I guess, but the pacing in season 1 is just as slow, if not slower. Even season 3's pacing doesn't pick up till the second half.
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Stranger Things S4 | OT | Every ending has a beginning (Open spoilers)
- Thread starter Conditional-Pancakes
- Start date
- Entertainment Video/Streaming OT
Was it? In my head I hear that line with Brenner's voice but I could be wrong. Even so, for me it feels like a knowing callout about her.
It was One who mentioned Eight, yeah. She was also shown in a flashback (again) to the scene when Eleven's mom came looking for her at the lab.
I agree. The first 3-4 episodes of season 2 are incredibly slow. It picks up near the end though aside from the Lost Sister episode.
My current rankings for the seasons:
1. Season 1
2. Season 4
3. Season 3
4. Season 2
Depending on how episodes 8 and 9 play out this season may very well end up being my favorite.
I love S2. Ep 7 is a weak spot obviously, but otherwise the hate for S2 always felt overblown to me. I think S2 has some of the most emotionally impactful moments of the entire series. Hop/El's father-daughter dynamic is fantastic. Also love the Halloween vibes and the Mind Flayer being this omnipotent presence throughout the season was great.
I liked S2 more on my recent rewatch than I did the first time through, and a lot of that comes from the realization of how big a deal Max would be to the show moving forward. I didn't even bother watching episode 7 since I blacked out right when it started and woke up 3 minutes into episode 8 and didn't bother going back to rewatch it.
I skipped it, and I don't feel I missed anything other than Eleven suddenly turning punk. It's lucky that episode 7 is so disconnected from the rest of the season that skipping it barely changes anything.
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I really like S2 too. After my recent rewatch, I think I'd even put it above season 1 (right now, I think my personal order would be S4 - S3 - S2 - S1). So many great things are from season 2 (including Max).
Also, I never understood the hate for episode 7. I liked it the first time I watched it, and I still liked it during my rewatch. It leaves the other storyline on a huge cliffhanger, but it's to explore an aspect of El that's important for what's going to happen next and that is very interesting, in my opinion. And it makes her realize some stuff about herself that directly allows her to come back to Hawkins and help everybody. I like El's arc. And besides, her punk look is absolutely on point!
I'm just not a fan of the supporting cast in episode 7, I think Kali is all right, but the I just do not like any of her crew.
This is how I feel about Season 4 complaints of El in her flashbacks. At no point during Season 4 so far did I think, damn I wish El was in Hawkins already because I was so hooked into watching her time/experience in the lab. I always wanted to know what her time there was like because she was there since birth up to Season 1. There's a lot that had to have happened to her and given she's still a child, that she'd find it harder and harder to cope with all as she grew older and tried to be "normal" makes total sense to me. You would become more vulnerable to your trauma as you grow older.
At least that's how I see it. That episode in Season 2 is a part of this. She's getting older and thinking more about herself and who she is. Season 2 is when she starts that Journey.
Same with me. My wife and I have been re watching the series. I fell asleep during that episode, not bothering to go back to it.
I loved S2 other than that episode. It introduced Max, Sean Astin was great, thought Will's acting stood out, and I love a good possession storyline. I think people focus too much one that one skippable episode.
He has a Spidey Sense that triggers whenever the Mind Flayer does anything substantial.
I wouldn't call it a super power, it is more clairvoyance. He feels the mind flayer when it is near or doing something big.
I liked season 2 largely because of Bob. He was almost too awesome. The only downside about it was the story was basically super-sized season 1.
It's genuinely one of the best episodes of TV content I've ever seen. If it's not the best, it's in the upper tier with other episodes that go as hard as it. The amount of build up to the final scenes of this episode are excellent laid out. The build up of the importance of the song, the strings coming us as the song crescendos, the callbacks to every one of Max's formative moments with the group (and in a way, a moment of reflection for the viewer of many fun, iconic moments from the earlier seasons) while she struggles to break free is just ... *chef's kiss*. I'm rewatching the season the right now in preparation of Friday, and it hit just as hard on a second viewing. The first time I watched that episode, I had a bite of food on my fork and just kind of froze as she ran towards the exit. Such a powerful scene.
Watched it; was okay. Still of the opinion that the show could've (and should've) been wrapped after S2. All of this nonsense from the Duffer Bros. claiming everything afterward was all part of some complex plan is complete nonsense.
It just took us awhile to tell the story of the villain. Yeah, it only took 4 seasons to give motivation for the crux of the show to exist at all. Fuck off with this. The show is overly bloated, and thematically and tonally all over the place. The Russian angle is a tired trope, they've made Joyce into some kind of crazy Carmen Sandiego while Dustin, meanwhile, has become such a absurd piece of Scooby-Doo-esque plot armor that the show is ridiculous to watch at times.
It just took us awhile to tell the story of the villain. Yeah, it only took 4 seasons to give motivation for the crux of the show to exist at all. Fuck off with this. The show is overly bloated, and thematically and tonally all over the place. The Russian angle is a tired trope, they've made Joyce into some kind of crazy Carmen Sandiego while Dustin, meanwhile, has become such a absurd piece of Scooby-Doo-esque plot armor that the show is ridiculous to watch at times.
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The main weak point for me with Season 2 isn't Episode 7 but everything that leads up to it. I still think Eleven is a character that doesn't really work on her own, and Season 2 initially does the great thing of having a fun dynamic between her and Hopper before he gets removed in order to let her pursue her solo plot.
Everything else of that season I still like, if not more than season 1. And since then, it's only been uphill.
Everything else of that season I still like, if not more than season 1. And since then, it's only been uphill.
I bought seasons 1 and 2 on blu ray a couple of years ago and just let them sit in my backlog which is ridiculously huge. Earlier this year I moved and finally upgraded my internet from 3Mbps to 50Mbps, finally able to join the rest of the civilized world who's been streaming for the last 10+ years. Finally started watching Stranger Things less than 3 weeks ago, and I'm already up to S4E3. I don't think I've ever binged anything this fast. Ordinarily even when I'm really REALLY into a show, I never want to watch more than one ep per day. I'm enjoying S4, but so far I'd say it's the weakest. I have faith, because I thought S2 and 3 were pretty weak at first but both finished strong.
You're right before the most popular episode of the season, so we'll be interested to see how your opinion turns once you see that one.
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Same :)
S3 largely fell flat for me. Really disliked the ridiculous Russian subplot and how strongly they leaned into the meme culture and comedy aspects, whereas S2 felt more tonally in line with the rest of the series.
Ackshually! It's the most popular episode here.
I liked episode 7 better and imdb seems to agree with me.
Ooh, now I can't wait to get home. The other day I read somewhere that The Lost Sister is considered the consensus worst episode of the show. I had to go back and look up which episode it was, and I had no problem with it. But then again I have no idea which one I'd consider the worst, I can't think of any episode so far where I thought "Well, that one sucked."
Agree with that, for sure. It's also one where out of everything, I felt like they took Hopper's character in the wrong direction in that season. I think he's nearly back to his GOAT status on the show, but season 3 had me kinda annoyed with the way they wrote his character.
S3 is basically "Hopper takes everything the wrong way", the season. Hop being written as a terminally aggro asshole for the whole season is definitely the roughest part of that year. I still like the season but Hop loses most of his charm.
I think you misunderstood them. They haven't revealed the origins of the Upside Down nor is there any indication that Vecna, not the Mind Flayer, is the true big bad.
I thought season 3 ended well.
first half was rough. Season 2 was up and down
But goddamn season 4 is amazing. Episode 4 is one of the best episodes of a tv show.
I don't know. I love the season. Final act is really nice imo. It also has some of my favorite dynamics in the series.
Hopper being a hyper-paranoid dad and Eleven being like "Hey you suck"
Also Sean Astin being too pure for this world and getting eaten by monsters
S2 is a largely a functional show, but it fails just by the nature that it can't recapture the novelty Stranger Things already achieved on its debut.
Season 2 was great television, and I personally didn't mind episode 7. I think most people hated that it broke up the suspense, but I don't think it's that big a problem for a binge watch show. If it was a weekly show I'd probably be incensed, but in this case it added some much needed background fleshing out. Because I think that was the major problem with the season. We get introduced to the mind flayer and the demodogs, but outside of there being new monsters du jour to battle with, the season largely felt like it was treading ground, and we ended up more or less where we started. In that sense I actually appreciated episode 7 for extending the mythos. It also leaned more into the horror elements, and had less of the Spielberg/Goonies flavor of the first season. Season 3 course corrected this, but because of this had its own detractors. I think between seasons 1, 3 and 4 though it's clear that this is what the series is trying to be.
The misfit characters in S2E7 were pretty bad. I see that they were trying to make them ridiculous stereotypes in the way that punks and goths were typically portrayed in actual 80's teen shows, but it didn't really work.
Everything else about it was fine though, and it would've been brilliant if they'd just toned it down a bit and made 8's crew a bit more sympathetic and less of an insane murder posse.
Season 2 also introduces Max and Billy, who are the best characters in the show (Bob's great too), and 8 herself is also great, so it's a great season overall
I liked all the seasons. They really haven't got much wrong.
This is really good to see. I always wonder how much is real and what the actors/camera actually see.
Everything else about it was fine though, and it would've been brilliant if they'd just toned it down a bit and made 8's crew a bit more sympathetic and less of an insane murder posse.
Season 2 also introduces Max and Billy, who are the best characters in the show (Bob's great too), and 8 herself is also great, so it's a great season overall
I liked all the seasons. They really haven't got much wrong.
This is really good to see. I always wonder how much is real and what the actors/camera actually see.
Yea, I think that's right too. It's an odd one for me, because Steve aside, Hopper is likely the contender for my favourite character in the show. That's why S3 didn't feel as good to me, because most of his role was running around just shouting and being aggro like you said.
Yep. Season 4 is incredible so far!
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This is the best part of their arc for sure, Joyce actually having the higher ground for most of the season. I just wish it didn't result in Hop being a dickhead to everyone else around him.
I'm no expert in CGI, (I don't even know what it means), but how in the world did this season cost 300 mil?
I liked that dynamic with Joyce too, but I do agree with other posters that they doubled down on Hopper being the angry paranoid dad too much and IMO it felt vindictive at times. Mike and El went through a lot before they were finally able to reunite and Hop's attitude about them seeing each other all the time was just sort of selfish. Thankfully by the S3 finale he mellowed out, but yeah. I love S3 but I do think they kind of fumbled Hop's personality by going in too far on the paranoid parent thing.