Stranger Things, Season 4, Episode 1: The Hellfire Club
Anyway, it's been, what, three, four years since season 3 ended? And the first episode of season 4 ends up being kind of a 'where are they now' slow-paced buildup to what our heroes have been in high school. And there sure is a plotline brewing in the background with our typical Upside-Down supernatural elements, but it's being kept pretty vague and mysterious, like the mysterious wall-monster in season 1 and the rats in the abandoned mall last season. Oh, and we also get the flashback to when Eleven blows up the government base where they are testing out the telekinetic kids... which I actually don't remember if this is when Eleven escaped pre-S1, or if it's another event? In any case, I'm going to assume more of Eleven's fellow psychic kids are going to make an appearance this season.
And, well, this leads us to the 'present day' of 1986, where poor Eleven is trying to survive the bitches in high school while also trying to deal with the aftermath of her power being lost... which leads to a rather sad sequence of her having the little diorama to her hero, papa Hopper, being destroyed by the bullies at her school. Will is just hanging out with Eleven and trying his best to help her out, while Jonathan and Nancy's long-distance relationship is... well, they're talking about nothing being wrong with their relationship with their respective friends in a rather cute 'two scenes, one speech' cut scene. But of course this is all just kind of fluff, because the real huge plot-related stuff is Joyce breaking open a mysterious package to find a message about how Jim is alive.
That wraps up most of the cast not at Hawkins, because Hawkins High School is... well, a bunch of drama is going on. We get little check-ins and reminders that other members of the cast exist (Suzie gets a cameo; Steve and Robin have a bit of dating advice) but the main high school drama is Lucas. Lucas is now part of the basketball team, and like all American high schools, the Big Event(tm) that everyone obsesses about is a basketball competition. And the conflict here is that Lucas's finals ends up being in the same night with the final fight of the campaign of the D&D club, "The Hellfire Club". Things are also frosty between Lucas and Max, who's dealing very terribly with the death of her brother.
And... again, all of these recap stuff with the old members of the cast feels like fluff. There's some drama with Lucas basically trying to be one of the cool kids, but ends up looking forlornly when he sees Mike and Dustin basically replace him with Erica in their D&D campaign. There's our typical Stranger Things geekiness with the over-enthusiastic leader of the Hellfire Club setting up a final campaign fight against Vecna*, which always warms my heart that they're treating our heroes rolling a natural 20 on a d20 as something as exciting as getting a last-second... uh... what do you call it when a basketball enters the basket? A point? I'm not a sports guy, if you hadn't guessed, though I do like the framing between the two groups of game players getting their own excitement.
*who, regardless of the edition, probably isn't someone you'll face with an adventuring party with a 14th-level character.
I'm not super-invested in the drama and I felt like it could've been done in half the amount of screentime we got (Mike and Dustin running around looking for substitutes went on way longer than it should) but I do kind of get both sides of the argument -- for Lucas, he's brought into the idea that, hey, this basketball game is The Big Thing(tm) in the school, and he kind of wants his friends to come and watch. Max, struggling with PTSD, just gives the ticket right in his face. While Mike and Dustin really can't get a huge D&D campaign session to be moved because some of the members also have to prepare for graduation. Eddie isn't the nicest person about it with hamming it up, but it is kind of a situation where poor Lucas ends up being really trapped within two worlds.
And, well, concurrently running in the background of this, we get our first horror victim of the season, a cheerleader called Chrissy, who vomits in the bathroom and keeps getting hallucinations. People pounding at bathroom doors, grandfather clocks on trees that sprouts black spiders, and... she eventually meets Mike and Dustin's D&D group DM, Eddie, who also sells drugs. Chrissy, who wants stronger drugs, follows Eddie to the caravan to try and forget our nightmares, but then she gets trapped in a nightmare realm that seems to be a recreation of her childhood home or something, before this... this flayed, flesh-monster arrives and has a creepy voice, grabs her seemingly in a parallel realm while Eddie is shaking Chrissy's physical body, before it rises up in the sky, her limbs snap Exorcist-style and her eyes explode.
And... I get that it's been a while since season 3. I definitely don't remember all the details of that season, but I also feel like we're trying a bit too hard to fit every single character into this episode. Stranger Things have always been decent at balancing the civilian, school stuff with creepy stuff... but most of the creepy shit that happens in this episode happens to Chrissy, a side-character we never even met before and dies at the end of this episode; while most of our main cast are just... kind of dealing with high school? There are a lot of scenes that feel kind of pointless beyond just reminding us that these characters exist. The show does seem to find some trouble juggling all the characters, although I feel like it could be much worse. Not the strongest opening, although that villain (who I know gets the 'codename' of Vecna, which the D&D game in this episode makes pretty obvious anyway) does leave a pretty strong impression, doesn't he?
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