After three years between seasons, "Stranger Things" is back with an older cast and a new threat: adulthood.
"Stranger Things 4" is set in 1986, six months in TV-time since the gang from Hawkins, Indiana, defeated the Spider Monster in the food court of the Starcourt Mall and thwarted a Soviet plot in the shopping center's basement. El, Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Sam have outgrown their dorky-cute phase. Now they're uncomfortably awkward, like a collection of humiliating photos from your 10th grade yearbook come to life: uber-gawky teens so socially inept in comparison to their high school peers that they teeter on the precipice of unlikable. (The hair is particularly bad. Even for the '80s.)
The brilliance of "Stranger Things 4" is that rather than gloss over the unpleasantry, it leans hard into their clumsy, painful transition. Though the alienation and shame of bullied high schoolers is a much tougher sell for a beloved sci-fi series than the pain porn of young adult dramas like "13 Reasons Why" or "Euphoria," "Stranger Things" channels that darkness into a fresh narrative that's as much an ode to "Hellraiser"-era horror films as it is to growing pains.
