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United States Stranger Things season 4 vol 2 fails where vol 1 succeeded
Stranger Things spoilers follow.
The Stranger Things bosses set themselves a challenge with volume two after the successful release of season four's first instalment.
Let's face it, volume one was epic. The extended time really added to the storytelling. It was just long enough to leave breathing room for each individual story to grow and unfold naturally without overstuffing a 60 minute episode by trying to fit it all in.
When it came to the final chapter fans were expecting the same gold-standard storytelling. Unfortunately this was not the case. Season four volume two really drops the ball at the worst possible time.
The Duffers had done a great job setting up Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) as the villain of the piece with a rich backstory whilst simultaneously placing the titular characters in dicey situations, facing impossible challenges. It was nail-biting.
Netflix
Related: Stranger Things season 4 volume 2 ending explained
We finally found out the truth behind Eleven's journey to Hawkins, which really needed time to explore. In fact the trauma she'd been through could have been its own limited series.
So to then lose momentum at the final hurdle was dissatisfying to say the least. The total run time of volume two amounted to 235 minutes, that's just short of four hours.
With four episodes worth of time split into two, we were expecting the story to continue on in the vein in which it had started, which is to say building on the material they had already set up. However it felt more like the story ran dry and somebody simply forgot to stop rolling.
To quote The Lord of the Rings if we may, it was like "butter scraped over too much bread".
Netflix
Before you chase us down Vecna-style with Molotov cocktails and make-shift pitch forks we are all fans of Stranger Things here and this is a safe space.
We too were all rooting for an epic finale, however, the problem with extended episodes is you really need to make that time count. Instead what we were left with were lots of stretched out scenes that could have been trimmed drastically.
It took Eleven roughly 40 minutes to escape Brenner (Matthew Modine) and the military. That's a sizeable chunk of the first episode to give away considering not a lot really happened in that time.
Similarly, Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper's From Russia with Love side-story is one that definitely could have been hacked at.
Netflix
Related: Stranger Things full timeline – From Creel House to Eddie Munson manhunt
We're not suggesting losing all of it to the cutting room floor. Their moment of intimacy was a long-time coming but them escaping the Russian prison only to tinker with a plane off-site, find clothes and return back to it??? Come on.
Murray (Brett Gelman), Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha) and Yuri (Nikola Djuricko) – who had been such vital characters to the story in volume one – became the side pieces to a side story that quite frankly if we'd lost wouldn't have made much difference to the plot.
Just to preface this with we love Joyce and Hopper we just wish more had been done with their screen time or more accurately, we wish their time had been condensed so it could have been fully appreciated.
Consequently, when it came to the richer, more powerful scenes they lost impact because our interest and concentration were already waning.
Netflix
Max (Sadie Sink) blinded, broken and teetering between life and death should have been tear-jerking. Eddie's dramatic demise was laid out beautifully, emotional music score and all, but the unnecessarily extended scenes left us too exhausted to fully feel or appreciate it.
Heartbreakingly, what volume two amounts to is wonderfully emotive and impactful motives scattered throughout a weaker, overarching story.
Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.
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