Stranger things got even more stranger

Written by Andrew Natividad

October 13, 2022 | 12:20 P.M.

Watching a group of kids grow up in a series is wholesome and can really bring smiles to your face. Let’s add some fun. Put a burnt character with no nose and can crack the bones of his victim as the main villain. Sounds interesting? Well, that’s the chilling part of the new season of Netflix’s Stranger Things that is divided into two volumes, Volume 1 was released on May 27, 2022 and Volume 2 on July 1, 2022.

Stranger Things is about a group of kids who battle the monsters from a different dimension after one of them was captured by the monster. Season 1 focused on introducing the gang composed of Dungeons and Dragons lovers Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will. Will was captured by the monster and the three planned to find him until they meet Eleven, who has telekinetic powers and will later help them find Will. It also explores Will’s mom Joyce, the state chief Hopper, Will’s brother Jonathan, Mike’s sister Nancy and Nancy’s boyfriend Steve adventures finding answers for Will’s disappearance. In Season 2, the gang focuses on the aftermath of the first season and introduces step-siblings Max and Billy, and Murray. In Season 3, they deal with the monsters again after finding out the Russians are involved, it also introduces Steve’s workmate Robin and Lucas’ sister Erica.

The series’ penultimate season introduced us to Vecna, a villain from the Upside Down, the imaginary dimension of Stranger Things, who has the telekinetic powers the same with Eleven, one of the series’ main characters. Worth a showdown, right? In this season, we are not stuck in Hawkins, the fictional town of Stranger Things. We also went to Russia, California and Nevada and it’s a great change of pace for the story. 

This season will put you in a rollercoaster ride of emotions. You will either be annoyed at the bullies, nervous because of Vecna’s signs he’s coming, crying because of the finale, flattered from the romance, or excited from the great moments. 

Season 4 also introduced us to several characters who either stole our hearts or are very obnoxious to be watched. Starting with Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson, who played the Master of Puppets by Metallica in the season finale and was praised by the rock band due to his performance saying “It’s so extremely well done, so much… It’s an incredible honor to be such a big part of Eddie’s journey”. With him is Grace Van Dien’s Chrissy Cunningham, Jamie Campbell Bower’s Friendly Orderly, Eduardo Franco’s Argyle, Mason Dye’s Jason Carver, Logan Riley Bruner’s Fred Benson, Elodie Grace Orkin’s Angela, Tom Wlaschiha’s Dmitri Antonov, Nikola Đuričko’s Yuri Ismaylov and Robert Englund’s Victor Creel.

In this season, compared to the last three seasons, each episode has a runtime of at least 60 minutes. Episode 3 “Chapter Three: The Monster and the Superhero” has the least runtime with one hour and three minutes and Episode 9 “Chapter Nine: The Piggyback” has the longest runtime of two hours and nineteen minutes, but as a fan, every minute of every episode is enjoyable and a must-watch.

Stranger Things Season 4 is currently number 16 Most Popular TV Shows in IMDb and broke record for having 7.2 billion minutes of streaming as of July 2, according to MovieWeb. Who knows how many streams it has today? It also received 13 Emmy nominations including Outstanding Drama Series and won five of them including Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup considering the big bad’s prosthetics. Due to the series’ popularity and good content, Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill”, that was used in Episodes 1, 4, 5, 7 and 9, hit number 1 in the UK Charts to the point where I use it as my alarm.

Stranger Things is a series about love, friendship, family and really strange things. Its great pacing, amazing world-building and good use of music really helps the wonderful cast and hardcore story into becoming a fan-favorite series. I would say that this Netflix series deserves its 91% score from Rotten Tomatoes.

The Duffer Brothers, the writers of the series, have currently posted an update that the script for the fifth and final season of the series is currently in the works. Stranger Things is currently streaming on Netflix.