I don’t get the complaints about the episode lengths. Season 4 was only 9 episodes. Even with the extended lengths that’s like 15 hour long episodes. Shows used to have much longer seasons before streaming services were a thing. It’s very easy to watch half an episode and come back to it later. I watched season 4 in like a week because it was paced incredibly well and didn’t have a lot of filler. Season 4 was easily the best season since the 1st and I’m excited to see how it ends even if it seems like it’s taken forever for the show to wrap up.
Season 3 I think was my favorite tbh. The Steve/Robin/Dustin/Erica arc is one of my faves of the whole series, and evil Billy was a compelling vilain.
Still hilarious that S2 had that random episode of Eleven meeting those other kids and it’s never been brought up since lol
Some theorize they could come back next season. Personally, I think the very negative reception to that episode changed any plans involving any of them.
It didn’t bother me too much when I first watched the season. Being able to watch it and go straight back to everybody else in the show had going on after the cliffhanger helped. Upon rewatching, I don’t think there was enough material to warrant a full episode and would have been better had it been edited to be within other episodes, leaving out the non important parts.
The tantrums people have over that episode have always felt so exaggerated. That one and the fly in breaking bad.
I didn’t mind the episode, it just felt weird where it was placed in the season. I’m indifferent, I wouldn’t care to see them but wouldn’t care if they came back either. I just find it funny that it’s been ignored ever since.
I liked that episode of season 2, and I think it already lead to what it was meant to lead to—the discovery that Brenner’s experiments were bigger and more expansive than we knew after season 1. They used season 2 to give us more of a backstory on El and I’m cool with it. Now it would be cool if 8 and her crew showed up this season to help fight whatever’s gonna be going on, but their job seemed more to be to make sure Vecna wasn’t just sprung on us out of nowhere. it’s hard for me to pick a favorite tbh. Really, really, really hard to match that feeling that season 1 gave me—and I watched it while nearly immobile on the couch covering from flu or something equally as terrible lol. Season 2 is a step down form the other 3 mostly because, in fleshing out El’s backstory, they kept the kids separated for the whole season and the magic of the first season was the boys bond with her, so not having that element in season 2 was tough to overcome. They did their best though with the Dustin/Steve paring and introducing Max to the group dynamic, in addition to the mind flayer and the upside down spreading. Season 3 is when they really seemed to decide to just lean fully and completely into the 80s even moreso than they already had and they really nailed the 80s action movie blockbuster feel. Perfect capturing of that aesthetic I think. And of course all the emotional beats of the season, with Billy/max, El/Hopper, etc. Season 4 then decided to do 80s horror movies aesthetic and they completely nailed that too. Just perfect creepy vibes with Vecna, great use of music with Running Up That Hill and Master of Puppets, good action between El and Vecna and etc. i think maaaybe I still have 3 above it. But it’s real close.
Season 3 is my least favorite. It has a great 80's aesthetic (getting to watch them film in my mall was a bonus too), but it's so goofy it feels disjointed and ruins the stakes for me. It's a blast but it rarely had me on the edge of my seat. In relation to Season 1 (which is still the best), I feel like Season 2 introduced humor more naturally and while Season 4 didn't dial back on the goofiness of S3 it brought back a healthy mix of seriousness and genuine fear and emotion to balance it out. Season 3 hardly feels like the same show as Season 1 to me.
The kids episode is just another symptom of them not having a plan outside of the initial season. So 2 is the biggest mess. Then they planned more out but it got too big too quick and the characters had to become unrecognizable to keep any conflict still going. The characters that they had time to do anything with after the cast tripled and they refused to kill any of them that is.