Home
Creators
Search Recent Missing Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Stranger Things S4:E3 & 4 Full Reaction (Patreon)

Published:
2026-09-05 19:00:07
Imported:
2026-09

Videos

  • 735415815.mp4

Downloads

Content

Full uncut reaction to Stranger Things Season 4 Episodes 3 and 4

Files

Comments

Guru_Rick_

What is fascinating and frightening in its own way is how the (so-called) vecna chooses its victims

Jennywocky

Okay Episode 3: Yup, science is such a force of progress but is a dual-edged sword that also brings destruction. (It feels like so much technology is developed as a justification to give one side an advantage over another in war, ironically, and then we try to apply it to peaceful activities – it all goes hand in hand.) That title opening does remind me of some weird blend of the Tales from the Darkside merged with X-Files (title + song but not much else) openings – pretty minimalistic. Poor Angela will need a nose job after this. I’m surprised they didn’t arrest Elle immediately (nowadays she would have been detained until the cops arrived), but okay it’s the 80’s and cop response is possibly slow depending on the town. Damn, Jonathan was SOOOO high ROFLMAO! But in his favor, he knows what risotto is – I had no idea until a few years aback when I was doing Hello Fresh. (When I grew up, we just had Rice-a-roni.) Ooooh, Murray and Joyce are pulling the classic ALASKA INTERVIEW ruse to get Joyce out of the house! A time-worn tradition perfect to confuse naïve children. So with Mike’s cluelessness, I can’t figure out whether it’s bad writing or just “teens will be teens” because they have so little experience with long-term relationships. Mike’s intentions are good, but as you guys said, he managed to do just about everything wrong that was possible. He also, while trying to reach out, was spending some energy justifying/defending his behavior, rather than being more Elle-centered and active listening to her words. Elle really needs to feel heard right now, as well as affirmed – because she feels so alone – and Mike is supposed to be her boyfriend, to boot. That orange-gold sunset reminds me a lot of the opening of the Exorcist, although my memory could be foggy, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. So the jocks “just want to talk” to Eddie. With their fists, no doubt. It’s a good thing they did not find him. Watching Eddie eat Honeycomb cereal right out of the box, I am SO there! So yes, breakfast cereals – when I was a kid, Crazy Cow (which would make your milk chocolate) and Cookie Crisp were the big new things. Now as a grownup, I usually just stick with some type of Cheerios (berry or apple cinnamon) or Frosted Mini-Wheat, but when I am in a mood, I will occasionally buy Honeycomb, Lucky Charms, or Reese Puffs to munch on. (It’s rare, though, cuz I tend to eat half the box in a sitting if I am not careful.) And around Halloween time, I like to get Frankenberry or Booberry. :D OH so NOW the police show up – just in time for Joyce to not be around. And having the whole neighborhood watch Elle being led to the squad car, well, that’s just precious… Okay, smoking – roflmao, I grew up in the age when there were NO smoking rules, and I remember going to restaurants and public places and not being able to SEE well from all the haze. It kind of blows me away how the cultural inclination has flipped entirely on its head and a single smoker even outside will get dirty looks nowadays. (But it’s really nice to not have clothes and furniture smell like cigarette smoke all the time.) And the seatbelt laws too – I remember when THEY were enacted and a new thing, and everyone was complaining about having to wear seatbelts. “Peanut butter and Playboys” lol – God bless America, I guess! So I can totally see Hopper (a man’s man) choosing to take that hit in the jaw vs some other location. He probably never considered any other options. It was hilarious how Robin totally jerked the rug out from under Steve when he was trying to go with Nancy there. I also remember in this series when Steve seemed like the a-hole, and it’s kind of remarkable where he ended up now in S3-4, almost like a den mother for a lot of the younger teens. So Lucas is in a really bad predicament here – some of his own making (because he WANTED to hang with the jocks and be cool), but also because being a double agent allows him to protect his actual friends while also positioning him to get him beat up (or worse). Again, teenager. Again, lack of experience and not knowing his realistic options. And feeling like his life is over either way, if he loses face or if he loses his true friends. But he does use his power to mislead the jocks and then make a break for it, so our boy is doing the best he can. (I think by the end of e4, I am totally Team Lucas, honestly – he went from a somewhat uninteresting character for me to something special the way he engages Max.) Okay, 80’s and interrogation of minors: My understanding is that they were treated like adults, so if they signed a Miranda waiver they could be legally interrogated for hours. Parental permission was not legally necessary for interviews. Police would use hardcore tactics on kids to get confessions, and they weren’t required to record much of the interview. So yeah, the way Elle was getting interrogated here was probably legal and typical, and in fact it could have been a lot worse (since they didn’t seem to be AGGRESSIVELY badgering her). Her saying she “didn’t know if she meant to kill Angela” might have been honest but potentially a TON of legal trouble for her if Dr. Owens hadn’t extracted her. (Eventually our culture realized kids were REALLY susceptible to coercion and needed special laws to protect their rights.) That big guy with the sledge made even Hopper look small, ouch. And don’t ask me how Hopper could manage that. I remember fracturing my ankle in middle school (just a crack), and when I tried to get back to my feet and put weight on it, I screamed and fell back over and had to be lifted into a car to be taken to the hospital. It’s ONE of the worst pains I’ve experienced. That guy is TOUGH. Oh, and the Russian guard I think is named Dmitri (aka Enzo). I really enjoy the Dustin & Steve banter too. The two actors clearly have a rapport together and can just make it look effortless. The Robin and Nancy thing is great too, for the reasons that Bethany described – their personalities are both designed to deny the other one what they naturally want, yet they are forced to work together in this scene. Can I say that even though Maya Hawke is technically a nepo-baby, it’s just a joy to watch her perform? I love both of her parents so much (we all basically would have been going to high school at the same time, so I grew up seeing them in films – and I consider them both great actors), and I can see hints of them in her when she’s on screen. Just so cool. Oooooh, Elle tries the “Jyn Erso Escape Technique” and has just about the same amount of success. But it turns out these are friendly captors. It was a good call to cast Paul Reiser in this role – no one has ever forgotten he played that treacherous snake Burke way back in Aliens (boy he was so scrawny then), and so you always have to wonder if this fatherly figure representing the government is REALLY on Elle’s side. But you want to believe him! Microfiche??? Now THERE is a blast to the past, writing high school research papers!! While it is cool to think about Elle regaining her powers, it also saddens me. She was trying to build a good life for herself ASIDE from her powers (which had really defined her up to that point), trying to win friends and influence people and just be a normal kid and fit in… and it sadly never worked. She felt isolated and abandoned and completely clueless on how to improve anything, and while her powers are needed, in a way it’s an easy escape to focus on reclaiming them because they are something familiar to her… just like she resorted to violence against Angela when she couldn’t figure out a different way. So I honestly have mixed feelings. I wish Elle could have built a good life for herself first, so her powers would not inadvertently become a crutch. And it’s really a shame she did not get to take the waffles with her. That’s TWO plates of waffles she has missed out on now! That might be the largest indignity in this episode (aside from the garage band getting accosted – just leave the music nerds alone!) (....e4 will come tomorrow, after I watch it and cry my eyes out at the ending)

Jennywocky

Episode 4: Okay, I lied and watched this episode tonight instead of tomorrow, lol. This is probably my favorite episode of the entire series (including Season 5) and might be a high point in the overall craftsmanship where everything (writing, acting, plotting, direction, art, tension) comes together perfectly especially in the closing minutes. This is what I wish the entire series had felt like for me, but I still appreciate it when I can get it. But okay, let’s go through it… I was proud of Max for telling her friends exactly what she’s been experiencing and giving them an accurate timeline for what she thought she had left. This is a girl who has been repeatedly failed by everyone and is SUCH a tough loner specifically because she has been disappointed at every turn so much that she can’t even trust her friends. So this was a big first step for her, even if leads into her pessimistically writing her goodbye letters to everyone. Max is relentless, and if she is going to die, she’s at least going to die on her own terms. This ominous tone runs through the rest of the episode, because we can criticize Max for being pessimistic… but she wasn’t wrong, was she? (At least about what Vecna was going to do. But she WAS wrong about the most important thing, which was… the dependability and efficacy of her friends.) So sure, Lucas wasn’t soaked in sweat after that eight-mile run, but… on this show, I’ve certainly seen Stranger Things… (HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA!) Sorry. I had to make that joke. Young Tom Cruise hanging on the wall there – pre-couch-jumping days. It’s amazing how he still looks pretty much the same. Maybe he is really a vampire after all? I have to say the bedrooms in this show are spot on, including the décor and even the ballerina music box – like, did everyone have one of those? :D Some moments on this show are unbelievable – and Hopper’s feet are one of them. Not only did he walk on that mangled foot, but he had an all-out brawl on those feet, and then he escapes through the snows of Kamchatka in his bare feet and is still able to walk on them. Honestly, they should be frost-bitten and non-functional by then. But the Duffer Brothers sometimes don’t let logic rein in their desired plot moments. That really was a hell of an escape, though, and even the explosion was nuts. “Ponch and Jon” reference -- did you guys ever actually see CHiPs? (which stands for California Highway Patrol, starring Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox?) That speech by Robin was amazing, Maya Hawke just nailed it so hard – it’s like rolling a 20 on a Persuasion check. Okay, yeah, we agree – Yuri is a real d*ck and deserves whatever is shortly coming to him. Not only was he greedy enough to not just take the $40K and be done with it, but besides screwing over the Americans, he even turned in his Russian guard contact for bonus cash. Like, the guy has no loyalty, and it will be good to see him pay. Back in my E1-E2 writeup, I mentioned that the man playing Dmitri (the guard) also plays A Man Has No Name in “Game of Thrones” – the one who mentored Arya as she becomes a Faceless assassin. So I would assume you have definitely seen him there. “Music has a calming effect on a broken mind,” is what they recall at the asylum. The song on the radio that saved Victor Creel was Ella Fitzgerald singing “Dream a little Dream of Me” (the voice of an angel!), and as the girls are being led out, we hear Debussey’s “Clair de Lune” playing on the phonograph – that’s an old favorite of mine, along with his Reverie (which featured so prominently in the first season of Westworld – btw that is a series where I think the first season was literally sublime, and the second worth watching, but S3-4 just are hard to want to talk about…) Yeah, the asylum is TOTALLY “The Silence of the Lambs” vibes both with the conversation with the Administrator being asked to let them go in alone, and then the appearance of the prison basement hallway itself and its tone. Ken, you’re right that the girls were MOSTLY guilty of just violating procedure and propriety by lying (so what could they be culpable for?), but possibly they could have been charged with trespassing (under false pretense) at the least. (I mean, I’d say “Academic Dishonesty” too, I guess, but they weren’t actually enrolled at the college they claimed, lol.) Robert Englund is such a sci-fi/horror genre treasure. I mean, seeing the Nightmare on Elm Street films come out during high school AND seeing V on television when it was airing – it was very cool to have him back for this cameo. So I would have chosen JIF Crunchy over JIF Smooth too, but hey thousands of miles from American land, it’s still a little taste of home…. So this episode does have that remarkable tracking shot during the home invasion, and I was pretty impressed by it – it showed technical craft elevating this show to like True Detective S1 for a few minutes, the way it was done. (Even the overweight cop really did his job justice in that moment, considering what he was up against with his partner dead.) Lucas: “I don’t want a LETTER! I’m right here, Max – I’m right here!” (Our boy’s got game after all!) He almost broke her there, but our girl Max is such a tough nut to crack. She had to just wheel around and stalk off to avoid breaking down in front of him. Vecna preys on his victims by feeding on their trauma and guilt. We saw it with both Chrissy and Fred, and now he tried to do it with Max. From her letter to Billy, Max was still wrestling with guilt over not acting to save him (although realistically she’s just human and a kid to boot, and there was physically nothing I can imagine she could have done) – I think it’s more that she recognizes she had mixed feelings about her brother running in her veins while trying to motivate herself to act, and that is what she blames herself for. (There’s a great fantasy series I once read where one character ends up offering himself as a sacrifice, partly driven out of guilt, because he blames himself for the death of his girlfriend who was going to leave him, in a traffic accident where he was the driver. But the truth, he realizes later, was more complicated than that, and he’s being unfair to himself.) We humans torment ourselves for our failures and negative feelings towards others, even if such things would have no impact on events as they unfolded. And Max has been blaming herself for Billy’s death, and that feeds her thinking this is why she doesn’t deserve trustworthy friends and thus doesn’t try anymore…. And they’re just going to fail her anyway, so…she’s always got to do everything alone. At least, that’s her reasoning. I do have to say that Max’s obstinance in this regard, her strict reliance on herself, is one reason she accomplishes much of what she does. She’s the only Vecna victim who runs from Vecna, and then when she sees his mysterious abode, she’s the only one who heads straight for it (I heard Bethany say “nope, not going there, I’ll stay here in the cemetery” lol – but Max got IMPORTANT information for her courage in venturing there!), and in this episode she’s the only one who actually damages Vecna and momentarily thwarts him, even after seeing what was to become of her with the fractured remains of Chrissy and Fred. But she couldn’t do all of these things alone. I cried the entire time again. I think it’s just seeing both teams of her friends working in tandem, how terrified they are of losing her, digging through her music, getting those headphones on her…. And then she sees the hole in the sky from the music, where she can see all her friends surrounding her and trying to get her back down. She isn’t alone. She realizes that finally, as she looks through that hole existing that dismal hell – and then she remembers all of her friends in times past, every one of those precious memories that she has been shrugging off or deflecting for fear of loss, and how alive she felt with her friends, how each moment was so meaningful to her, so she actually DOES care and want them in her life, and they HAVEN’T abandoned her after all… and this gives her the courage to fight back and then run… run back along the music, run towards the hole, run back to the people who love her instead of away from them. Vecna told her, "There's a reason you hide from them. You belong here [with me]." Like Chrissy and Fred. They never fight back, they accept Vecna's truth about them, that they are alone and have no one and deserve no one, and they let themselves die. Max rejects that and attacks Vecna, then starts "running up that hill" towards the hole. She doesn’t need to be alone anymore. She is loved and wanted, and her friends can make a difference – they can make a difference together. Vecna can't even stop her as she refuses him, he's left watching and irritated (wondering what happened) as she rejoins her friends. “I’m still here,” she tells them, clutching at Lucas. “I’m still here, I'm still here.” This episode just had such technical excellence, and plotting excellence (like that dual “running” between the girls fleeing the asylum and Max originally running from Billy/Vecna), the combined special effects (especially for Vecna, with his practical body suit combined with the CGI writhing vines on his body), the flashbacks, and then of course that powerful emotional ending which then slowly fades out to silhouette and the quiet cover of “Running Up That Hill” that accompanies the credits. Yeah, I gotta say, it’s just really my fave.

Guru_Rick_

I'm using the reference FMAB where Al was talking to Kimblee about equal exchange and Al would mention that looking for new opportunities is how humanity works, it's like you said a double-edged sword

❤Mister Papa Jackツ❤

man you are the type of people i think of when i say "Some of these content creators have to have very articulate fans because of how articulate they are" I love the way you went into detail explaining everything and took the time to write it down despite (maybe i dont usually read comments as much on patreon) not knowing if anyone was gonna read all of it. I really enjoyed reading this and i cant wait to go back through the stranger things videos they made just to see how you thought aswell

Jennywocky

Thanks for the kind response! I only wrote things for s4, so you dont need to go back too far.. But I am a writer in general (working in technical fields) and participated on online forums when they were big (in the 2000-2015 range, before vids and TikTok took over), so writing my thoughts out fast is my natural medium... :) I wasn't expecting many to read it but thanks so much for going through it! I really love human stories and these genres