#i get it was supposed be like ~*whimsical*~ and funny while also racheting up the tension

[cinematicnomad]

Your unpopular opinions are fine! And I agree with you! Also: they don't know what to do with Jonathan since season 2 & it shows, the basketball team is so far totally unimportant, Suzys family was fun (faux!Ally Sheedy) but unnecessary, Argyle steals every scence but looks like he goes to an 80s party instead of living in the 80s, no idea why Nancy & Jonathan still aren't in college & they forgot Wills birthday BUT the reveal at the end was great and hopefully Vol 2 will make it all make sense

ehh, to be fair, s4 might be the first time i've actually enjoyed jonathan, even if he's not doing much. i get the purpose of the basketball team, bc they're the ones hyping up the town to think this is all satanic cult worship. suzy's family was TOTALLY unnecessary, and i think i made that post last night after the extended intro to her house. argyle is...entertaining? but the actor has played the exact same character in other movies (booksmart i'm looking at you) so i agree he def doesn't fit the 80s vibe for me. nancy and jonathan not being in college makes sense since they're trying to play it off that it's only been "a year" since the summer events of s3 (and this is a loose "school year" since it's spring break). steve has always been a year ahead of the others, so that doesn't bug me much (though i def thought robin was his age, since they were in the same class with tammy thompson). i'm not bothered much by will's birthday, but if they bring it up in pt2 it wouldn't be the worst thing. and i was spoiled on the reveal so i was just kind of waiting for it.

all in all, it's not the worst season of television, but at this point it's pretty clear that since s2 i've really only cared about steve and then whichever characters are tangentially related to whatever his season plot is. babysitter!steve was the best part of s2, the scoop troop was the best part of s3, and the eddie/hawkins plot has been the best part of s4 (and i was a fan of steve alllll the way back in s1 when everyone hated him).

my biggest gripe is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what i said last night. these episodes were way too long and a real slog to get through. the pacing was a mess and there were definitely scenes where i was using the "skip ahead 10 sec" function bc it was just like....lengthy pans of hallways or whatever. the moment i knew i was gonna have issues with the editing of this season was all the way in 4.01 when they used THIRTY-FOUR CUTS for that fucking scene of erica and lucas rolling the die/making the basket. thirty-four!!! i went back and counted, that's how EGREGIOUS that editing was.

ANYWAY, i don't want to sound too negative about this season—like i said, it's enjoyable, the story is there, i like all the new characters they introduced, i just think...the pacing is a mess and that really makes it hard to enjoy.

also i'm terrified they're gonna kill steve so that's my main concern for s4 pt2 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ALSO edit: you can only get away with the “oh no, they don’t have their radios on them” ONCE as a plot device, and they used it already when nancy and robin were at the asylum. and that made sense! but using it again like, an episode later, and just having dustin like...forget his bag downstairs while investigating the murder house while eddie tried to radio for help was Plain Dumb and Very Obviously Written for the writer’s convenience)