Stranger Things Season 4 has finally been released and fans are busily binge-watching the seven episodes while many eagerly await the final two coming at the beginning of July. While the fourth season has been praised hugely by fans for many of the plot lines, several particular moments have caught the attention and garnered interest amongst the fan base.
The show has been a massive hit for Netflix since day one, and is arguably one of the very biggest draws the platform still has running to this day. But will Season 4 be able to wrap up the many stories left to tell? July 1st is the date for the Part 2 release, but until then, fans will be stuck thinking about a number of significant moments.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
6 Vecna’s First Kill
While many moments in the season were surprising to be sure, the thrills really began this time around when Vecna killed off Chrissy Cunningham. The brutal nature of Vecna’s kills was shocking, even in the context of a show that hasn’t shied away from violence in the past.
This new level of horror added a chilling fear to the lengths the show would take things. The way Vecna has been stalking his victims and the near-inevitable death that follows is absolutely terrifying, but the unexpected nature of how far the show would go in showing a most savage death hit extremely hard the first time, along with Eddie’s clueless terror mingling with the audience’s own as the first episode climaxed.
5 Hopper Opens Up
Hopper’s journey this season was an unusual one and a new place for the character. More than being trapped in a Russian prison or tortured, it was surprising for audiences to finally see Hopper opening up about his past to someone. The fact that this someone wasn’t Joyce, Eleven, or even Murray but instead Antonov, the prison guard turned fellow prisoner.
This scene was surprising and an incredibly intimate moment. As Hopper has always been a man of few words, one who has struggled with real emotions, it was a particularly tender moment that he unleashed this storm of backstory while facing death.
David Harbour did a great job this year at creating a lot of emotion and sympathy in the audience for Hopper’s situation, talking about his work in the Vietnam War was surprising and tragic. Besides this, the scene where he eats peanut butter was also surprisingly heartfelt. How Hopper will escape Russia is still unanswered for now, but seeing him open up more has to be in the show's future.
4 Murray Vs Yuri
When Murray starts explaining to Joyce that he has been learning karate, it is played off by the show as something of a joke. When she later asks him if he can take on Yuri, and he reveals how young his training partners are, she assumes he’ll be completely incapable of taking their Russian captor down. The entire scene on the plane where Yuri stands up to him and finally defeats him is a nice moment for Murray, a character who is always sought out for his many uses but is made fun of by those around him.
It was also hilarious as a scene, playing with expectations and the fact that both Murray and Yuri aren’t particularly well-trained. While it won’t go down as the greatest fight scene in TV history, it will be remembered as one of the better moments of this season.
3 Victor Creel
When Victor Creel, the supposed lunatic serial killer, was finally revealed in his asylum, played by Robert Englund himself, it was a huge moment. The monologue he gave, taking the audience through a full horror film in a matter of minutes, was chilling and intense. It produced a great moment for the show, had an amazing cameo, and furthered the plot well.
The Creel house disaster was brutal and terrifying, it followed many of the known tropes around haunted house horror, but had such a good twist in the end that it could have been a better horror movie alone than most out there today. This investigative part of the plot was one of the many things that make this season easy to compare to other significant pieces of pop culture.
2 Vecna Is Revealed
Everything about season four converged in the final moments where Nancy is newly cursed and Eleven uncovers the truth behind Number One. In one of the best moments of the series, it is revealed that Eleven’s friend has powers, and has been held captive by Brenner. In a matter of moments, he is unleashed, murders all the other test subjects, and tells her about his childhood as the son of Victor Creel.
At this point, the truth behind the Creel house massacre is told, the truth about the beginning of Brenner’s program, and the truth about Vecna and his powers, as Eleven sent him into the Upside Down, leading to him becoming the villainous Vecna fans know now. Many plot lines about the series, even questions that audiences have had from the very start, were finally answered in these thunderous few moments, and it will surely be a huge part of what happens next.
1 Max’s Escape
Even more powerful than that intense climax is, surprisingly, Max’s story in "Dear Billy." The fourth episode had a climactic struggle of its own between Max and Vecna. While the show has a history of killing significant characters, it has never gone as far as killing a true primary character, but it felt like it was taking that step with Max.
Her emotional journey through missing Billy, shutting herself off from her friends, and then finding them again at the crucial moment, mixed with the soundtrack of Kate Bush at the moment she manages to get away from Vecna’s inner sanctum, is unbelievable. It is a truly legendary moment and will be remembered as such. The build of Max truly believing she was set to die and her final moments in front of Billy’s grave make this arguably the best episode that Stranger Things has ever had.