Stranger Things, Season 4, Episode 8: Papa
Nancy's storyline is resolved pretty quickly at the beginning of the episode, with Vecna stalking Nancy throughout the visions, and we get Vecna letting Nancy go after showing her some disturbing imagery, so that she can 'tell Eleven'. It's a bit of a cop-out, honestly, considering how sadistic Vecna is, but at least it makes a bit more sense that Vecna let Nancy get away because she's not a member of the cast that I really see surviving Vecna if he gets really serious.
Our heroes realize that there are four murder victims, leading to four mini-gates to the Upside-Down, and Max would have been the fourth. So our Hawkins team has an idea on how to stop Vecna -- and Max offers to use herself as bait.
Apparently there's a convenient self-defense and gun store in Hawkins, and our heroes run into the fanatic sports bullies. Despite a tense confrontation with Nancy and Jason, our heroes still manage to purchase their weapons before vamoosing.
But, of course, with the title of the episode being 'papa', Eleven gets to take center stage in terms of emotional payoff. Doctor Brenner and Eleven basically figure out many of the same things that the Hawkins cast have discovered about Vecna (with the help of Eleven's ability to scry), realizing that Vecna would completely fuck Hawkins up should he create the interdimensional portal. Owens obviously takes Eleven's side, but Brenner is... an interesting and well-acted antagonist at this point. Brenner refuses to let Eleven go to a battle that she may or may not win, but Eleven has had enough of his gaslighting shit. I really do find Brenner interesting -- in no way is he a good man, but Matthew Modine's acting is so good that you really do get the sense that Brenner is convinced that this is the 'right' thing to do, that he is being a 'good parent' to Eleven...
...even as he is sedating her and putting a shock collar on her, and as Eleven herself realizes that the whole 'look into the darkness' shit that Brenner got her to do in season 1 (which summoned the Demogorgon) was trying to look for Henry. It's a nice way of tying Brenner's sometimes-odd motivations. That, in some twisted way, his ultimate goal involved bringing his whole family back. Even if he has to abuse his other 'child' and let all her other friends die. Eleven basically calls Brenner a monster, and it actually is pretty soul-crushing when we see the scene of Eleven chained up again, all helpless and stuff after she demonstrates her massive telekinetic ability earlier in the episode.
Of course, the much-maligned-by-me plotline of Team Mike and the military squadron led by Sullivan attacking the Nina base. The military soldiers are fighting against Brenner's people, which ends up providing a convenient distraction for Eleven to escape. We have a nice, quiet scene of Mike and Will talking about Mike's worth to the group (which admittedly is something that rang slightly hollow since their plotline has kinda been meandering and pointless this season). It's obvious where they're going with this plot, with Will projecting his own feelings that he obviously knows won't be reciprocated, while playing cupid for Mike and Eleven.
Sullivan interrogates Owens -- who is the only survivor there while Brenner escapes with a power-disabled Eleven. Owens tries to get Sullivan to stand down with the compromise of putting Eleven in a coma until she is to be deployed, but Sullivan is a loco. Brenner, despite being a scientist... doesn't have a proper escape route planned beyond just running out and hoping for the best? Not a particularly smart thing to do, because a sniper on a helicopter immediately shoots Brenner.
Team Mike arrives just in time to distract the helicopter, allowing Eleven to finally use her powers even with her neck brace on. She manages to wiggle the helicopter around enough for it to spin out of control and explode on the ground in a rather impressive fireball -- is this the first time Eleven straight-up killed someone in cold blood?
Sullivan and Owens are just kind of ignored, because the primary emotional point here is Brenner and Eleven. Brenner's last act is to unlock Eleven's collar remotely... but despite the obvious mixture of pride, grief and desperation to be recognized as 'papa', Eleven... kind of realizes that the abuse outweighs whatever twisted love Brenner might have, and leaves him to die alone. Very good job at showcasing the conflict between the two characters, but ultimately not something that excuses the fucked-up abuse Brenner did at all.
The Russian B-plot is... it moves a bit more swiftly, I guess, as we get more Joyce/Hopper reunion and there's a bit more sense of urgency as the Demogorgon is still on a rampage. It is cool to see the show's original monster be shown as an unstoppable force against a group of random mortal soldiers. And we also get to see what the Russians are experimenting on, which includes them dissecting larval Demogorgons (which explains why Mama Demogorgon is so angry) and also keeping that huge swirling smoke-swarm thing that I think is a Mind Flayer tendril? Our characters manage to retreat to Yuri's hangar, and... and Yuri is very understandably not being helpful and the sequence of them not being in a prison is way too obviously just padding so the final episode can end in a climax, and honestly the only thing that doesn't make this storyline eye-rollingly numb is that Yuri is genuinely portrayed as a volatile character that could lead this either way.
Anyway, though, it's just really me being a bit of a complainer because the rest of the episode is pretty damn strong. Episode 9 is a literal movie in and of its own, being a 2.5-hours long season finale. And... it is kind of rather obvious that we're going to get a whole bunch of plotlines sorted out, and the penultimate episode definitely delivers!
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