“Stranger Things” Season 4: Same Pizza, Different Toppings.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Every pizza has the same starting ingredients. The dough, the sauce and the cheese. Of course there is a variety of styles and other added ingredients, but the core of pizza stays relatively the same. This concept can be said about the Netflix hit show, “Stranger Things.”
“Stranger Things’” Main Ingredients
The dough: Each season, a monster from the upside down shows up to terrorize the town of Hawkins and its nerdy children.
The sauce: The gang then gets together to investigate how to kill this thing and save the world by splitting off into their own plot lines. Somehow, all the plot lines work out and everyone is back together again.
The cheese: The final battle with the monster. Minor character dies. Monster is gone. End of season.
A pizza is a solid metaphor for the general plot of “Stranger Things”, as the concept of the show has gotten slightly predictable and repetitive. But don’t get it twisted, each season still has its unique set of “toppings” that switches up the flavor. The variety is delicious and much appreciated, but we don’t want to eat pizza every night.
Season four sticks with the same recipe. If this season was a pizza, it would be a Hawaiian with extra cheese, add some jalapeños, maybe a little red pepper flakes and at least three other toppings, complete with a cheese stuffed crust. Kind of like the themed pizza that was released for “Stranger Things” called Surfer Boy Pizza.
Stranger Things Four: The Final Two Slices
Volume two of season four, released last week, consists of only two episodes, but they run more like two movies. Episode eight runs at 1 hour and 25 minutes while the grand finale runs two hours and 30 minutes. That’s about as long as the damn movie about an entire rock legend’s life.
The final episode is loaded with so many plot lines and different groups to follow. It was easy to feel overwhelmed with everything that is going on. Frankly, at the end of the season, you’re stuffed.
The multiple intense plot lines flying at you isn’t the only thing that keeps you stuffed. According to the creators of the show, the Duffer brothers, the finale used more special effects than all of season three. And the biggest budget yet with $30 million dollars per episode, making volume two one expensive pie. But how can you complain about the price when we were given quite possibly the most iconic scene in all of the “Stranger Things” series: Eddie’s metal moment. If you didn’t stand on your couch during this entire scene… what were you doing?
Season Finale, A Pizza To Prepare for Another Pizza
This season sticks to the basic recipe of the other seasons, having a monster and finishing the season with a big fight with said monster. However, the variety of this season comes with the fact the monster from the upside down, AKA Vecna/One/Henry, is still alive in the end. He is just taking a vacation until the next season comes out.
In other words, you placed your order, you’re incredibly starving, but the delivery is gonna be late.
Season five will most likely be even bigger, will have a similar plot line and happy-ish ending as the other seasons: the monster is defeated and the kids of Hawkins saved the world for another day. Another pizza. Of course viewers love to see their favorite characters win but how many miracles are going to happen before the story becomes too repetitive?
“Stranger Things” needs to “Game of Thrones” it up, meaning it should aim to be a bit more realistic with bigger losses and a character death from someone that wasn’t just introduced to us. Maybe Maxine will be running up a much different hill next season, a loss that would no doubt devastate the entire “Stranger Things” fanbase.
A loss that could just be the seasoning this pizza needs to be different and more spectacular than the previous pizzas (AKA seasons, keeping up with the metaphor still?).
Viewing a series as loved as “Stranger Things” like pizzas of different flavors is a bit pessimistic, but the audience need some variety. Although this season was different, ending in an unusual defeat for the kids and El since the monster is still alive, the viewers can probably predict what is going to happen in the next and final season: a battle between Vecna and the town of Hawkins, and you can guess the winner.
Let us know what you thought of season four and what you think will happen in season five. Will it be another pizza or at least another killer rock solo? Tweet us @PulltabSports.
