Spoilers but you’ve probably already seen it.
I have been a huge fan of the Netflix original TV series Stranger Things since the summer of 2022. That was the summer that Season 4 of the show came out in 2 separate premieres that were a month or so apart from each other. About a week before the second premiere, before the second half of Season 4 was released, I sat down and began watching season 1 with my mom. Safe to say, I was caught up to the end of Season 4 by the time the new episodes were released – I had watched the entire show in 1 week. My mom still wanted to watch it with me, so I proceeded to rewatch the entire show over the next couple months. And now, in the Fall of 2025, a few weeks before Season 5 releases, I am rewatching yet again with my friends.
Stranger Things originally aired in July of 2016 as one of the very first Netflix originals and it became immensely popular right off the bat, somewhat responsible for starting the trendy binge-worthy Netflix show cycle. It’s a mystery/horror ensemble story with heavy kudos to Steven King and traditional 80s narratives – a love letter to E.T., Freaks and Geeks, The Goonies, Stand by Me, etc. Or at least that’s what the first season is all about. The extreme popularity of the show upon release had a huge impact on the story direction and the quality of the narrative going forward, so let’s start with Season 1 for this pre-Season 5 full-series retrospective.
Season 1 of Stranger Things is a genuinely masterful season of television. Although it comes in a very close second to my favorite season (Season 4), it’s hard to deny how great the writing is throughout the entire arc. The premise is by itself wonderful and well realized; 80s time period, small town in Illinois, government experiments gone wrong, geeky group of kids, D&D, monsters, mystery. I actually can’t really think of even a single thing wrong with this season. Every narrative element is on point: the themes, the plot, the world building and the best aspect – the characters. The writers of Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers, originally envisioned this show as an anthology piece where each season would follow a new group of characters dealing with the upside down, but after everyone loved all of the characters they couldn’t just cut it off. That was absolutely the right decision, because the best part of Stranger Things as a whole has always been the characters. There’s a lot more I could ramble on with about this season but I’ll leave it at that.
Season 2 is in my opinion the weakest of the seasons. This is not to say that it is bad by any means, and it’s a pretty damn good season of TV all together. But, it’s easily the least interesting. When I mentioned earlier that the popularity of the show would impact its quality; this is what I meant. Season 2 was pumped out relatively quickly after the 1st, only coming out in October of 2017 – I should mention that the same goes for Season 3 (July 2019). It’s clear that the focus was pulled just a smidge away from the strength of the overall narrative to a more massively targeting audience. The use of many more pop songs, 80s icons, and a less direct narrative (with the lack of a Will Byers to save) made for an overall good season, just not a great one.
Some of the same things could be said about Season 3 as well, and I do think that there was definitely a much stronger shift towards romanticization and sensationalization in this season. But, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Many people will argue that Season 3 is where Stranger Things lost track of the heart of the narrative, and instead focused on a larger scale, more characters, more action, and more 80s stuff! And while I agree it added all of those elements in a much more extreme way than before, I don’t think it quite slipped on the core of the story. I personally love the 80s summer aesthetic, the mall, and the darker mysteries, and the Russians. I think that Stranger Things becoming a bit less grounded is completely fine and makes the narrative more interesting than if we stayed in the tone-base as the first and second season.
Season 4 of Stranger Things is also a masterful season of television. It was released in July of 2022, as I said, which was a full 3 years (and 1 pandemic) after season 3. It’s very apparent that the Duffer brothers took their time over Covid to really make this season into one that we would remember. There’s just so much stuff to dig into: the story now takes place in 3 separate locations across the world instead of just Hawkins, IN. Now we’re in Soviet Siberia, California and across the Midwest, and Hawkins. We have new characters as the kids are now in High School, a new villain and a further exploration into Eleven’s backstory, amazing world building, and a clear final direction for the show as a whole. Season 4 is Part 1 of the series finale. It’s arguably even more emotional than Season 1, has a much larger scale than we’ve seen before, introduces a new horror to the series that’s actually really frightening, and does wonders to capture the tone and themes of the show incarnate.
Season 5 is premiering on Thanksgiving in just a few short weeks from writing this – and I have not been more excited for a new season of television in a long time. The final trailers are out, the first 5 minutes of Episode 1 was posted on Youtube, early reviews are in; it looks like a great time. As has been customary for many TikTokers and Instagram film accounts, I’m going to talk about who I think should die to end this review.
- It would be really tragic and awesome if either Dustin or Lucas died, they are both such great characters and that would make for a horrifically sad way to end the show.
- Like everyone else, I do not want Steve Harrington to die! But, his character is in a pretty great position to bite the bullet by the end of Season 4.
- Max would also be a very tragic character for them to kill since they spent so much effort trying to save her in Season 4.
- I don’t think any of the other main cast members have a chance of dying (it would be stupid if Hopper died!) but some of the side characters like Murray wouldn’t be that saddening.
Atticus Jackson is a Junior Writing for Film, TV and Emerging Media Major who has spent the last month rewatching Stranger Things and calling it research for this piece. He can be reached at ajackson3@ithaca.edu