Review: ‘Stranger Things’ Is Shrinking As It Nears the End

For a story about a supernatural phenomenon that threatens to pull the entire world into a hellscape of bisexual lighting, omnipresent thunder, and endless tangles of oozing vines, Stranger Things returns for its final season feeling curiously small. After four seasons of an assembly-line approach to maximalism — attach loads of nostalgia here, plug in decadent CGI there, retcon the plot throughout — the show’s budget is huge and the final eight episodes are supersized. But in the first batch of four episodes that hit Netflix tonight, the series pushes the Party toward resolution by making it more myopic than ever.

Stranger Things has been part of watercooler culture for almost ten years, spanning a pandemic and two Trump presidencies. But in season five’s first volume, we’re still