Whether extremely good (season one) or relatively weak (season three), all four seasons of Stranger Things have served as a love letter to the 1980s, the decade of Blade Runner, Ronald Reagan, shopping malls, Satanic panics, and, to be sure, Kate Bush and Metallica. The nostalgia gloriously permeates every aspect of the show. Indeed, so much of it speaks directly to this 54-year-old that parts of the show simply make my soul ache in memory. I was in seventh grade when Reagan became president and I was a senior in college when the Berlin Wall came down. The 1980s, simply put, were my decade, and I deeply appreciate the trouble the Duffer Brothers have taken to recreate that glorious era. I also grew up in a town (though in Kansas) just a little bigger than the fictional Hawkins, Ind. I was exactly the same age as Nancy Wheeler; I played lots of Dungeons & Dragons; and Bush’s Hounds of Love was in constant rotation on my stereo system, especially during my senior year of high school. Admittedly, I wasn’t into heavy metal, but I did appreciate it, preferring all things college rock and progressive rock, and I never took, smoked, or partook in any form of illicit or illegal drugs. After all, Nancy Reagan had told us to “just say no.” Seemed wise to me. Being raised on Tolkien and Bradbury, I read all the Stephen King I could, and horror was to me the third-finest genre of literature, immediately situated after fantasy and science fiction. I’m only sad that none of the kids in Hawkins seem to have found debate and forensics as a way of life. Then, my nostalgic past would be complete in the Duffers’ fictional universe.
As good and as epic as the series ever gets, season four mostly takes place — with several jaunts into the past as well as into the near and immediate future — over a spring-break week, March 1986. As just mentioned, even with its admittedly few flaws, the season is absolutely epic. From the emergence of Lady Applejack to the unleashing of the Upside Down to the run Max Mayfield takes across a demonic landscape to Eddie Munson’s guitar solo that calls forth a storm of bats to an escape from a Russian gulag, season four is, without a doubt, wonderfully and intensely over the top.
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