Stranger Things Season 4 (Netflix Show, so spoilers for everything released!)

[byrningman]

Yeah, I missed the seventh episode somehow when I binged it. Caught back up.

Glad they introduced an outright human menace from the Upside Down. The Mind Flayer needs to take a back seat.

My biggest questions are now about the Upside Down. I'm getting a little confused. If El sent One through a portal in 1979, why was the upside down mirrored from Hawkins of the 1983 resonance cascade incursion date?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m pretty sure they’ll address it because they made an emphatic point of it. I’m wondering whether El created the upside down in the first place, or conversely if Vecma (sp?) did, replicating his world from the raw material of whatever that dimension is. Especially because the upside down dimension looked a lot more nebulous when he was first cast into it.

I was sure that the young boy was the big bad as soon as the old guy in the asylum shared his story. He had that same cherubic face that the actors they used for the younger Voldemorts in the HP movies did. Makes the bad guy so much creepier for much of the audience if the boy seems really sweet and the young man version seems really handsome.

One theory that I think I’m wrong about, now that I’ve seen episode 7, is that I was wondering if the Army essentially created the demon child. The army has been really eager to just wipe out all traces of these programs from the get-go this season. The dad was in the army in WW2, and then I became doubly convinced of it when Hopper talked about how Agent Orange screwed up so many kids, including his own daughter. It seemed like maybe setting up a backstory where the military tried some experimental chemical that the likes of Vecma’s dad were exposed to. But now I’m not so sure about this theory at all.

I was convinced The Hair Harrington (aka Hopper: The Next Generation) was going to die at the end of this episode, sacrificing himself so the others could escape the upside down. But it went in a different direction. I’ll be gutted if The Hair bites it, I don’t know if I could take that.

Addendum: this season is really really strong. They’ve knocked it out of the park.

Addendum 2: I'm getting the sense that season 5 will be a direct continuation. This season could be an Empire Strikes Back style ending with things looking dire, and the fifth and final season sees the gang prevail in the end. Vecma is a very well developed a bad guy now.

 

[byrningman]

I think that was actually explained where he needed to toy with them to build the psychic connection through dimensions. Notice how he snags Nancy into a trance immediately since she's in the Upside Down already. He's using the buried trauma of Barb but he can go straight in because he's not needing to project.

I had a momentary hope, about halfway through this part of S4, that the big bad was going to be Barb, all angried up about being abandoned and taken over by the Mind Flayer.

I don't mind that Mike and Will have taken a bit of a back seat. I like the time given to Max, who got short-shrift in s2 and s3, and to Lucas, who has a decent arc in the first half of this season (still waiting for the showdown with the basketball team).

I'd like to see less of Murry Bauman. It is annoying to see Joyce get, essentially, shoved aside in her quest story arc for Murry's shenanigans. I find him too broad and too loud. I'd've preferred it if he stayed a bit part in a basement somewhere.

Big Bad Barb would be really cool actually! But maybe we might still get an angry undead Barb, because it does seem like Vecma is going to unleash an army on Hawkins and take over the whole town. It seemed at the end of ep 7, when he grabbed Nancy, that Vecma was about to reveal a whole “forest” of his victims trapped in those tree-like trophy cases. Apart from making lots of gates, it would be good if his victims get reanimated with their twisted limbs are faces. A bit more horrifying than simply a Marvel-like army of CGI beasties like demagorgons and those bat-like things.

I guess Jonathan, Mike, and Will are in the C or D plot line right now. Someone has to do it. But it might have been more engaging and given them a lot more hero energy if they decided to lead the evil military types on a wild goose chase after the shoot-out at the house. Leading the army away from El, instead of the army just torturing some guy.

But I’m still mad at Mike and Will for their weirdly passive and judgmental response to the extreme bullying of El at the roller rink. So they deserve their time in the corner wearing a cone of shame.

 

[byrningman]

Time seems kind of weird in the Upside Down. Nancy's house was in 1983, but when they went to Eddie's trailer the portal that was created when Vecna took Chrissy was there on that side so would have been in sync with the normal world. Also when they were communicating with the Lite Brite it from in the current time in both the normal and the Upside Down. So wonder if certainly locations can get anchored in time there due to something that took place in the normal world. I can't remember if the party where Barb was taken was at Nancy's house or somewhere else. If it was at her house that might have created the anchor point to stop time for the house in the Upside Down. Like it's related to whenever something from the Upside Down impacts the regular world like Vecna or something from the Upside Down killing someone.

I do wonder what kicked off Vecna to start killing in Hawkings now. The obvious Pitch Meeting response would be "So the show can happen", but since he's been hanging out since 1979 you'd think he'd have been killing others between then and now. I guess it could be its taken this long for him to figure out things and set-up shop so that he could reach out to the normal world and influence things. Or as one of them mentioned this is the Mind Flayer taking things up a notch and bringing in someone more skilled. Though doesn't seem like he's done a lot when compared to the other incursions. He also kind of has the stereotypical bad guy trait of liking to play with his opponents instead of just outright killing them. He appears to be targeting people based on an inner guilt which I'm sure all of the gang has some of that lingering around after everything they've been through. So would seem like he could be going through them all with some ease but instead is kind of just poking at them while mainly targeting those outside the central group. Not to mention I'd think he'd be really interested in taking out Brenner due to everything that was done to him and yet he's still around.

It definitely seems like there is more to be revealed regarding time and timing. The show itself has had its characters call attention to these issues, with some of the characters asking “why now?”, and of course being so emphatic that the upside down is frozen at the moment El created the new gate at the beginning of season 1. Then there’s the fact that, in addition to the spider, the grandfather clock is the main visual manifestation of Vecma’s hunting. He spoke a lot to El about his disdain for time, and they then showed him moving the hands of the grandfather clock.