The fourth season of Stranger Things was reviewed.
There is a warning at the beginning of the fourth season of Stranger Things.
The warning was added after the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas, and once you have watched the first eight or nine minutes of the Season 4 premiere, you can definitely understand why.
There are more to come.
The opening of the premiere is very upsetting. We show Dr. Martin Brenner in 1979 as he heads into work after going about his daily ritual. The lab is busy. Kids in gowns with little number tattoos are playing games and working with scientists on their psychic abilities.
After taking Ten with him into a room with some shapes and images, he was asked to find another scientist with his mind. Everything goes wrong when ten is able to. Ten starts to freak out and then we hear screams.
Brenner was knocked to the ground by the door of the room. Ten is dead when he wakes. He made his way through the smoking ruin of the lab after taking the boy's body to his chest. We believe that a gate has been opened in the past and a creature has come through before. This can't be. The wounds on the dead children and lab workers don't look like those made by a Demogorgon.
He asked her what she had done as she stared back.
I believe this is important to the rest of the season. The new villain, who we only see briefly in the first episode, appears to find his way from the Upside Down through people's feelings of shame and guilt.
Vecna.
The monster hunted his first victim by way of his mother. There are bad visions of her mother that transform into a monster. She has a lot of other symptoms. She sees a clock in the woods.
The worst vision is the last one. The trailer park across from where Max lives has a really terrific new character called Eddie Munson. She wants to buy drugs to escape her visions.
It's too late.
Eddie searches through his room for something. She is in her own home and her mother is screaming at her. She ran to her father but he was dead and his eyes and mouth were sewed up, another thing to pay close attention to as we move further into the season. The creature walks slowly through the house. He put his fingers up to her face as he came up to her.
He rasps in a deep and terrible voice, "It's time to end your long suffering."
In the real world, Eddie is trying to break her up.
She is lifted up off the ground and then floats up to the ceiling. Her bones begin to break a moment later. Her legs and arms are not straight. She had her eyes pulled back and into her skull.
Eddie yells.
From this description, you can tell that the horror in Stranger Things 4 has gone up a notch. The scares are very potent and the kills are very gruesome. The killer is not a hunter like the Demogorgon or a demon like the Mind Flayer. The Mind Flayer was detached in many ways, even though he was able to speak through Billy.
The Upside Down feels more personal this time around. The killer chooses his victims carefully and 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 His hunt takes on a deeply personal, torturously cruel fashion when he stalks them. Since Will was trapped in the walls of his own house in Season 1, this is the scariest thing that has happened to the show.
It stands to reason that Eleven will be in the monster's sights at some point, since we began the season with a moment that she kept very secret. What other people face this death?
Eddie runs a club.
Eddie's group is called the "Hellfire Club" in this episode. You can see why Mike and Gaten would want to be junior members of the group.
Eddie is charismatic. He's an outsider but one who doesn't get picked on by the jocks because he's fearless and tough in his own right. He runs a D&D campaign centered around the powerful undead wizard, Vecna.
The monsters of previous campaigns are the same as the monsters in the campaign the kids are playing. Vecna is a powerful spell-casting lich that was used by the Mind Flayer.
Lucas is the odd man out again. He joined the basketball team which has made it the championship game under its charismatic jock captain, who is also the boyfriend of his girlfriend. Lucas has to choose between the championship game and the final session of this massive D&D campaign, which take place on the same night.
He chose the basketball game for the wrong reasons. The game was required by the school, so you would play in it. If you want to be on the basketball team, you don't have a choice about skipping the championship game or being kicked off the team. Lucas wants to play so he doesn't have to be a loser anymore.
Lucas.
This is bad reasoning, but he is right that he needs to play in the game. The boys were sent to find a substitute whenDustin told Eddie.
They chose Lucas's little sister,Erica, who is quite the nerd and the perfect choice. Eddie is skeptical until she rattles off her character's skills and abilities and shows a clear understanding of the game.
The big game and the campaign take place at the same time, and the show jumps back and forth between the two as each approaches an epic climax. One point down, Lucas gets the rebound from the missed shot and takes a shot of his own as the ticker counts down to zero. The ball went in and the Tigers won the championship game on their home court.
They go in for the final kill because their characters are still alive. A critical hit in D&D and sleys the vile lich is whatDustin eats when he eats it. The crowd goes crazy in the D&D room and the gymnasium. The first episode of the season is a lot of fun to watch.
It is also the beginning of the end. You know how that ends when Eddie and Chrissy go to his trailer later that night.
Eddie and Chrissy are seen going into the trailer by Max, who listens to the game on the radio. She is the only one who knows what will happen next.
Steve and Robin are best friends and now work together at a local video store, so they head to the big game as well. Steve has graduated but Robin is in the school band and they discuss her new crush, who she is worried about coming out to. Though their relationship is long distance, their squeeze is still an item.
Speaking of long distances.
She gave a tragic class presentation.
In California, Joyce has settled into a new life with her sons Jonathan and Will along with Eleven, who now goes by the name Jane Hopper. Everyone seems to have made the best of the relocation, and Eleven describes all the fun she is having in a letter we hear her narrate to Mike.
Argyle, the stoner, and the two of them, smoke plants, are a new friendship that Charlie doesn't want Eleven to tell Joyce about.
Eleven paints a happy picture for Mike. There is trouble in paradise and it goes by the name ofAngela, the ringleader of a group of 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611
It is as disturbing as Vecna's atrocities, perhaps because it is more human. A popular, pretty girl who has placed a target on Eleven's back and relentlessly harasses her, both in and out of class.
Spring Break is coming and Mike is heading out to visit Will and Eleven soon and it is quite literally the only bright light in her life, the hope of some kind of comfort when he arrives. Will can't do much to stop the bullies. Nancy isn't coming to visit because Charlie isn't coming to see her, something she questions since he isn't coming to see her. There is trouble in paradise.
Nancy is running the high school newspaper and her right-hand man, Fred, pesters her about Charlie not coming, since the couple has plans to go to college together.
The stories will start to converge soon, as they always do in the show.
Eddie.
This was a great season premiere of the show. The story feels fresh and scary because we have a new villain that is terrifying and different from the past seasons.
New dynamics like the basketball team vs the Hellfire Club and the introduction of Eddie, who will now be suspect #1 in the death of Chrissy, breathe new life into the characters.
The mystery of Hopper's disappearance and captivity in Russia is still being explored. After the opening scene, Eleven has lost her powers, which might be a good thing. She is the only one who can face down such a threat, but she can't stand up to a bully now.
There are many ways in which eleven have been sheltered. She has never had to deal with people without her powers. She has never had to face the kind of social horrors her friends have faced. She's faced worse terrors in many ways, but this new social gauntlet is harder to face and sad to witness, especially if you've been bullied in the past.
I am loving every minute of the show. I will be posting recaps every day this week on this website, so please follow me if you want to read more. Vecna's Curse is next. Stay informed.
What did you think about the premiere of the show? Let me know on social media.
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