Stranger Things Season 4's (2022) final episodes were released Friday night and my wife and I finished them yesterday. The storyline picks up a year after Season 3 where the now separated group of friends discover life isn't all fun and happiness it was before they were teenagers. Meanwhile, officer Jim Hopper didn't die in the Upside Down; instead, he was transferred through a portal to Russia and is now in a prison camp with its own secrets in the dungeons. Something is alive inside the Upside Down and is beginning to take victims back in the real world of the living. The children will need to face the being, but this time Eleven doesn't have powers. Hopefully this creature in the Upside Down creates a path to save Jim.

This series was created by Matt and Ross Duffer (Wayward Pines) and stars Millie Bobby Brown (Godzilla vs Kong), Winona Ryder (Heathers), Finn Wolfhard (Ghostbusters Afterlife), David Harbour (Black Widow), Gaten Matarazzo (The Blacklist) and Joe Keery (Slice).

My overview of Stranger Things:

Season 1: 10/10 Excellent Show with a strong Stephen King 80s feel to it.

Season 2: 8/10 Still a strong showing. Loved the characters, soundtrack all the elements I enjoyed from season 1 but a step back.

Season 3: 6.5/10 The storyline felt like it was trying too hard, was a bit of a reach and maybe rushed to get a sequel. Series could have easily ended here and been fine.

Season 4 was definitely a reinvestment into the series by Netflix. Everything was bigger - more storylines, more characters, deeper dive into characters backstories and much longer episode run times, which ranged from 1 hour 15 minutes to a final episode that was 2.5 hours (the episode before that was 1 hour 45 minutes). Each episode was like sitting down and watching a movie.

There were too many storylines. The basketball team getting together as vigilantes felt dumb and an excuse for body count. The villain and Eleven backstory was awesome and worthwhile and the dad was also a ruthless character. The Russian prison scenes were tremendous too, other than some of the monologues. The love story was awful and poor Finn's acting skills are terrible. Some characteristics work better when you're a kid than an adult. I was happy with the 80s montage worked in. The special effects and kills by the new villains were tremendous.

Overall, this is an uneven series with some tremendous moments and some moments that suffer from poor editing. The episodes could have definitely been all cut down 15-30 minutes due to containing too much dialogue. I would score Season 4 a 7/10 and strongly recommend it to fans of the series.