The final two episodes in season four of hit drama Stranger Things were released on Netflix July 1. Seven episodes, known as Vol. 1, debuted May 27, and two more July 1. The two episodes that conclude season four, Vol. 2, are long. Episode “Papa” runs 85 minutes and episode “The Piggyback” goes for an hour and 50 minutes.
The Duffer brothers created the show, a mix of sci fi, horror, supernatural and teen drama set in the ’80s. Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp and Matthew Modine are in the cast.
The plan is for Stranger Things to go for five seasons.
Vol. 1 was a legitimate smash for Netflix.
A CNN review said: “Stranger Things has taken the idea of playing the long game to heart a bit too literally, capping its super-sized fourth season with two sprawling episodes that total nearly four hours. Whether that's a reward to fans or self-indulgence by the producers rests in the eye of the beholder, but after this, it's hard to imagine many concluding that ending things with season five qualifies as premature.”
A review in The Guardian was more positive: “Stranger Things season four was already bigger and better than anything the show had done before. It was clearly more expensively produced, with a larger cast and a surer sense of why all the monsters, heroes and hangers-on were there. The double-bill denouement — held back for a month by Netflix to allow hype to build — is more-expansive still. It’s crazily, luxuriously sprawling, running to nearly four hours, and does everything fans could have expected plus several dollops more. But if it hasn’t quite overstretched itself yet, you do wonder where Stranger Things can possibly go from here.” ■
