This year’s showstopper doesn’t know how to bring much to an end. Instead, we’re left with the foot on the accelerator heading straight into the final season… whenever it may come around.
We’ve finally made it. I’ve finally made it. After what amounted to about nine full-length movies (episode eight was seriously long), I have finally gotten to the very last episode in the saga that is Stranger Things Season Four. Was it worth it? Does it all come together? Read this spoiler-laden review to find out more:
Spoilers Ahead
Hawkins will never be the same. Despite a storyline that covered the entire globe, it all came back down to Indiana once more. And though the show has been filmed in Georgia all along, let me just say that this thing is looking more and more Georgian all the time. Seriously, outside of Bloomington, Indiana is not lush forests and fields. But anyway, back in the greenest version of Indiana you’ve ever seen, an earthquake of evil has rocked the town and sent residents packing. A storm is a brewin’ and it has the same red lightning you’ve come to love with Stranger Things.
You might think that’s the setup for the Season Four finale, but you’d be mistaken. It is, in fact, the end of the episode, sending us back into a waiting period for the next and final season which will surely answer how all this ends. The bad guy has fled. There is no time to relax. It is by all measures a cliff hanger ending.
I’m not opposed to such normally, but I gotta say… after this many hours, I think I needed some closure. Then we could have time jumped to 1989 and finished everything with a final season. As is, this was a ton of hours without much in the way of a climactic ending like we’ve had in other seasons. The others seasons felt like their own standalone entries. They were like albums if you will. This one feels like the longest movie or short series I’ve ever encountered and once I came to the end it’s just the first half of a two-part never-ending story. There’s simply too much in this season and too little of it came to an end.
Here are all the loose ends we still don’t have wrapped up:
- Where did the Upside Down come from?
- What does the US government know about the Upside Down and are they still after Eleven?
- The big bad guy is still alive.
- Papa may still be alive despite Eleven’s statement.
- Will Max live and will she be blind?
With all of that unanswered, I still have to say that most of the episode works. This is Stranger Things and, if nothing else, it’s very compelling in the moment. I don’t think the Russia story ever engaged me because it was just too ridiculously out-there. I didn’t care for anything to do with Will the season and overall I find him to be nauseatingly emotional most of the time. I don’t know if they’re making the actor overdo everything or if it’s just poor performance, but I would seek a psychologist if I knew someone who had these emotional speeches multiple times in the ways that he does. I get what they’re going for but it doesn’t work… at all.
I’ve gone through quite a bit of bad and it’s deserved. This is the weakest finale of all the seasons even though episodes two and three of this group were some of the best episodes in the show’s history. No matter what though, this thing is absolutely carried by Eleven, Lucas, Steve, Dusty, Max and Hopper. Even when their characters are put into ridiculous situations, the actors manage to keep their personas and play it so well that it gets the show through rough times. The same is true for this finale. The Duffer Brothers owe these mostly young actors a lot because, this time, the writing is a bit subpar. There’s too much to tread, the story is too bloated, and the need to be with every single character in this massive roster for emotional one-on-ones is overload.
And please, please… I’m begging you… stop introducing new characters just to kill them because the original cast can’t die.
Did I enjoy the final episode? Yes. Absolutely. But this is nowhere close to the best of Stranger Things. The early episodes here were fantastic, but this doesn’t land with so much of a thud, but instead doesn’t land at all. That’s because it segues right into the next episode without even letting us or the characters take a breath.
Let’s hope it is worth it.
Review Score: 7 / 10 (Good)
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