Stephen King loves "Stranger Things," but he's got one big complaint about the latest
season. What's King's beef with the Duffer Brothers' latest? Keep watching to find out!
Warning: "Stranger Things" Season 4 spoilers ahead.
It's been three long years since fans last saw some "Stranger Things,"
but the show's highly anticipated fourth season is finally here for all to enjoy.
The show hasn't missed a beat, picking up with the same level of horror and
intrigue that's gone on to define the series. As such, it perhaps should come as no surprise to
hear that one of the series' most ardent fans is the King of Horror himself — Stephen King.
Indeed, the show owes a debt to King and his impressive body of work, especially when it comes
to Season 4. The series has always maintained strong roots to King's work, especially seeing how
the series is set in a sleepy, small town, which has often been the setting of King's stories.
And in the most recent season, there's a clear homage to King's "Carrie"
when Eleven has a chocolate milkshake thrown all over her,
with parallels to the pig blood scene in "Carrie." While King seems to love the series,
he does have one complaint that appears to be shared by other fans.
"What do you mean, 'like it less'?"
Like so many other fans have done, King has taken to social media to voice his
opinion on the most recent "Stranger Things" season. While he seems primarily smitten with
the latest batch of episodes, he does have one point he'd like to make. King posted to Twitter,
"The new season of STRANGER THINGS is really cool–as good or better than the previous three.
There's even a CARRIE riff. Is it the whole season or is it another
one of those that's broken into 2 parts? IMHO that's kind of lame."
"Stranger Things" Season 4 has indeed been split into two volumes. The first collection came out on
May 27, while the second part is slated to release on July 1. The second volume will only consist of
the final two episodes, the last of which will clock in at a staggering 2 hours and 30 minutes.
On Twitter, plenty of other people have voiced their frustration with
having to wait for more "Stranger Things," with one fan posting,
"Whoever decided to split season 4 of Stranger
Things into 2 parts needs to be put in jail immediately...IMMEDIATELY!"
"Seriously?!"
Another fan wrote,
"Ugh why [didn't] I know that stranger things last
season was being broken into 2 parts? I would have waited before I binged it."
Patience is a virtue, and all of us, including masters of horror, will just have to wait
another month until we know what happens between the kids from Hawkins and Vecna.
No doubt about it, Netflix has truly changed the game when it comes to release strategies.
For the most part, entire seasons of shows are dropped on the platform
all at once for people to binge-watch.
Lately, the streamer's begun experimenting with dual volumes, which was the case with the final
season of "Ozark," and now, it's doing the same thing with "Stranger Things" Season 4,
where the first seven episodes came out initially, followed by the final two on July 1.
Even the length of the episodes, each one basically being a feature-length movie, is
unique in the current television landscape. Season 4 of "Stranger Things" is ambitious in scope in
more ways than one, and according to executive producer Shawn Levy, there's a very good reason
why this dual-release strategy was implemented, even if it was to the chagrin of Stephen King.
As Levy explained to the Hollywood Reporter,
"We didn't think nine episodes were going to be ready in time,
and we have made the world wait long enough. We always knew that if we could deliver the
first seven, it's such a satisfying breaking point and pay-off moment,
that it'll keep people fed for enough weeks so we can finish up volume two."
It sounds like the desire to divide Season 4 was born from necessity and allowed the team behind
the scenes to get more time to ensure those final two episodes were as good as possible.
Levy went on to discuss how streaming allowed
the team to play around with their release model, saying,
"Every streamer is playing around with different models. We've seen full-season,
binge-worthy streaming, aka 'Stranger Things' 1, 2, and 3.
We've seen Disney+ and Hulu try a weekly model, which didn't feel quite right for this.
So, we're happy that we were able to give our audience a huge meal of a story."
Anyone who's finished Episode 7 of "Stranger Things" Season 4
is undoubtedly waiting on pins and needles to see how everything wraps up, and hopefully,
the team manages to stick that landing, and avoid the wrath of the King of Horror.
"I didn't like the ending."
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