Stranger Things S04E02 Review: The Survival of Jim Hopper

Stranger Things, Season 4, Episode 2: Vecna's Curse

Another episode that starts off a bit more slowly, although this one has a bit more intrigue and at least we're seeing where this season (or 'half-season' or whatever they're marketing this season 4 as) is going. We get to see how Jim Hopper survived, which is through a good old case of 'oh he jumped off the side of the explosion off-screen and knocked his head unconscious'. And... I guess I can't really be too mad since they kind of already confirmed Hopper's survival in that post-credits scene, but I still kinda felt like I kind of expected... more? He got kidnapped by the Russians, who toss him into a prison. 

Joyce and Murray spend most of their scenes in this episode trying to figure out a cryptic message that may or may not be from Hopper. It's a bit more comedic, which is a very stark contrast to how distraught Joyce was in season one of Stranger Things, although Murray keeping the paranoia in the scene mostly sensible is a nice contrast to Joyce's almost manic happiness at the sign that Hopper might still be alive. This whole sequence is kind of a rock and hard place for the show writers to be in, I suppose, where they can't really show Hopper surviving immediately, but the fact that we're taking our time to untangle the Hopper situation does make the audience feel like we're just retreading ground that they already revealed at the tail-end of last season. 

Also done well are the stuff in regards with Eleven. Her scenes don't really comprise of much, and it's more or less what we expected -- she continues to get bullied by the bitches in her school. It's heartbreaking, portrayed amazingly well, and... and while the show does portray the show of violence as something horrifying as it should be, you really can't help but cheer a little when Eleven breaks that bitch's nose. And we're tying back things to the flashback of Eleven doing a massacre at the evil science lab -- it's understandable that she's defending herself, but having the blood of jerk-ish-but-not-evil people be spilled is not the nicest thing to do. 

There's an interesting subplot where apparently Eleven's been telling Mike that she's got a lot of friends, which kind of bites her in the butt when the humiliation game happens in the ice rink. And, okay, that bitch definitely deserves to have her nose broken now that I remember that ice rink scene, and her stepping on the Hopper doll, and her clear distaste of Eleven's learning disabilities... you know what? A broken nose would hopefully teach that bitch some respect. 

Will's... kind of in a hard place, where he's not particularly happy that Eleven's being dishonest, and he's also kind of pissed that Mike's drifted apart into paying much more attention to Eleven instead of him, supposedly his best friends. Ah, teenager love. Although from the acting, it really does seem to imply that Will's feeling much more than just 'best friend gets ignored for girlfriend' thing going on. 

The majority of the episode revolves around Chrissy's murder and how things have escalated as the police try to figure out what's going on. And it's... well, it's as interesting as it gets, and I do find that the show trying to showcase extra new characters next to the established cast really does hurt the movement of this episode a fair bit. We've got Max, Dustin, Robin and Steve running around trying to figure out how to find Eddie and prove his innocence; while a subplot features Nancy and her co-worker Fred playing Nancy Drew and trying to figure out things by interviewing the people around the community. All we get is some story about Victor Creel, a previous serial killer with the same M.O. 

And... the whole Fred subplot was just kinda weird, yeah? It's kind of irritating enough that the character is already introduced as someone that the audience is predisposed to dislike (trying to get between a popular romantic couple) but then we get a random and completely pointless backstory that the show itself doesn't bother to allude to before Fred falls into the Upside-Down (or is it?) and gets killed by Vecna. I guess the only real purpose to show is that Vecna feeds on kids with fucked-up guilt? Like what Chrissy felt last episode, and Fred apparently was involved in some sort of car accident? Eh. 

Anyway, Team Dustin ends up finding Eddie, and we go through the 'okay we understand what you went through is weird but we've seen weird shit' thing going on. We also get yet another subplot of a minor character, Jason (from Lucas's basketball team) who is Chrissy's boyfriend, get super angry when he puts together what happens, and basically riles up a lynch mob for Eddie. It's understandable that he's acting out of grief, but beyond this paralleling the real-life views of D&D and giving Lucas something unique to do, it feels like a distraction the already packed-yet-sparse plot doesn't need. And I really don't feel the need to mention Jonathan's sub-sub-subplot with his own high friend Argyle who gives him relationship advice... and the Jonathan/Nancy stuff really already felt artificially strained. 

And... it's not a bad episode, not at all. The murder investigation stuff and the paranoia stuff is neat. Eleven's emotional breakdown was amazingly frustrating and just sad for all the right storytelling and acting reasons. For what we see of him, Vecna continues to be cool even if all he does is murder teens and speak in a deep voice. It's just that I really do feel like they really overestimated just how much we need to 'check in' with the other characters, and I really do want more of these characters to essentially run into each other just so we don't have so many cuts to honestly unimportant scenes like Nancy running around alone looking for Fred.