We all know that the most satisfying part of any season of Stranger Things is when every single group of characters has their own part of the central mystery firmly within their teeth and are fully in the midst of figuring out. As the seasons have gotten progressively bigger, the various groups – once separated by age group – merged and combined to form new combinations that yielded some spectacular team ups. However, while everyone is usually operating at different speeds, it usually took upwards of four episodes to get everyone up to the same speed – Stranger Thing has now gotten so much experience under its belt, that it’s fourth season has managed to get everyone up and running by midway through it’s third episode. While it’s something of a mini miracle that the Duffer Brothers and Co. have managed to get the formula in place in record time, the fact that the season hasn’t felt rushed or anything is something that should be studied. However, you want to know what the best part of this streamlined storytelling is? It means we get more experimental pairings of characters you’d never think to put together.
As literally everyone is on the move, I guess instead of a more detailed synopsis, I’ll just have to touch base with as many of the players as I can, so hold on tight. After scoring as close to proof of life for Hopper as they can, Joyce pulls off some God tier levels of 80s parenting and puts Jonathan in charge as she and Murray jet off to Alaska to save the day. Meanwhile, the Jonathan in question is trying his best to peer through his bong haze in order to try and figure out what the hell is actually going on. After all, both Mike and Will are beside themselves when Eleven is arrested for her rollerskate assault on her bully and carted off in a black van – however, after a spot of typical government skullduggery, it’s revealed that Dr. Owens has re-entered the fray with an enticing proposal for the de-powered young girl. If she agrees to go with him, he’s confident that he can restore her lost telekinesis with more experiments to aid her in fighting the growing problem happening back in Hawkins.
Speaking of Hawkins, the fact that there’s now been two grisly murders means two things: the basketball team are now dead set on hunting down the man they deem responsible (that would be the hapless Eddie Munson), and that the remaining kids of Hawkins are going to go all in figuring out who the hell Vecna is and what he’s up to. With Steve on babysitting duties once again as Max and Dustin quiz the school’s therapist about the victims, the unlikely team of Nancy and Robin head to sift through past news headlines in order to see if the legend of local serial killer Victor Creel is anyway connected to whatever is going on.
But while a panicking Lucas is unsure of whether to side with his friends or his vengful basketball team, Max makes a rather unnerving discovery. A lot of the emotional issues that plagued Vecna’s victims are issues she’s been struggling with herself.
Quite how I’m going to fully pick apart an episode so huge in the space I’ve alloted myself is going to be as simple as remembering Planck’s Constant, but I guess I’ll have to do the best I can. You see, thanks to a story that now stretches from Indiana to California to Alaska to friggin’ Russia, the show has never been as sprawling or complex as it is right now, but it’s to the writers credit that at no point does it trip over its own plot or collapse under its own weight. In fact, the show is so self-aware now, it’s even made some of its storytelling flaws into actual plot points to impressively cover it’s own ass. Wondered how Jonathan was going to function as a character without Nancy driving him along? Answer: he isn’t, as he’s now a weed addled burnout how has gone from one of the show’s most bland characters to providing some great comic relief along with Eduardo Franco’s similarly baked Argyle and it’s a shame that the show can’t thing of anything better for Will to do other than constantly mope or pine for Mike. Hey, I feel for the guy because unrequited love sucks, but he’s gone from being a pivotal character to baggage in the space of two seasons while everyone else has ramped up their shit spectacularly.
For example, episode 3 sees two truly intriguing examples of a character having their whole vibe changed by joining a new group and because Jonathan isn’t in the picture and information juggernaut Nancy needs a foil, she joins the group of Steve, Dustin, Robin and Max only to split off with possibly the worst person her personality set could ever be paired with – Robin. Watching the confident and driven Nancy try to contain the full force of her impatience while Robin breathlessly goes through her neurotic shtick proves to be a great choice, especially as it looks like actress Natalia Dyer is genuinely going to have a stroke if she doesn’t unleash the bitch that’s broiling within.
Elsewhere, in a more serious plot line, we find that Eleven has chosen to throw in her lot with Paul Reiser’s returning Dr. Owens in a shot at regaining her powers and in a typically Stranger Things kind of way, it invokes the moment from The Empire Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker chooses to split from his friends and head to Dagobah and learn the finer points of becoming a Jedi. It proves to be something of watershed moment for the character as while Millie Bobby Brown’s soulful stare has always marked Eleven as heartbreakingly vulnerable, at least she’s always had the powers to snap an arm or pop a skull if she needed to – here, watching her look utterly terrified and confused as her powerless ass is arrested and questioned, we’ve never seen her so helpless before and a good, old fashioned heroes journey should prove to be pretty cool if pulled off right.
However, while the various members of the show have often been in danger from Demogorgons, Mind Flayers and Russians, only one character has ever really been targeted specifically by the various forms of evil that routinely bother Hawkins, and that’s arguably Will. However, while he now is about as far away from evil’s attention as he is from ours, it seems that it’s now Max’s turn to find herself locked in the cross hairs of the Upside-Down as she’s starting to fall under the opening acts of Vecna’s deadly “spell”. It’s a weird feeling because while everyone tends to find themselves in danger primarily because they’re seaching out the evil, very rarely has the evil come looking for one of them in advance and it’s watching Sadie Sink’s impish teen suddenly found herself experiencing the kind of waking nightmares that’s thus far ended in snapped limbs and popped eyeballs, there’s a sense of genuine threat that the show doesn’t normally reach.
Barb, Billy, Heather, Bob? All these deaths were sad, but felt like cruelly necessary collateral damage to get the danger fully across – but suggesting that one of the main cast could actually bite the bullet when we’ve just gotten Hopper back from the dead means that Stranger Things just got deliciously unpredictable while at the height of its plot juggling powers.
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