'Stranger Things' season finale succeeds by leaning into excess

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/01/ [login to see] /stranger-things-finale-review
One of the toughest things for an established TV show to do is surprise you.

Specifically, to surprise by revealing something new about characters fans think they know, after years of watching episodes and growing attached to their favorites.

That's a big reason why I have so enjoyed this fourth season of Netflix's monster hit Stranger Things. And it's why the last two episodes, dropping today, amp up the energy of an already propulsive season, revealing the full scope of the danger our heroes (and heroines) face while highlighting new complications among them all.

The show has always turned on an improbable premise: A nerdy gang of young kids keeping horrible creatures from an alternate universe from consuming our world — with help from a few bumbling adults. That core crew — teen buddies Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Will — has expanded every season and is now an endlessly eccentric gang that feels like every underdog from every '80s teen flick jammed into one bustling storyline.

For its fourth season, the series has more than doubled down on just about everything — building out the show's fictional universe, adding engaging new characters and setting up a bombastic showdown for these last two episodes that offers its biggest spectacle yet.