More Normal Things

I finished watching the first seven episodes of Stranger Things 4 last night. The season started strong but gradually some strange philosophical changes started to take root. This season of Stranger Things is much more moral than previous seasons, more about a sharp contrast between good people and bad people. I guess it's more like a traditional horror movie this way.

There was also a lot of business about people being insecure and lying to their loved ones. Eleven has a whole subplot in the first few episodes in which she lies to Mike about kids bullying her. I kept expecting a callback to the "friends don't lie" line but it never came.

I really liked the new character Eddie Munson in the first few episodes, played by British actor Joseph Quinn but coming off eerily like a young Robert Downey Jr. He's endearingly wise and realistically goofy in the first few episodes then is sadly absent for most of the season. He kind of reminded me of Albert Brooks in Taxi Driver, acting like a normal funny guy instead of like a comedian. His antics aren't especially clever but fit in the context of a normal high school group of friends.

I appreciated the use of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill". But the Big Bad's habit of targeting "haunted" people would've been more effective if at least some of them were really guilty of something instead of just torturing themselves over matters in which they have less guilt than they imagine. In this same vein, Eleven's plot ends up being about how she feels guiltier than she ought to. I suppose the show's creators may have been wary of looking too sympathetic with school shooters but I think a more useful story might have been about how prepubescent kids don't have the maturity to be culpable for even really terrible things. There's a reason kids are treated differently by the law to adults.

I wasn't especially interested in the subplot taking place in the Soviet Union except it had a few hints of counterbalance to the anti-Christian stuff in the plots taking place in the U.S. While a mob is forming to hunt down Eddie for worshiping Satan, the writers might have made a point that banning religion didn't seem to help the Soviet Union a whole lot. Since an abandoned church figures into the Soviet storyline, there was a golden opportunity for it. As it is, we just get a moment where Hopper mentions wanting to believe in a miracle.

I enjoyed the Maniac Mansion vibe to a lot of the season and Vekna is a pretty menacing villain.

Stranger Things is available on Netflix.