Back with the Byers, Eleven (or Jane), and the rest of the gang
A week ago now, on May 20, Netflix gave Manila Bulletin Lifestyle the opportunity to get a glimpse of what’s to come for the fourth installment of the “Stranger Things” series.
Spoilers? Yes, you’ll catch a bunch in this quick read!
The fourth season opens at the Hawkins Lab with a flashback of one of the prominent characters seen in the past season. The whole show, however, will be set in the spring of 1986, and episode 1 will be crossing back and forth between Hawkins, Indiana and California.
Just as we saw in the last episode of the previous season, the Byers Family including Eleven—who is now known as Jane in Season 4—have moved out of Hawkins. In this season, we will now see them all settled in California, where Joyce is now working from home, Will and Eleven are going to regular school, and Jonathan is in his senior year of high school.
On the other hand, the crew in Hawkins remains the same. The three boys, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, are still going through the crises of high school and overcoming the identity woes of a typical teenager. Max, on the other hand, is going through something related to the past events regarding Billy, her brother.
Despite the huge build up, the first episode leaves us off with a cliffhanger, and it makes you hope for a reunion between the kids who would be taking their spring break with the Byers in California.
Overall, episode 1 was definitely a shocker and a thriller for many reasons. We meet new characters, have some questions answered from the previous season, and the final scene will definitely have you wanting more. As new characters are involved and introduced only in the first episode, I wonder if they’d last and play an important role in the following episodes, and if they’d last long enough to make it to a season 5–assuming there would be one.
The CGI is a complete level-up, considering how the details and sound effects leave you creeped out and scared at the edge of your seat. With the new division between the original Hawkins gang, we also hope to see how the relationships and friendships would last throughout the season despite being far apart.
Lastly, I suppose it’s safe to say that episode 1 would show how our ultimate duos are still intact as ever. But then again, would it still be “friends don’t lie” until the very end? Find out by catching “Stranger Things” season 4 only on Netflix! Volume 1 comes out today at 3 p.m., and Volume 2 follows on July 1.