Summary

The fourth season of ST (divided into two blocks of different number of chapters) expands the scenarios of its battles, provides more information about its monsters, ties up loose ends, and masterfully combines the real and mental planes in which its action takes place.

The Duffer Brothers maintain control of the story and its complex narrative structure (again with very good parallel montages) and know how to converge subplots and characters to culminate their series that reaches cinematographic breath with spectacular, monumental, exciting and simply anthological final chapters. .

Review

I confess I was late to the Stranger Things (ST) universe. At the time, I had abandoned it prematurely, thinking that she was a nonsense about and with children, pubescents and adolescents.

But a month ago I restarted it, going through between two and three chapters every night, and sooner rather than later I became aware (this time yes) of the successful terrifying content of this science fiction series with portals to alternative worlds and monsters, which constitutes a memorabilia and a great compendium of all the horror of the eighties and also before (the list of references is huge, going through Carrie, Gremlins, The Exorcist, Alien, ET, Invasion of the body snatchers, Freddy Krueger movies, It and... complete you list). And above all, note that the underworld of ST is clearly Lovecraftian stamp.

ST undertakes it against a whole series of topics of the US society of the 80s and its cinematographic approach: schools, bullying, generational clashes (the children in this series stand up to adults as equals), the conspiracy and the CIA, the Cold War, sexual awakening, the naturalized relationship of that society with weapons, since childhood. And, of course, a soundtrack with original electronic music that mimics that of Tangerine Dream and that rescues great songs of the time.

ST never recovers the mystery of its Season 1, but manages to find variants to a story that basically repeats itself season after season: the battle of a gang of boys against the monsters of an underworld ("the other side"), the portals and the ways in which they manifest. The narrative structure is always based on the encounter, disagreement and reunion of characters or groups of characters, preserving the ability to go from humor to terror (the underworld and its monsters and the nursery laboratory where Eleven grew up are terrifying) without scales, and increasing the spectacularity and the action with the passing of the seasons. Like all fiction that pays tribute (basically) to the 80s, it had to become more "pop corn". The credibility of the story manages to be maintained through all the seasons.

ST does not skimp on truculence and horror, although on the sexual level it always maintained modesty. Undoubtedly, one of the hottest and most transgressive moments of the series occurs with the meeting of Karen Wheeler (mother of Nancy and Mike) with the sexy bath boy Billy, Max's stepbrother. By the way, that funny ignorance of the Wheeler couple about everything their daughter and son did, showed a family where two brothers lived lying to their parents and without communicating with each other and a dissatisfied mother and wife where perhaps what prevailed was in reality disinterest. The fact is that the North American family is another of the institutions questioned by ST, either in the explicitly broken version, such as Joyce's (Winona Ryder) and her children, Will and Jonathan's or the seemingly perfect Wheeler. It is even striking how in T1 the families of some children (like Dustin) do not even appear, even in critical situations, a detail that they seek to fix from T2.

Like all good fiction, ST manages to put together a gallery of powerful and endearing characters led by an excellent cast, starting with Eleven, whose infinite desolation Millie Bobby Brown knows how to convey very well. In addition, it has been able to process the passage from childhood to adolescence of its main characters (it even teases itself -and other series like Euphoria, which eternalize their actors as teenagers- with the character of the repeating student from Season 4 Eddie Munson, taking into account that the actor who plays him is 29 years old that is noticeable).

About Season 4:

In various ways and by different means, all the characters in the series return to battle the monsters from the "other side". The story provides more information about that kind of underworld.

The fourth season is divided into two "volumes" of different number of chapters. All exceed one hour in duration and some reach an hour and a half and another more than two hours in duration. All the subplots are perfectly integrated, but one of them, which takes place in Russia, is the most conventional and suffers from the rhythm of the story , and includes comedy elements that for the first time do not work well in the series.

S4 rounds up the information about the underworld and its monsters and ties up loose ends. The battles and some encounters of the characters take place on a real level and on a mental level, which leads to a sophisticated staging that perfectly integrates both planes and scenarios (also the real plane includes this world and the "other side") ). In addition, extensive segments starring Eleven give even more of a twist to this issue.

The production is stunning. The "other side" becomes more complex and its aesthetic achieves moments that combine beauty, horror and imposingness in its description of a Lovecraftian universe. As for the characters, certain romantic issues (said or unspoken) continue to float in the air. The moments of "rest" and introspective and their dialogues are not always effective. But we must also take into account that in a series that appeals to reference, the cliché is an element that must be present in some of those dialogues.

Some new characters are added to the stable cast, and some become highly relevant as the chapters go by. As stated above, several of the actors and actresses have grown quite a bit but they are not out of place as members of the different groups or gangs. The cast maintains all its charm and solvency, although Eleven adds new chapters to her martyrdom, giving her character and her powers not only the edge of a superhero but, perhaps, of a saint.

Beyond its potholes, the series achieves moments of great tension. The Duffer Brothers maintain control of the story and its complex narrative structure (again with very good parallel montages) and know how to converge subplots and characters to culminate their series with a cinematographic breath expressed in spectacular, monumental, exciting and simply anthological chapters.