(Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Stranger Things Season 4.)
Freddy Krueger has come to Hawkins, Indiana.
It is a safe bet that most Stranger Things viewers are already familiar with the legendary (and prolific) slasher-killer and will have clocked the similarities between new threat Vecna and the sprawling Nightmare on Elm Street franchise by the end of the first episode.
Subtle this show is not, and I wouldn’t have it any other way when it comes to diving into the nostalgia ball pit. Out of the many locations stuffed into the extended episode runtime, the horror-infused Hawkins adventure (that owes a significant debt to Wes Craven) avoids the meandering and plot-stalling impact of the other various threads.
Growth, ambitious swings, and new situations to push characters forward are all welcome because no one wants to watch the same storylines with a few minor tweaks. Unfortunately, Stranger Things struggles whenever Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is removed from the main thread. At no point does it hit the dreaded “The Lost Sister” low of Season 2, but Eleven’s detour facing off against adolescent mustache-twirling bullies as a means to land her in a secret facility leaves a bad taste.
Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Will’s (Noah Schnapp) quest to rescue her cannot hold a candle (let alone 16) to what her friends are getting up to back home. Yes, her trip down memory lane does finally intersect with the danger threatening Hawkins, but boy, it takes a long time to get there.
Meanwhile, Hopper’s (David Harbour) gulag experience resembles time standing still and is a prison sentence for us all. Yes, the shaved head look has led to more Hot Hopper tweets, and he gets to unburden himself of all his regrets onto his guard-turned-cellmate.
However, this draggy pacing, combined with the rescue by Joyce (Winona Ryder) and my new style icon Murray (Brett Gelman), would be far more entertaining if it had taken place across one episode rather than scattered throughout the season. Whereas, pretty much everything in Hawkins ticks the boxes of why this show is so much fun to watch.
There’s no shortage of reasons that this season of Stranger Things got under some fans’ and critics’ skin. Those running times. That violent opening sequence. The repetitiveness of the plot. The overreliance on special effects. Isolating characters to stall romantic developments. That this is how the children learned about Kate Bush. But the one mistake that nearly ruined everything was the exhausting sprawl of this season. Stranger Things Season 4 would have been so much better had they just stayed in Hawkins.
The Duffer Brothers lean hard into the horror homage in both storyline and the Robert Englund stunt casting. Who better to have to rot away in a psychiatric facility straight out of The Silence of the Lambs than the man who played Freddy Krueger himself! Thankfully, the Duffers stop short of putting him in green and red stripes. As an elder millennial who watched these movies on VHS at sleepovers (my first Freddy experience was A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), I embrace this level of pandering and love letter to this defining ’80s genre. (Yes, slashers began the decade before, but filmmakers like Craven grabbed the wheel)
Scares that don’t require the shock level of the opening scene massacre are another highlight of this nostalgia-fest. Similar to the movies that inspired this fourth outing, a thread of humor runs through the Hawkins escapade bolstered by the squad hunting Vecna. Last season, the mall ice cream parlor ‘Scoops Ahoy’ gifted audiences a brilliant costume (shout to Stranger Things designer Amy Parris for inspiring many Halloween costumes), a new fan-favorite character, and partner in crime for Steve (Joe Keery)
Maya Hawke is endearing and awkward as closeted lesbian Robin (only Steve is privy to this information), who also has trouble knowing when to stop talking. She also proves how effective she is alongside the OG Stranger Things Nancy Drew, Nancy (Natalia Dyer). Delving into the Hawkins news archives using a microfiche reader—this research trope is a personal favorite—kicks off this beautiful new friendship before a makeover cranks up the comedy.
Any tension between Nancy and Robin is quickly dispelled during the archival deep dive when Robin clarifies that she is just friends with Steve (“platonic friend with a capital P”). There is no space for a love triangle to rear its head here. Yes, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) is Nancy’s boyfriend (Dyer and Heaton are also an IRL couple), but his absence has not made the heart grow fonder for either myself or Nancy, it would seem. Robin is vocal about her Team Steve support, and so is newcomer Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn).
When Steve was introduced in Season 1, he embodied the classic ’80s douchebag boyfriend. Thanks to Keery’s performance, his voluminous hair, and his natural chemistry with everyone, the writers have realized they need to course-correct this romantic decision.
One obstacle rearing her head again is Barb (Shannon Purser), as Nancy’s guilt about her BFFs death lands her in Vecna’s clutches at the end of Part 1. It is a full-circle moment back to Season 1, which highlights how much has changed since that debut season set in 1983. Nancy was hooking up with Steve when Barb met her grisly end, but let’s not take the slasher movie sex-shaming path
Justice for Barb and all that. But hello to the living and the couple who isn’t a snooze (sorry, Jonathan!).
Less than three years have passed since Will’s Season 1 disappearance (and Barb’s death), and the friendship group has lost members to the California relocation.
It is too bad for Will and Mike that they are off on an inferior adventure (I concede that the brief detour to Susie’s chaotic house is very fun), but the squad back home proves strength is in numbers. That’s especially true in the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired scenes.
D&D was pivotal in the first season, and it sets up this year’s Big Bad. The Hawkins Hellfire Club is accused of devil worship, murder, and even previous incidents inflicted on the “cursed” town.
These ridiculous charges are born out of a real-world hysterical reaction to teens playing D&D, and I am all for Stranger Things taking a “ripped from the headlines approach. In the mid-’80s, the Satanic Panic was in full force, and Dungeons & Dragons was cited in murder and suicide cases and banned from schools. 60 Minutes did a special in 1985 about the “enormously complicated game” that captures the sensationalism and lurid headlines that were a precursor to charges against video games. Stranger Things effectively captures this phenomenon and how quickly it can spin out of control.
Eddie Munson is the dungeon master of the Hellfire Club, and his entire heavy metal aesthetic plays into the image crafted by the media of someone to fear. It is no surprise he is blamed for the death of a pretty and popular cheerleader Chrissy (Grace Van Dien)—OK, her body is found in his uncle’s trailer, and he is seen fleeing the scene.
As with Steve, Eddie could’ve easily been a one-dimensional dick, but Quinn’s chaotic charm has quickly made him another fan favorite. On a meta-level, it is brilliant casting as the 29-year-old is clearly a grown-ass man, much like the actors who played a teen in the 1980s.
The Hawkins Hellfire squad grows in size throughout the fourth season, and while not everyone is a card-carrying or T-shirt-wearing member, this is the team to join. Even the reluctant Max (Sadie Sink), who is simply trying to get through the day, embraces her friends after they save her life— with an assist from Kate Bush's “Running Up That Hill.” Max is the emotional core, and the fourth episode of “Dear Billy” combines the Hawkins horror, humor, and heart that turns the Freddy Krueger-inspired nightmare into a dream.
All of this is so much fun to watch. It is classic Stranger Things, the show we fell in love with six years ago. Especially as the episode’s running lengths went on (and on…and on), it got more and more aggravating each time we were taken away from these characters’ crackling chemistry and the hotbed for perfectly nostalgic ’80s horror that Hawkins offers. My Apple Screen Time should not reach double digits when I watch this show.
The season became a slog because of these pointless detours. None of them—not Will, Mike, and Jonathan’s road trip; not the repetitive grind in Russia; not the goofy-as-hell rescue mission; and not the isolation of Eleven from everyone—were interesting enough to keep anyone’s attention when the action left Hawkins, our (scary) happy place. It was nearly a fatal flaw of the entire season, and a classic case of a TV series that gets overly confident, too ambitious, and loses sight of what actually makes it work.
Now, if everyone else could come back to Hawkins, then maybe I will stop complaining about those episode lengths—but I can’t make any promises.
