence about. But may I remind you we are looking for information on dark wizards? If someone's gonna write about that, it's gonna be these weirdos.

El: What if I'm not good? What if I'm the monster?
Owens: I don't know you that well, kiddo, but I'm betting the fate of the planet that you're one of the good ones.

Max: All I know is that, for Fred and Chrissy, they both died less than 24 hours after their first vision. And I just saw that goddamn clock, so … looks like I'm gonna die tomorrow.

Murray: Joyce, there are certain things one can be late to in life. A dentist's appointment. A one-year-old's birthday party, because who cares? Little idiot's not gonna remember it. But for what is essentially a ransom exchange, for that, for that, I think you very much need to be on time.

Karen Wheeler: I think it's so sweet that you guys are sticking together like this.
Ted Wheeler: Could try sticking together at a different house for a change.

Jim: And then people started coming into my life. This girl El, and Joyce just happened, and I told myself they needed me. But that wasn't true. That's a lie. They didn't need me. I needed them. I needed them.

Overall rating:

Some good stuff and some old stuff and some stuff that really felt like filler. Two and half out of four pineapple pizzas.

Victoria Grossack loves math, birds, Greek mythology, Jane Austen and great storytelling in many forms.