Who is watching Stranger Things 4? I have seen the first 2 chapters. Interesting plot and sub plots going on.

Stranger Things has become too big, unwieldy and bloated with Season 4 (https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-reviews/stranger-things-season-4-review-1357011/)

The Duffer Brothers have thrown everything including the kitchen sink at Season 4 (https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/2292-stranger-things/), says Alan Sepinwall. "There is a very good — if increasingly formulaic — season of Stranger Things (https://www.reddit.com/r/StrangerThings/) here, but it is jockeying for space with what feels like an entire additional, much less interesting season of television, as if the show has acquired its own version of the Upside Down," he says, adding: "And just from a storytelling standpoint, it’s hard to tell what a horror/suspense story when we have to keep pausing the action to jump to another time zone and/or genre. Some shows can make radical shifts in tone and perspective from scene to scene feel natural, and even part of the fun, but it’s almost always jarring here, and continually robs each plot of momentum. The Duffers are smart writers and directors. They know that all the films that inspired the show tend to be lean and mean. So why the increasing bloat? They definitely wouldn’t be the first showrunners to get self-indulgent in their hit series’ later seasons. (Game of Thrones also waves hello.) And as the creators of one of the streaming era’s biggest hits, there’s probably very little little in the way of 'no' from their bosses at Netflix — and there could, in fact, be some encouragement. With a show where Netflix knows for sure that most viewers will watch in its entirety, the longer the episodes, the more the 'minutes spent watching' metric rises, and the happier the great and powerful Netflix algorithm feels. In this perilous moment, Netflix needs all the good data it can get. Or maybe it’s something much less nefarious than that. Maybe the Duffers just fell too in love with all these people they created, and/or the actors playing them, and couldn’t let any of them go..."

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Stranger Things is proving just as valuable as big-screen blockbusters (https://www.vulture.com/article/stranger-things-4-review.html): "Stranger Things’s fourth season pushes the bounds of a standard TV show with episode run-times swollen well beyond the norm," says Jen Chaney. "Each of the seven landing today are more than an hour, most of them even longer; at 98 minutes, episode seven is feature length. When episodes eight and nine, a.k.a. Vol. 2, hit Netflix on July 1, they will follow the same trend: Eight is an hour and 25 minutes, and the finale will be two and a half hours, or 19 minutes longer than Top Gun: Maverick. Where Stranger Things was once a TV show that paid homage to films released decades ago, this season it’s threatening to become a series of those films." Chaney adds that, since 2017, TV "has been the dominant driver of entertainment conversations and often where the more ambitious and revolutionary storytelling takes place. That was already considered a threat to cinema five years ago if not earlier....But Stranger Things proves that TV still has the stronger hold on hearts and minds. The show snuck up on the public — and, honestly, probably Netflix — when it exploded in the summer of 2016. Now its fourth season, in every way, is making the argument that in 2022, this series is just as culturally significant as Maverick or Jurassic Park: Dominion or any other mega-movie based on existing IP due in theaters before Labor Day."
A mopey, meandering Season 4 loses steam fast (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/stranger-things-4-review-season-4-netflix-1234727277/): "Season 4 starts with an infuriating custom of our current TV age: an in media res intro," says Ben Travers. "The first eight minutes, which have been available online for days, are technically a flashback, but they serve the same function as all the other openers that start in the middle of a story rather than, you know, at the beginning. In trying to skip straight to the action and tease mysterious events to come, all that’s actually accomplished is extending the run time and, more significantly, undercutting the story’s natural momentum. Seeing an obviously pivotal moment right out of the gate, only to ignore it for seconds, then minutes, then hours, creates a timer in the audience’s head, ticking down until the series catches up to itself. If the wait was shorter or even adequately distracting, perhaps a teasing glimpse of what’s next could work, but Stranger Things 4 is sluggish and — for a show built for homages to ’80s pop culture and centering a bunch of goofy kids — shockingly glum."
Season 4 is a return to form for Stranger Things (https://ew.com/tv/tv-reviews/stranger-things-season-4-review-netflix/): "Season 3 of Stranger Things was an improvement over the draggy season 2," says Kristen Baldwin. "(I'll pause while those of you who disagree yell at your screens.) Still, the fun felt a little faded, and Hopper's left-turn into toxic masculinity didn't help. So when season 4, volume 1 — seven episodes, all but one over 70 minutes long — dropped in my Netflix press account, I'll admit that excitement was not my first emotion. What a pleasure it is to be wrong. Fresh locales, appealing new characters, and a rewarding expansion of the mythology give the new season of Stranger Things a jolt of joyful energy, just when the series needed it most."
Season 4 hits the sweet spot of 1980s nostalgia (https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/stranger-things-4-review-the-darkest-season-yet/): "Season 4 feels like a Stranger Things greatest hits compilation, including a return to its bleak, sometimes squirm-inducing horror roots," says Gael Fashingbauer Cooper. "The touching friendships are still there, as is the comic relief. But a clear theme runs through this season -- that of facing past trauma and not so metaphorical demons. There's a sense Stranger Things is building toward its endgame, mining the biggest evils yet from the depths of the Upside Down to push its young, nerdy heroes. Season 4 is an ambitious feast, one that runs the risk of being overstuffed. Yet ultimately it hits the sweet spot of '80s nostalgia, the most charismatic cast you could ask for, harsh moments rooted in real-life suffering and the Stephen King-influenced CGI machinations."
Stranger Things has become a victim of its own success (https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/27/entertainment/stranger-things-season-4-review/index.html): "Stranger Things experiences a serious case of gigantism in its fourth and final season, with super-sized episodes and even more drawn-out lead-ups to things actually happening," says Brian Lowry. "That’s not to say the seven episodes premiering this week don’t have their moments, only that you have to wade through a lot of Strange-ness in order to encounter them. After a near-three-year absence since Season 3, and with the kids looking conspicuously older and thus graduating into a different set of issues in a way that parallels the maturation in Harry Potter – the Netflix series is in some ways a victim of its own success. Burdened by expectations and clearly unfettered in terms of creative interference, the producers have responded with a dizzying new threat while scattering the characters, in one case across the globe in terms of that cliffhanger involving Hopper .... The first two episodes feel particularly bloated before the storytelling by the Duffer brothers and company settles into its groove."
Stranger Things' new monster is "humanlike, with a voice, a face, and, most chilling of all, a worldview" (https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/05/stranger-things-season-4-review-vecna-villain/639439): "The story has diverged into multiple strands, adopting a Game of Thrones–like structure as each episode hops from Hawkins, where most of the adolescent characters remain, to other places around the world," says Shirley Li. "The telekinetic Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is in California recovering from losing her powers. Her adoptive father, Hopper (David Harbour), is secretly alive in a torturous Russian prison. These subplots don’t fully connect by the end of this first batch of episodes, and the tonal shifts are often jarring. Yet amid the show’s ballooning scale and scope, Stranger Things finds an unexpected anchor not in its ensemble of fan favorites but in its latest villain: a supernatural serial killer dubbed Vecna after—what else?—a Dungeons and Dragons character. Vecna resides in the Upside Down, but unlike previous visitors, he’s humanlike, with a voice, a face, and, most chilling of all, a worldview."
The Duffers’ expertise and crowd-pleasing instincts significantly exceed their storytelling imagination in Season 4 (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/arts/television/stranger-things-season-4-review.html): "The problem with Season 4 is not — or is not only — the widely publicized length of its episodes, though you may indeed find your mind wandering during the nine-hour course of the first seven chapters," says Mike Hale. "...The problem is that when the payoffs arrive, they’re deflatingly familiar — the show has gone from lovingly echoing 1980s touchstones to industriously copying itself. That’s the route film franchises take, and Stranger Things often feels more like a film franchise than a television series. But the best ones play witty and inventive variations on their own elements. In the show’s new season, you feel the buildup to a piece of fan service, but once it’s there, it generally falls flat."
The good news is that novelty proves to be the strongest selling point of Stranger Things 4 (https://www.theringer.com/2022/5/27/23143793/stranger-things-season-4-review-change-growth-netflix): "Technically, this isn’t the first season in which the gang is forced to navigate the trials of adolescence," says Alison Herman. "It is, however, the first in which they actually look and sound, undeniably, like teens. We’ve also fast-forwarded from summer vacation to the eve of spring break, giving the Duffers and their collaborators the chance to make the most of a brand-new setting: high school, which replaces the Starcourt Mall as the latest riff on ’80s iconography. (Yes, an older subset of characters have always been of prom-attending age, but they’ve never been the show’s primary focus.) The Duffers may cite Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and It among their inspirations for this season, but before things once again take a turn for the supernatural, the most exciting influence belongs to John Hughes. With Eleven stripped of her powers and hiding out in California with the Byers clan, the early episodes of Stranger Things 4 have never been further from the Hawkins lab, in location or in spirit. Eventually, that $30 million-per-episode budget starts to go toward visual effects and big battles. But first, it’s used to reconstruct the pep rallies, roller rinks, and cafeteria cliques of yesteryear, which serve as vivid, evocative backdrops for a new set of conflicts."
Stranger Things' supersized gamble pays off (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/27/stranger-things-4-review-bigger-better-and-more-gruesome-than-ever): "It feels rather provocative to trumpet that a knockabout sci-fi caper that was already in danger of treading water in its second and third seasons has been 'supersized' – in other words, even vaster sums of money have disappeared into it," says Jack Seale. "Yet the gamble pays off. If large budgets are to be indulged, one wants to see them clearly on the screen, and that’s immediately the case as we cruise back into Hawkins, the small Indiana town perched on a portal to a monster-infested netherworld, in 1986. Simple scenes such as kids arriving at high school or visiting a roller disco have a new scope, with scores of impeccably retro-shod extras and just the right vintage cars or Formica fittings. The beautiful strip-mall shop fronts, a giant labour of love for some lucky set designer, deserve their own Instagram account. There are more characters and more locations (Nevada, California, Alaska, Russia) as the ensemble is split up and scattered, giving ST4 enough strands to sustain episodes that routinely stray beyond an hour each. Everything is unapologetically bigger. More important, Stranger Things now has a supersized dramatic purpose, on the assumption that the 12-year-old viewers who were wowed by season 1 are now 18 and ready for darker meat."
There's a lot to love in Stranger Things 4, except for the bloated episodes (https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/netflix/stranger-things-season-4-review): "Three years is a long time for the ephemeral tastes of the pop culture zeitgeist to wait for any next chapter in serialized episodic storytelling, and Netflix’s global hit Stranger Things returns for its fourth season testing whether the masses will return with the same zeal," says Tara Bennett. "Trying to ensure that it’s been worth the wait, creators Ross and Matt Duffer are giving faithful fans nine hours of narrative in Vol. I (which encompasses episodes 1 through 7) that might as well be compared to Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy in terms of its ambition with cinematic scale, budget, and disparate narratives coming together for one united purpose. And like that trilogy, this season of Stranger Things works well because of how great it is to spend time with the ever-evolving ensemble of characters. But it also suffers from some episodic bloat trying to serve the vast amount of stories it has going at one time."
Stranger Things is hampered by the need to overexplain itself (https://www.theverge.com/23067333/stranger-things-4-review): "One reason Stranger Things 4 sometimes feels the need to overexplain itself may be because there’s quite a bit going on this season that’s all meant to fit together like a satisfying puzzle once enough of the pieces are laid out," says Charles Pulliam-Moore. "That impulse may be justified given how far this story’s come in the six years since Stranger Things first began airing, but it only serves to underline how straightforward most of the show’s twists are when you step back to consider them. Unlikely as Stranger Things 4 is to confound you, it has a much better chance of disturbing you with its unusually gruesome and graphic way of sending off this season’s victims. There is a logic behind and significance to the amount of gore Stranger Things 4 puts on display, and the way those things are revealed really works to emphasize what level of threat Eleven and her friends are facing."
Stranger Things is still damn good summertime entertainment (https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/stranger-things-4-tv-review): "The Duffer brothers have done well for themselves in taking their time to make sure they have not just reheated the same meal once more," says Collin Souter. "They still have a passion for this series and that is evident throughout most of the running time. The show is still loaded with smartly placed pop culture references from the era, stand-up-and-cheer moments of showmanship, and emotional crescendos, one of which remains one of the finest sequences in the show’s history and one that I hope will jumpstart a particular artist’s work and become of the signature songs of this coming summer. It’s been in my head all weekend and it’s welcome to live there anytime."
Season 4 isn't quite as different as the Duffer Brothers would likely have us believe (https://collider.com/stranger-things-season-4-review-netflix/): "It still deftly balances spook-show plotting with smaller coming-of-age stories filled with puppy love and teen angst," says Robert Bryan Taylor. "And it still features scenes where characters draw crude pictures of a nightmarish vision they had and then rearrange those pictures in a puzzle-like fashion, ultimately revealing some vital clue that might save Hawkins, if not the world. The Duffers have not completely re-invented the wheel here; they’ve just made it a little scarier and a lot bigger. And that’s in more ways than one. I’ve seen all seven episodes releasing this coming Friday, and six of them are at least 73 minutes long. Episode 7 is an hour and 38 minutes long… or basically a Stranger Things movie. The second part of the season, which includes only two episodes, will be released in July, and we know at least one of those episodes is going to clock in at two and a half hours. Season 4 may not be the best the show has ever been, but it’s definitely the most the show has ever been."
Season 4's nine episodes should've been 13 episodes (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/stranger-things-season-4-review-1235151563/): "It’s not all one extended movie, no matter what anybody thinks, because the A-story/B-story/C-story/D-story structure is completely TV-based," says Daniel Fienberg. "The stories aren’t all of equal interest, and they aren’t all moving at the same rate. Yet too often the editing feels like somebody believes they are, and depending on the episode, different storylines are dragging. The stuff in California, where Mike flies out to join his girlfriend for spring break, is the most conspicuous drag, with the unexpectedly glacial progress of Hopper’s time in Russia as a close second. You could probably pull the Russian scenes out of each episode and merge them into a standalone Russian hour and everything would move better. It’s very obvious that this should have been a 13-episode season that was inexplicably squished into nine episodes with no consideration of the flow that’s best for the telling of this story."
Season 4, given all the time and money it could want, represents just how exponentially Stranger Things has grown (https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/stranger-things-season-4-review-volume-1-1235273573/): It also shows "how much it’s allowed to indulge its every instinct, so long as it keeps subscribers logged in just a few (hundred) minutes more," says Caroline Framke. "From a narrative point of view, at least, the answer’s simple. As the central four boys — once tweens, now such young adults that the bass in their dropped voices practically rumble through the walls — have learned after playing hours upon hours of Dungeons and Dragons, a straightforward quest can twist and multiply into something far more complex and far-reaching given enough time. Now, six years after the show first dropped, Stranger Things has significantly leveled up its mythology to complicate its stories well beyond its initial bounds. It’s also scattered its characters to the wind enough that checking in with all of them has become increasingly difficult, to the point that, apparently, there is just no trimming it all down to fit the confines of a traditional TV episode."
Revisiting the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons-based satanic panic that inspired Season 4 (https://www.polygon.com/23131731/stranger-things-4-satanic-panic-dnd-history): "D&D became famous after the 1979 disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, a 16-year-old Michigan State University student who was briefly (and mistakenly) believed to have gotten lost in the steam tunnels below campus while playing a game of D&D," explains Jon Peterson. "Supposedly, the game had become all too real in his head. That turned out not to be true — he had run away to Louisiana — but the reality didn’t get nearly as much press as the baseless suspicion that D&D drove him crazy. All of the surrounding publicity turned D&D from an obscure pastime into the subject of a nationwide conversation."
Stranger Things' production design found a "time capsule" house in Albuquerque to show that the family had takent a socioeconomic step up (https://variety.com/2022/artisans/news/stranger-things-season-four-rainbow-room-vecna-1235273386/)
The dynamics of Stranger Things' brand partnerships with Doritos, Domino's Pizza, Timex, Monopoly, MAC Cosmetics and other companies have changed dramatically (https://www.fastcompany.com/90755624/netflix-stranger-things-4-doritos-dominos-turn-fortunes-upside-down)
David Harbour has known about Stranger Things' "quite moving" ending for years (https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/stranger-things-ending-david-harbour-1235273655/)
Millie Bobby Brown would like Stranger Things to start "killing people off" as if it were Game of Thrones (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/millie-bobby-brown-stranger-things-kill-characters-1234727699/)
Joe Keery, Maya Hawke and Natalia Dyer discuss their Season 4 characters' love lives (https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/joe-keery-maya-hawke-natalia-dyer-love-lives-stranger-things-season-4-1235279853/)
Duffer Brothers prefer to not be the center of attention (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/arts/television/stranger-things-duffer-brothers-season-4.html): “There’s a reason we’re behind the camera — that’s where we feel more comfortable,” says Ross Duffer while editing Season 4. “We love the part of making a show, the process of making it, and not everything else so much that comes with it,” adds Matt Duffer.
Duffer Brothers wish Stranger Things 4 wasn't binged so quickly (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/05/stranger-things-explained-duffer-brothers): "Well, it's changed, honestly from season one to now," says Ross Duffer. "It was particularly shocking to us just how quickly season three was consumed. People watched it over that July 4th weekend, and really started delving into it right after that. Whereas, season one was much more about people finding it, and spreading through word of mouth. So that lasted a couple months. It went from a much more extended conversation to something that is much more compressed." Matt Duffer adds: "But because of the length of this new season, I think we’ve got to give people a good two weeks." Ross Duffer agrees: "That's true. It'd be a lot to binge in a weekend."
The Duffers promise that the Volume 1 finale will feel like a proper season finale (https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/stranger-things-season-4-duffer-brothers-volume-1-ending-1235277496/): “Episode 7 is as big as any season finale we’ve ever had, so it made sense to everyone involved to split the season there,” the Duffers said in a joint email interview. “Episode 7 really serves as the end of the second act — and we feel that our final act had enough meat on the bone to make up Volume 2.” Given the unprecedented length of this season’s episodes, did they consider releasing weekly episodes? "The original plan was to release it all at once again. But as we began turning over episodes, everyone began to feel the season was too big to be released in one batch — at nearly 13 hours, it is really more two seasons than one," the Duffers said. "We discussed various release options with Ted (Sarandos), and early on he proposed the two volume split, which would allow us to break up the season while also staying true to Netflix’s binge model."

It started out kind of slow but we had to get to know the new characters. I have finished chapters 1-5 and it reminds me of "Supernatural". And we are seeing how Eleven came to be. That's interesting. So far though I am not really liking this season. Hope it gets better in later chapters. I know that they had to stray from the original formula but I am disappointed.

I finished it and the last 2 chapters were pretty good! Of course there is a cliffhanger.

Netflix wasted a perfect opportunity to test out a weekly release with Stranger Things 4 (https://tvline.com/2022/05/31/will-netflix-ever-do-weekly-releases/)

The streamer "was gift-wrapped a perfect opportunity to dabble in weekly releases" with Stranger Things 4, says Matt Webb Mitovich. "But Netflix instead Netflixed and dropped the first seven episodes (of nine) on May 27, suggesting that perhaps nothing will ever compel the streaming giant to consider weekly rollouts," he says. "The arrival of Stranger Things 4 could have been a perfect test case — or heck, even a fun 'one-off' — for releasing episodes weekly. Because in addition to the fact that it delivered the supernatural thriller’s first new episodes in nearly three years (!), the 'heft' of the season itself almost demanded a specialized showcase." By heft, Mitovich is referring to the extra-long Season 4 episodes, with Volume I averaging 77 minutes per episode. Mitovich says "no one would have batted an eye if Netflix opted to veer from its binge-drop standard, release episodes weekly," and that all nine episodes could've been released without a five-week wait between volumes. "In turn," he adds, "Stranger Things would/could have benefitted from an ongoing, weekly discussion online, instead of the 'reverse hockey stick' engagement that its series typically elicit — that is, significant buzz surrounding the weekend of release, which then quickly tapers off."

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On the whole, Stranger Things 4 is pretty good so far (https://observer.com/2022/05/stranger-things-season-4-volume-1-review-worth-the-hype-mostly/): "Sometimes even pretty great," says Laura Babiak. "It uses every last penny of that gigantic budget to create some of TV’s best audiovisual moments in recent memory, and many of the actors are bringing their A+ game to these penultimate episodes. It suffers from a bit of an identity crisis at times, but when it goes back to the basics of ‘80s teen horror (whether that’s high school or a skeletal murder monster), it’s nothing short of spectacular."
Season 4 teeters between greatness and tediousness (https://www.pajiba.com/tv_reviews/stranger-things-season-4-part-i-teeters-between-greatness-and-tediousness.php): "My real nitpick about Season 4 is that while the younger cast does an excellent job, some of these older 'kids' are too old to convincingly play high school students," says Jen Maravegias. "Joe Keery and his hair are 30, Natalia Dyer (Nancy) is 27, Charlie Heaton (Jonathan) is 28 and Joseph Quinn (Eddie Munson) is 29. They all look it. That is fine, but there better be a huge time jump, or a new cast in Season 5. We also have to talk about the sartorial choices made for the cast this year, too. First, Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) has outgrown the Dorothy Hamill bowl cut. I know that lots of kids in the 80s rocked that look; I was one. But after the age of seven or eight, boys didn’t get that cut anymore. I spent most of Will’s scenes being distracted by his hair, which is a shame because he did a nice job with the limited amount of scenes he had this season. He’s a good-looking kid, with a bit of a Daniel Radcliff vibe going on; he just needs a better haircut for season 5." Maravegias adds: "There is not one moment in these any of these first seven episodes when The Gang is all together, and the season suffers for it."
Stranger Things' approach to depression and trauma in Season 4 is extraordinary (https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/stranger-things-4-max-depression-trauma-comment/): "The way the show – and Sadie (Sink) herself – approached this topic was nothing short of sublime. It was powerful and moving, and really took the fantasy genre back to its roots of allegorical storytelling," says Emma Clarke. "Stranger Things might be about the supernatural, but that doesn’t mean that it’s hollow or without purpose – and the first half of season 4 proves it."
Executive producer Shawn Levy says Volume 2 will "punch you right in the heart" (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/stranger-things-season-4-shawn-levy-1235156428/): "I’ll just tell you that we are hard at work on volume two," he tells The Hollywood Reporter There’s so much being written as far as the runtimes of these episodes, and the hefty runtime of episode nine, in particular. Having seen both those finale episodes, they are as emotional as they are cinematic. Holy sh*t, they are definitely a treat for the eyes, but they punch you right in the heart. So, that’s what I’ll say about that. Season five, I’ll just say this, we talk a lot — the Duffers and I — about sticking the landing. We tried to stick the landing with the final five minutes of every episode, and we definitely tried to stick the landing with the end of every season. So, ending next season is all about finishing strong. We have phenomenal ideas for season five, and we don’t want to stick around past the point where we see our path with clarity and confidence. So, season five will no doubt be epic." Levy adds that he'd love to see a Ryan Reynolds cameo in Season 5 (https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/stranger-things-4-shawn-levy-ryan-reynolds-cameo-final-season-netflix/): "I want to see a Ryan Reynolds cameo in anything," he says. "The truth is, my career over the past half-decade has been defined by Stranger Things and my collaborations with Ryan, so it would be deeply trippy but satisfying to see my two worlds collide."
Noah Schnapp says it's up to audiences to interpret Will's sexuality (https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/stranger-things-will-byers-sexuality-noah-schnapp-millie-bobby-brown-1235281210/): “I feel like they never really address it or blatantly say how Will is,” he says. “I think that’s the beauty of it, that it’s just up to the audience’s interpretation, if it’s Will kind of just refusing to grow up and growing up slower than his friends, or if he is really gay.” Meanwhile, executive producer says of the Will sexuality speculation: "Without getting into where we go later in season 4 (Volume II), I guess I'll just say that there aren't many accidents on Stranger Things (https://ew.com/tv/will-gay-stranger-things-shawn-levy-addresses-theory/). There is clear intention and strategy and real thought given to each and every character. So, if you came away from Volume I feeling those bread crumbs of plot and character, it's probably no accident."
How Kate Bush became the savior of Season 4 (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/05/stranger-things-kate-bush): Stranger Things 4 has propelled Bush's 1985 single “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" to No. 1 on iTunes and in the Top 5 of Spotify. Nora Felder, the longtime music supervisor who’s been with Stranger Things since the very beginning, was responsible for the song choice. Felder says she needed something that would realistically be a young teen’s favorite song in 1986, but would also express Max’s sense of isolation and depression after the violent death of her brother, Billy. “The song really needed to resonate with Max’s experience and amplify her need for strength and support at that time,” Felder tells Vanity Fair via email. When she landed on “Running Up That Hill,” she “immediately felt a surge of excitement. The more the song marinated in my conscious awareness, I realized this was something that could be special.”
Why Kate Bush speaks to lonely kids (https://www.salon.com/2022/05/31/stranger-things-kate-bush-tiktok-running-up-that-hill/): "So much of childhood is having no power. You can't drive, you can't vote. Your voice is not listened to," says Alison Stine. "Your life experiences — and even your worth — are often disbelieved. Bush gave voice to that teenage longing, those big and valid feelings. It makes sense that 'Running Up That Hill' is used in the fourth season of Stranger Things, not only as an emotional clue to Max's feelings, but used in another huge, pivotal scene where the girl barely escapes danger."
Brett Gelman felt more nervous with Season 4's launch because of his bigger role (https://www.gq.com/story/stranger-things-4-brett-gelman): "I’ve always felt like I was a part of the show and a part of the whole fam there, but yeah," he says. "I still felt like a regular last season, but it was also like warming up into becoming that. In my mind, and I think in everybody’s mind, I was essentially a regular. But this is being more fully in it and there being more on my shoulders to promote. More to do on the show in a really substantial way. That’s a true thrill. I feel incredibly blessed. Yeah, it’s amazing."
How does Charlie Heaton feel about any potential sidelining of his character? (https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/charlie-heaton-interview-2022): “I know why you’re asking that,” he tells GQ UK. “And I’ve definitely seen some forums like Screenrant or something – ‘What happened to the character?’ It is an ensemble cast, obviously every season they’ve brought in new characters, wonderful characters, and they’ve taken the story to different places.”
Dacre Montgomery filmed his Season 4 cameo remotely from Australia during COVID (https://people.com/tv/dacre-montgomery-shot-stranger-things-4-remotely-from-australia-during-covid/)
David Harbour sent the Duffers pictures of the Black Widow set to ensure there was no overlap with Russian prison sets (https://www.insider.com/stranger-things-david-harbour-sent-black-widow-photos-duffer-brothers-2022-5)
Jamie Campbell Bower apologizes for top-secret Season 4 role (https://ew.com/tv/jamie-campbell-bower-stranger-things-vecna-001-interview/)
"Weird Al" Yankovic reacts to Stranger Things 4 shoutout (https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/weird-al-yankovic-stranger-things-season-four-1235078753/)
What it's like to try the official Stranger Things makeup (https://www.insider.com/stranger-things-makeup-review-and-photos-2022-5)
From Alien 3 to Carrie: A guide to the major pop-culture references in Season 4 (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/arts/television/stranger-things-4-references-easter-eggs.html)
Breaking down all the Stranger Things horror references (https://ew.com/tv/horror-references-in-stranger-things-season-4/)
Some of the Stranger Things Season 4 trailer footage was from Volume 2 (https://toofab.com/2022/05/28/stranger-things-volume-2-spoilers/)
Check out the best memes and fan reactions to Stranger Things 4 so far (https://www.thewrap.com/best-stranger-things-season-4-memes-fan-reactions/)

Finished episode 4.


So far I think this is the season I am enjoying the most, even if to be honest I can't perfectly recall the previous seasons... but certainly it never gave me this level of hype and entertainment watching it.

Friends and adventures are divided in groups.
The original group Mike, Eleven and Will have become the less interesting characters, and especially in the first episodes with the bullies it gets tiresome.

Hopper, Joyce and Murray plotline is balanced between action, drama and humour, it is nice to watch. Joyce and Murray are really fun together and could be in a sitcom.

Then there's the main plotline which is hands down the best.
Here the writers did a wonderful job, and partially got a little lucky in finding a perfect chemistry between characters, stories and actors.
It is the best part of the story, given to the best characters played by the best actors. It is a one of a kind balance that is rare also in the 80's kids movie such as The Goonies or Stand By Me.
The show wouldn't go anwhere focusing on the other characters; but they could go on forever with Max, Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Steve, Robin and Nancy.


Now I'm going to watch ep. 5!

I loved the first three seasons. I just couldn't get into the fourth season for some reason. I didn't feel like binge watching them. The episodes were too long. It was too dark. They should have split the two volumes more evenly.

The kids just grew up too fast. Three years was a long time to wait between seasons. The special effects were great this season, but overall it lacked the charm and magic of the earlier seasons. It didn't help they split them into different groups for so much of the time.