Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 Thoughts

Contains spoilers:

Spoilers begin now.

1. The subtitles in this show are starting to become infamous - lots of "squelches wetly" and "ominous synth music". I'm curious to know what dry squelching sounds like.
2. The final episode was very enjoyable, but about ten minutes too long.
3. Natalia Dyer is an underappreciated talent, capable of a superlative "Oh, s***, I'm going to die" face. She'll have a distinguished career in horror if she wants to go that way. If the Alien franchise ever wants to recast Ripley, she'd be great.
4. Max is a girl brave far beyond her years.
5. Winona Ryder is a message to actors - don't get Botox, because otherwise you can't do the range of facial expressions that she does even in one scene.
6. "A Purple Heart just proves that you were smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive."
7. Brenner's death - which I kind of expected - redeemed him a little for all the nasty he's done over the years.
8. Will and Jonathan had very little to do this season.
9. Eddie ended up another one-shot character, which was also expected by most. He did have an awesome death scene, I'll give you that.
10. Tom Wlaschia was great as Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov and I'd like to see him come back in Season 5.
11. Yuri managed to be an utterly odious character - until he was humanised a bit by Enzo discussing his past.
12. Argyle proved to be surprisingly useful.
13. There wasn't exactly a lot of subtlety with the Russia/USSR depiction. This was filmed before the invasion of Ukraine too, which is going to do nothing good in that department - no-one is going to want to really have Russians depicted as goodies for a while.
14. I figured pretty quickly that Max's death wasn't going to stick based on the remaining runtime, but props to the actors involved for a great job convincing much of the audience. Sadie Sink has probably earned herself a second Emmy nomination for 2023 (which Volume 2 is eligible for) and Max's arc will have to play a massive role in Season 5. El can't lose her BFF!
15. Jason getting split in two seemed a fitting punishment for the fact he's partly responsible for Max's death.
16. So, how do we finish this show off in style?