There are a few instances in the final installment of Stranger Things’ fourth season that, as usual, provide an allegory for what’s happening in the present. Indeed, Stranger Things has made it obvious that 1986 has never been more relevant, what with Top Gun reigning over the box office and the U.S. being in a “cold war” with Russia (by way of not officially saying it’s at de facto war with Russia). And then, as a direct result of Stranger Things, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” entering the charts again. The point is, The Duffer Brothers have a way of very effectively linking the past to the present. In season two, the brainless shadow monster seeking to destroy everything by controlling its hive-mind lackeys was an overt allegory for the Trump presidency (if that’s what it can be called). In the third season, the Russians owning a Midwestern mall was an all-around troll on how America is in bed with most of its so-called enemies in some way or another when it comes to ensuring “the good” of capitalism.
And, despite the “unspoken” truth everyone knows—that capitalism will bring about our demise—they still go on focusing upon it and all of its frivolous trappings as though it is best friend rather than greatest foe. In the fourth season of Stranger Things, once again, only Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and the coterie of friends that orbit her are privy to the reality that something cataclysmic is afoot. But for real this time. All the other times were but mere preparation for what Vecna/One/Henry (Jamie Campbell Bower) has in store. That’s what “Papa” (the title of the eighth episode) a.k.a. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) has stated repeatedly. And he’s so certain that Eleven isn’t prepared for going mano a mano with him that he’s willing to hold El against her will (yet again) in the latest “in a pinch” facility he’s helped create to restore her powers, complete with a sensory deprivation contraption called Nina. Brenner’s erstwhile “replacement,” Sam Owens (Paul Reiser), who ferried El there in the first place, is the one who advocates for her wishes to leave and go to her friends to actually be respected. But, as we all know based on recent examples, a woman’s—least of all a teen girl’s—right to choose her own path is rarely respected in this patriarchy. Thus, El is forcibly made to stay with her “papa.”
This upsets her to no end, as she’s fundamentally more concerned with saving her specific friends (comme toujours) than the secondary (to her) issue of The Upside Down enveloping Hawkins and beyond. Where fixating on trifling details is concerned, Joyce (Winona Ryder) is also met with Hopper’s (David Harbour) description of what he’s really been craving all this time: breadsticks and lasagna from Enzo’s. “So you’ve been dreaming about breadsticks and lasagna?” Joyce asks in mock offense, wanting him to instead tell her he’s been dreaming of nothing but boning…her. He explains that his obsession with the Enzo’s menu is warranted considering, “I’ve been on a diet of watery soup, moldy bread and maggots.” To this point, maybe “inconsequential” things are what’s most important when the fin has arrived. Hence, the weight of the question, “What would you like for your last meal?” when someone is about to be executed.
And yes, even the fact that Stranger Things could “break the internet” that is Netflix signals some harbinger of apocalypse (that being the day when the internet goes out for everyone). But for those who finally managed to tune in, the main highlights of petty personal drama taking precedence over “end-of-the-world matters” are provided by Robin (Maya Hawke) and Vickie (Amybeth McNulty)—the former in the penultimate episode and the latter in the finale. In “Papa,” it is at an army-navy surplus store, where Robin spots, of all people, Vickie (looking like a dead ringer for Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink). Alas, she’s not alone and Steve’s (Joe Keery) lesbian theories based on her rental of Fast Times at Ridgemont High roughly a week ago lead him to try to console Robin as he speculates on why she would be with a college guy like Dan (could it be because, oh, he’s the perfect beard in that he’s usually away?). Robin interrupts his musings with, “Steve! I don’t care. And I don’t understand why you do either with everything that’s going on. Honestly, this feels like the perfect time for that little pull of the rug because…in the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low.” Not so much for Mike (Finn Wolfhard)… or Will (Noah Schnapp), for that matter. As the latter makes apparent on the drive to find “Nina” in the desert.
Obviously talking about himself as he comforts Mike when he asks of El, “But what if, after all this is over, she doesn’t need me anymore?,” Will replies, “Of course she’ll still need you, she’ll always need you, Mike.” Mike rebuffs, “I keep telling myself that, but I don’t believe it. I mean, she’s special. She was born special. Maybe I was one of the first people to realize that. But the truth is, when I stumbled on her in the woods, she just needed someone. It’s not fate, it’s not destiny. It’s just simple dumb luck. And one day she’s gonna realize that I’m just some random nerd that got lucky that Superman landed on his doorstep. I mean, at least Lois Lane is an ace reporter for the Daily Planet, right?” He sighs as Will looks at him with the wonderment of someone blatantly in love. Mike then adds, “Sorry, no it’s so stupid given everything that’s going on.” And there it is. That similar statement Robin made about perspective with regard to one’s own usual trivialities measured against doomsday. The thing is, the end of the world—whatever form that may come in—merely puts in harsh focus what is always true: none of us actually matter when it’s all said and done. When this whole thing goes kabluey (alas, it won’t let us off that easy, instead preferring a slow-burn—literally—decline).
Mike persists in trying to articulate why he cares so much about something that won’t be relevant if they’re all dead anyway by saying, “I don’t know, I just—” Once more taking the opportunity to confess his feelings in the only “masked” way he can, Will interjects, “You’re scared of losing her?” Mike confirms his feelings, leading Will to comfort, “These past few months, she’s been so lost without you.” Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) watches his brother say all of this in the rearview mirror and, for the first time, he can see who Will is clearly. Perhaps wondering how he didn’t notice it all along. Particularly since it was he who once told Will, “No one that ever did anything worthwhile or interesting in this world was ‘normal.’” Something Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) finds out more and more in the final episode thanks to his ill-advised brief interlude with the basketball team and its “normal” leader, Patrick (Myles Truitt), who becomes so obsessed with embodying the satanic panic of the late 80s that he is determined to pursue any member of the Hellfire Club until the bitter end. And it is a very bitter end for Patrick.
But back to Will’s patent declaration of love to Mike by using El as his personal Cyrano de Bergerac (even if she’s more the Christian de Neuvillette in this scenario). He further announces, “It’s just she’s so different from other people and when you’re…when you’re… different…sometimes…you feel like a mistake. But you make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all. Like she’s better for being different. And that gives her the courage to fight on.” If Will were truly threatened enough by the potential end of the world, he would just come out (no pun intended) and say that these are his feelings too. Unfortunately, many can’t help but cling to their inhibitions until the last breath. Case in point, in 2012’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, everyone still goes through the motions of doing the things they hated most in life—namely, their menial jobs (granted, the cop that continues to get joy from arresting people is no surprise). As Dodge’s (Steve Carell) boss informs the staff of an opening for CFO with just three weeks left until an asteroid will hit Earth, his coworker mutters, “Life has no meaning.” Dodge replies, “I really think I’m coming down with something.” That “something” likely being the realization that the universe is immune to anyone’s conviction that their problems matter. That any amount of sadness or feet-stamping will change the course when the proverbial reckoning arrives.
To this “philosophy,” Steve tells Robin, “Yeah, I mean, I get you there. But I still have hope.” “Not everything has a happy ending,” she replies, as though warning the audience (and the citizens of the world) more than anyone else. Steve assures, “Yeah, yeah. Believe me, I know” as he stares in the direction of Nancy (Natalia Dyer). Robin scoffs, “I’m not talking about failed romance,” that last phrase said as though it’s the stupidest concern possible. Yet for many, it—true love (having it or not)—is what everything comes down to when faced with the reaper. Robin pretends not to feel this way as she concludes, “I just have this terrible, gnawing feeling that it might not work out for us this time.”
While that might be accurate for some members of their crew, Robin is lucky enough to survive and endure another day of capitulating to her petty problems: which all go back to l’amour. An offshoot of being “seen.” The rare phenomenon that pretty much everyone wants out of their existence—to not feel completely and totally alone. So when Robin encounters Vickie in the Hawkins High gym while both are volunteering to help after the “earthquake,” Vickie is the first to lay her cards on the table with, “My brain’s just been a little frazzled lately ‘cause—” Robin chimes in, “Of everything?” Vickie concedes, “Yeah. Yeah…and Dan. Um, he’s my boyfriend. Well, was my boyfriend… Which ultimately, yeah, it’s fine, and it’s bordering on a good thing because, I mean, he was really grating on me and he’s the type of person who trashes Fast Times because it has no plot—I mean as soon as he said that I should have just ended things right there and then.” Vickie suddenly drops the knife she’s using to spread peanut butter on a slice of bread, as though fathoming how trivial her complaints sound, apologizing to Robin, “Sorry. I’m so sorry. I am rambling about my dumb boyfriend when there are people out there suffering. Who need… food.”
But no one can really care too much about that (i.e., the relatively worse problems of other people). Or at least, they can only do so to a certain extent. After all, they’ve got their own little melodramas constantly a-brewin’ and, as Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) in Whatever Works (yes, daring to quote a Woody Allen movie) said, “But what do you do? You read about some massacre in Darfur or some school bus gets blown up, and you go, ‘Oh my God, the horror,’ and then you turn the page and finish your eggs from the free-range chickens. Because what can you do. It’s overwhelming.” However, the end of the world is never so overwhelming that we can’t all remain focused on precisely what doesn’t matter. Don’t Look Up reminded us of that recently as well. The one-two punch of the final Stranger Things episodes in season four just happens to do it in a subtler, more nuanced fashion.
