Stranger Things

Season 4 (2022) (S04) 

I like that the Duffer brothers look like they've got the patent on good filmmaking and in the first eight episodes we all eat it up, because they've managed to create a complex, entertaining and extremely good series, one that more or less has no deaf spots and gets an A in the visual aspect, the acting, the suspense and everything else the viewer can think of. What makes it all the more shocking is that the studio must have been rehearsing the last episode, otherwise I can't explain how such a well-paced series can turn into a completely clichéd sentimental hodgepodge, in which the last (three-hour long!!) episode we get literally every element that makes a bad movie a bad movie: a template structure of the whole episode, a boring progression, a classic and frankly boring cliffhanger after three seasons that can't surprise anyone anymore, and an extreme wringing of the viewer's emotions and tears just to make them feel that they have seen a "good final episode". This then leaves a strangely embarrassing bitter taste of an excellent series with a parodic ending. It makes me wonder if they're not fucking with us. (07/06/2022)