Stranger Things. Everyone knows it, everyone likes it. So, what’s the point of making a review about it?
Well, when I said everyone likes Stranger Things, I really just meant the first season. Most fans would agree the series went downhill (you could even say “fell off”) from there. Between the mediocre Season 3 and the long wait between Seasons 3 & 4, I suspect many people began to lose interest in the series. 

Don’t let the lack of hype around this new season fool you though. The wait for the season was absolutely worth it because season 4 is by far the best season yet.
The first thing you’ll immediately notice about season 4 is that the main cast is significantly older now, which makes sense considering that season 1 came out way back in 2016. I personally like this a lot. It felt weird in past seasons to have these scary monsters getting beaten by 12-year-olds with walkie talkies. 

These more mature characters fit perfectly into a darker, more intense season. There’s no way the age rating in this season is the same as in past seasons. This season is a PG-13 bordering on an R. No more scenes where the Demigorrgon shows up and the screen quickly cuts to black. Every action and death scene is shown to the viewer in full. Consequently, the new season is also noticeably gorier than past seasons. Normally I despise horror movies or anything with excessive gore, but in this case, the gore works to make the show more dramatic and interesting. These are real deaths, not just “Wow, the character disappeared in the Upside Down”. 

Season 4 also stands out due to its more in-depth plot. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll try to brush over some more general themes about the story. By far my favorite part about the new season is that El is no longer overpowered. In past seasons, I felt like El broke some of the tension at points. Yeah, there’s a scary monster, but there was never any doubt that El would be able to defeat it. In season 4, this is not the case. There are many scenes where the characters have to deal with monsters without El’s help, which is wayyy more interesting. It feels like the enemies are actually a threat now, and that any of the main characters could die at any moment. The overall story of the season is also extremely interesting, offering some pretty big revelations and insights that make you rethink the other three seasons. Sometimes it’s a little confusing, but slowly putting the pieces together and realizing how the seasons connect is super rewarding. There are plenty of “Aha” moments that make you feel like a detective (I even predicted one of the plot twists, which made me very happy). The villain is also easily the best one in the series, and might even be my favorite character in the entire show.

Season 4 is also great at fleshing out some of the characters from earlier seasons. There were some characters that I thought were kind of useless and annoying up until this point, but now I really like them. Likewise, some of the characters that I liked in season 3 get even better in season 4. I’ve been intentionally vague up to this point because I don’t want to say which characters get better and why, however, I will call out one specific character that I don’t like. I still do not understand Jonathan or what he brings to the story. He’s just kinda… there, and has no personality or usefulness. Other than him though, I think I like every character in the entire show. This of course includes the new characters as well, who are all fantastic additions. 

Another thing that I love about the new season is the way they handled the side stories. In typical Stranger Things fashion, there are four or five conflicts occurring simultaneously, with certain groups of characters facing each one. Unlike past seasons, where you’d be watching a cool story and groan when they’d switch to a boring one, every single side story in season 4 is extremely engaging. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with another important aspect of season 4: the lack of “filler” episodes. Seasons 2 and 3 had some episodes that didn’t feel important at all. They were just like, “Look, the characters are at school”, “Look, this character is dating this character”, or “Look, they’re playing a nerd game”. Maybe some people like these episodes because they offer more lighthearted character interaction, but I much prefer the ones where the plot is actually progressing. Thankfully, every episode in season 4 is action-packed, so much so that they needed to make every episode over an hour-long in order to cram everything in. Yeah, it’s unfortunate that they only released half the season, but considering how much high-quality content we got, I’m not complaining. This half-season was basically the length of a traditional full-season.

In conclusion, watch Stranger Things season 4, preferably ASAP to avoid getting spoiled (for real, there are some major spoilers in this one). The second half comes out July 1st, so now’s the perfect time to watch!