Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Volume 2 on Netflix, Where Characters Worlds Apart Turn To Face Home

As soon as the first chapters of Netflix’s Stranger Things Season 4 dropped in May 2022, everything was suddenly bigger. The cast were shedding their child selves before our very eyes. The episode run times were jacked. The budgets were juiced. And the breadth and depth of Stranger Things had gotten swole, too. Hawkins, Indiana, Lenora Hills, California, an ICBM missile silo in Nevada, a literal gulag in the Soviet Union’s Kamchatka Peninsula: the storyline was going large across the landscape, and that’s not even counting the shadowy world of the Upside Down. But have the Duffer Brothers saved their biggest moves for the fourth season’s culminating second volume?    

STRANGER THINGS SEASON 4 V2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We’re back in 1979, where season 4 began, just after the massacre at Hawkins National Laboratory. The gate to the Upside Down that Eleven’s powers pushed Henry Creel through hisses and burbles shut. Only this time, it’s Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) witnessing the incident from inside her vision.

The Gist: As the first volume of Stranger Things season four closed, Nancy was on the cusp of rescue from the Upside Down alongside Steve (Joe Keery), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Robin (Maya Hawke), and Eddie (Joseph Quinn) when Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) put her mind in his clutches. Now, as the group searches for music to play that might snap her out of the trance – an Iron Maiden cassette is proffered, which is crazy because doesn’t Vecna sort of resemble the band’s ghoulish mascot Eddie? – the malevolent being once known as Henry Creel and inside HNL as One shows Nancy his evil plan for Hawkins and the world at large. “I want you to tell Eleven,” he grumbles inside her vision. “I want you to tell her everything you see.”

While Vecna is using Nancy as his supernatural messaging service, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is under observation by Brenner (Matthew Modine) and Owens (Paul Reiser) at NINA, ruminating over what’s remembered from that terrible day at the laboratory and flexing with the return of her telekinetic powers. She can see her friends back in Hawkins, hashing out a plan to take down Vecna; she can also see how dangerous of an idea that is, given all they don’t know about his power and intentions. But what Eleven can’t see is Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and the perpetually stoned Argyle (Eduardo Franco), who right then are racing across the Nevada desert toward NINA in the Surfer Boy Pizza van.

When we last saw Hopper (David Harbour), he was driving an improvised flaming sword through the terrifying maw of a Demogorgon. But it turns out that wasn’t the only monster the Soviets have, as Hopper, Joyce (Winona Ryder), Murray (Brett Gelman), and Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha) discover a room full of unspeakable experiments. And with Yuri (Nikola Duricko) in tow, they manage an escape from the gulag, the problem being that they’re still on a peninsula in the vast reaches of the Soviet Union, with no way of reaching the United States. Well, almost no way. Yuri does have an ancient, decrepit helicopter in stash.

Determined to kill Vecna before he kills again, whatever the cost – “I have this terrible, gnawing feeling that it might not work out for us this time,” Robin tells Steve – the group in Hawkins steals a Winnebago and visits an army surplus to gear up for battle. The boys from Cali close in on NINA. And Brenner, determined to continue his experiments on Eleven and utilize her power to communicate with Henry/One/Vecna, tries to shut her down, even as Lt. Colonel Sullivan (Sherman Augustus) and his men arrive at the silo to snuff out Eleven and his entire operation themselves.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Netflix’s penchant for premature cancellation felt particularly egregious when the streamer axed The OA after two seasons. The multi-dimensional connectivity in Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s densely woven supernatural drama was just hitting its stride, and the bonds between the group of characters at its core were only becoming more galvanized. The OA is well worth a visit for any Stranger Things fans who missed it. At least do it for Old Night, the giant telepathic octopus.

Our Take: As they drive with Jonathan and Argyle to try and rescue Eleven, Will shows Mike the painting he made. His friend is at the front of a valiant cohort of warriors as they face down a three-headed dragon. “You’re guiding us,” Will reassures Mike, who worries about what role he’ll play in Eleven’s life, now that she’s regained her incredible power. “You’re leading the whole party. That’s what you do.” It’s a tender moment between old friends, and exactly the kind of scene that defines what’s at the core of Stranger Things. But Will’s painting is also a mirror onto the Dungeons & Dragons campaign made real that all of these friends – no matter where they are on Earth – have found themselves fighting. Vecna is the dragon; they are the noble vanquishers. In Indiana, Steve and Robin assemble Molotov cocktails, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Erica (Priah Ferguson) lash blades onto lances, Nancy and Max (Sadie Sink) saw off the barrel of a shotgun, and Eddie and Dustin spar and joust with trash can lids. They’ve got a plan, this bunch, no matter how foolhardy. Because as we learned earlier this season, sometimes you just gotta roll that 20-sided die and let the action happen.

As big as Stranger Things has stretched in season four, the avenues by which its parallel narrative threads will converge are becoming more clear with the revelations of volume two. And that’s exciting, watching as all of these characters, long broken apart, find their way back to each other. As they journey home, back to Hawkins, where the big battle will occur, it makes the time it took to get here that much more satisfying.

Sex and Skin: Nothing here, man.

Parting Shot: As an elemental, echoey version of Journey’s “Separate Ways” whispers on the soundtrack (Here we stand, worlds apart broken in two…), Steve stops the Winnie and Lucas, Erica, and Max disembark. Bug zappers in hand, they take up their positions for the fight to come.

Sleeper Star: It’s a deep bench with the Stranger Things cast. But Joseph Quinn has brought Eddie Munson to life, variegating the Eddie Van Halen-haired Hellfire Club dungeonmaster’s act out tendencies against his sharp sense of humor, perceptive nature and palpable sense of empathy.

Most Pilot-y Line: “With each victim he takes,” Brenner tells Eleven and Owens in the bowels of NINA, “Henry is chiseling at the barrier that exists between our two worlds.” Given what she saw in her vision, Nancy would likely be inclined to believe him.

Our Call: STREAM IT, obviously. There’s a reason Netflix’s servers briefly crashed when season 4 volume 2 dropped. The scale Stranger Things is operating on is big. At least two worlds big. And the gate between them is threatening to crack wide open.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges