Generally in The Dark: Volume IV "Stranger Things" (than now as we get into apocalyptic times)

Hmmm.... ever feel we are living in 'a parallel universe'????

Stranger Things 4 ends by trusting in the season’s best and worst instincts

Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 finishes with a deadly bang and the glimpse of the apocalypse

[ Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Matthew Modine as Dr. Martin Brenner. ]

 

By Charles Pulliam-Moore Jul 2, 2022, 8:00am EDT

The Verge

"Though Netflix hyped Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 as being its own standalone season of the Duffer Brothers’ nostalgic sci-fi opus, its two extra-long episodes are truly just the final chapters of Vol. 1’s story about what’s really been hunting Eleven and her friends. Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 puts a period on this season’s introduction of Vecna, and sets the stage for its psionic hero and villain to take on even larger roles in the series’ future. As a season finale focused on emotional payoff, Vol. 2’s manages to rise to the occasion and deliver. But it does so while also leaning into some of Stranger Things’ worst instincts that have plagued the series from the jump.

While Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 does actually sneak in a solid couple of jokes that succinctly summarize the important bits of Vol. 2, the episodes pick up immediately after the ones preceding them without losing any of the story’s momentum.

After going out of its way to lead you into thinking that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) murdered all of the other child test subjects at the Hawkins Lab, Stranger Things 4 revealed that her first terrifying show of power as a young girl came during a fight with Henry (Jamie Campbell Bower), the man who would go on to become Vecna. Vol. 2 opens with Eleven coming to fully understand her relationship to Henry/Vecna, and choosing for herself how she wants to deal with his murderous plan to escape the Upside Down.

By stripping Eleven of her powers, separating her from her friends, and introducing even more unexamined lore, Stranger Things 4 has been purposefully taking the series back to its roots when both the show’s audience and its characters were generally in the dark about what was going on . . .

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.............While it’s been great to watch Hopper (David Harbour), Joyce (Winona Ryder), and Murray (Brett Gelman) trust the kids to take care of themselves while they deal with their own adventures in the Soviet Union, Stranger Things knows their stories haven’t been what people are tuning in for. Vol. 2 does the admirable thing, though, and keeps the adults plenty busy with actual things to do rather than simply dropping them back in Hawkins for the occasion.

Vol. 2 wisely uses its time in Russia to begin alluding to Stranger Things’ final season, but Hopper’s big Demogorgon fight is also part of how these episodes remind you how much everyone has changed over the course of the series. Like Hop, the prospect of potentially dying in battle brings out a sobering sentimentality in Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Eddie (Joseph Quinn), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), and Steve (Joe Keery) that compliments the proactive way they ride out the apocalypse.

It’s sort of wild how Vol. 2 chooses to interrupt the time it spends with Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Max to remind you that he’s also on the run from high school basketball star-turned-militiaman Jason Carver (Mason Dye). With Jason having witnessed Vecna’s wrath firsthand, his becoming even more of a gun-toting heel in Vol. 2 doesn’t add all that much to the episodes outside of emphasizing that he was always an asshole.

In the grand scheme of psychic battles, Eleven’s confrontation with Vecna isn’t necessarily the showiest, but it does carry an emotional heft that hasn’t always been the case with Stranger Things’ previous finales. Vol. 2 recontextualizes many of those battles with a bit of straightforward foreshadowing of what’s to come, and even though this season definitely felt like it could have been the end of Stranger Things, it’s fair to say that the series does have a little bit more gas left in the tank."