My Review of "Stranger Things: Season 4 Part 2"

Stranger Things: Season 4 Part 2 has just released on Netflix. It didn't take too long for us to wait for this second half of the season either. A month isn't long to wait for a second half but with the grand scale that this season started off with we built up huge anticipation for the conclusion. Unfortunately I'm a little divided about this last half of the season.

The second half of the season obviously starts off where the last one left off. Everyone is about to go off to war. Eleven finally gets her power back. We now know who Vecna is and the rest of the gang have finally found each other.

Little did we know all of the craziness of the series all started with Vecna. He and Eleven have been linked from the very beginning. I loved how the first season brought it all together. The anticipation of what craziness was about to happen had me hungry for more.

Obviously the gang would be gathering together to devise a plan to kill Vecna. This would involve the core team of Max, Lucas, Steve, Nancy, Robin, Erica, Dustin and Eddie. It's a big group but they're also no match for such a huge foe. Not all of them have their shine in this show either.

They're more focused on Max, Lucas, Nancy, Steve and of course Eleven. Unfortunately the whole cast wouldn't play critical parts in this season. This was kind of weird too because they did this weird soviet sub story that really never went anywhere. I think it was totally unnecessary except to include these characters in the show's back pocket for next season.

Some of the characters would be red herrings throughout the season. For example Dr. Brenner was good then he's bad and then he's good and so on. They played upon this too much where it kind of got on my nerves.

Also, there's a sense that the last half of the season was rushed in some regards. There have always been plot holes in the series but this one had some obvious ones all over the place. I understand what they were going for but it felt a little too overdramatic at times.

I didn't care for the fact that they had only 2 episodes in the last part or the fact that one episode was an hour and 15 minutes while the other was 2 and a half hours. The pacing of this last half was really weird. It's as if it didn't know whether it should be a full episode or if it should have been split up into multiple episodes.

Despite the uneven story telling of this last half of the season there were some notable scenes. I really liked what they did with the Eddie character in this season, in both parts of the season. Max was a great character as well even though they kind of messed up the potential for her character at the end of this season.

I knew I shouldn't have had such high expectations for this later half of the season. They just seemed to add so much more quality to it in the first half for it to be squandered in the second. I feel as though there was a lot of wasted potential throughout the season.

Overall, I still had some enjoyment to this last half of the season but it was nothing I was expecting it to be. It doesn't even end in a satisfying manner. We know this is a big cash cow for Netflix so why did I think otherwise. I hope they can pick it up in the next season and not make the same mistakes they did in this second half of the season. I have to give part 2 a 7 out of 10. Fans will watch it no matter what but casual viewers may feel it's overbloated.