There are some choice words that can be used to describe Stranger Things – thrilling, memorable, addictive. However, it may surprise you to learn that there’s another word you could use: safe. For three seasons and change we’ve seen our beloved characters get menaced, attacked and threatened, but other than Will rapidly running out of time back in the first season, there was never a moment since where you thought a main character could actually die. No, Bob or Billy don’t count and even though Hopper supposedly sacrificed himself for the good of Hawkins, the Duffer Brothers couldn’t even let that lie without teasing his survival with a mid credit sting.
However, things are starting to change and with the fourth episode of a thus-far stonking season, there’s a genuine, palpable threat in the air that someone from the core group might not actually make it through this time. Now, while this is standard operating procedure in a place like Westeros or even the earlier seasons of the Walking Dead, to feel such a thing in Hawkins proves to be deliciously unsettling…
Once again, there is so much going on all at the same time, it’s going to be tough to rope it all in – but here goes. Peril seems to be the choice way of life for the characters stuck in the inexorable orbit of the Upside-Down and while the likes of Eleven, Eddie Munson and the vengeful mob of Jason Carver are somewhat pushed to the side or even not addressed at all, everyone else’s troubles more than make up for it. Over in Russia, Hopper finally makes his explosive escape attempt watched by an admiring Antonov, but meanwhile, in Alaska, Antonov’s partner, Yuri, doesn’t seem to want to stick to the script. Despite escaping and making it to a safe house, not only is Hopper recaptured, but due to Yuri’s tip off, Antonov is arrested also while the backstabbing pilot drugs Joyce and Murray.
Back in sunnier climes, the California branch of the cast are being kept safe at home with a couple of Dr. Owens’ goons to keep them safe, but after a rival fraction within the government storm the house in an attempt to get leverage on Eleven. In the ensuing gunfight, Mike, Will, Jonathan and a wounded agent manage to escape with the aid of Argyle’s pizza van as they roar off down the street. However, while all this seems pretty serious, the Hawkins contingent find that there’s something way more dangerous than random bullets.
While Nancy and Robin try to bluff their way into the local asylum to see what information they get out of incarcerated murderer Victor Creel, the blind and self mutilated man tells them of a demonic force that penetrated his family’s minds and fatally twisted their bodies. However, if they don’t manage to get some viable information on Vecna soon, Max is going to pay the price. You see, the vile creature have targeted her as his next victim and if a breakthrough isn’t made, she’ll be the next one to feel his curse.
While Stranger Things has always traded in thrill, chills and spills, it’s incredibly important to note that even though this may be the most action-centric episode of Stranger Things that has ever existed thus far, it never loses sights on what it really wants to be – an unofficial Nightmare On Elm Street sequel. Yes, director Shawn Levy stages an ambitious, one-shot firefight that rages through the Byers’ Californian household and he also orchestrates a huge sequence that sees Hopper brawling his way to temporary freedom, snapping necks and blowing shit up like an 80s action pro. And yet, despite the heightened international intrigue and feuding factions within the government who believe Eleven must be expunged, the slimy, beating heart of this episode belongs well and truly to the Springwood slasher who tore up dreams throughout the 80s.
Even though we still haven’t even scratched the surface of Vecna and where this tendriled terror has hailed from, the season 4 arch villain may look like a product from a madness inducing tale from H.P. Lovecraft, but he’s pure Wes Craven through and through. As a result, while I’ve truly loved the various monsters who have threatened the day in past seasons, flesh beasts and cloud monster now seem horribly impersonal compared to our new, (vaguely) shaped humanoid villain who has actual eyes to stare into and a voice to mock. He also gave the ability – much like Freddy Krueger – to enter your mind and dredge the depths of your psyche to fund out what genuinely terrifies you in order to make you at your most vulnerable; but do you want to know what makes him really scary? He nearly fucking succeeds.
The climactic sequence that sees Max coming within a mere whisker from utter oblivion nay actually be the most gripping moment in Stranger Things history as it blends the rubber reality from the later Elm Streets with a genuine feeling that the feisty redhead might actually die and as Steve, Dustin and Lucas desperately scramble to save her as she starts to float in the air, the scene tips into the realms of the iconic when Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill is used to break the spell to give Max a fighting chance. But how do our heroes discover how to use music to loosen Vecna’s mental hold? Well, getting information from incarcerated killer Victor Creel is Nancy and Robin who are bluffing for their lives to get to his cell. However, when Vic turns around, we find out that he’s played by none other than Freddy himself, Robert Englund, with a mass of scar tissue where his eyes used to be. From here, the fabled actor narrates his tragic history to reveal that he believed an actual demon was responsible for the murder of his family back in the 50s and it was only the fact that his favorite song was playing in the background that managed to save him. Thus we get yet another successful mission for the union of Nancy (coincidentally the name of Freddy’s most famous foe) and Robin and one of the most triumphant moments in Stranger Things’ history – but there is a question that still lingers in the air.
With everything that’s occured in the season so far there’s a slight worry that Stranger Things 4 may have peaked incredibly early thanks the the fact that Dear Billy is not only utterly riveting, but incredibly poignant too. Watching Max writing out farewell letters, convinced that she’s going to die manages to be way more heartbreaking and genuinely harrowing than watching little Will play hide and seek with the Demogorgon back in season 1. Still, it’s quite an enviable position for a show to be in when it manages to slam out one of it’s very best episodes, eight years after it first dropped on streaming.
Delivering legitimate edge of the seat television that somehow blends hefty action sequences with moments taken straight out of surrealistic 80s horror, Stranger Things 4 very well may have delivered us a franchise all timer and does it all without featuring a single scene featuring series poster girl, Eleven. But riddle me this – if this episode genuinely got me believing that a core character could actually buy the farm only four episodes in, imagine what it could do during the remaining five…
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We Have Issues 
My favourite Stranger Things episode. Thanks very much for your review.
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