Stranger Things 4 Chapter Eight Papa Television 

Five Thoughts on Stranger Things 4‘s “Papa”

By | July 16th, 2022
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome back to our weekly look at Stranger Things season four, today we’re looking at:

“Chapter Eight: Papa”
Written and directed by the Duffer Bros.

Regaining her powers, El decides it’s time to head to Hawkins and face Vecna, but Brenner believes she is not ready. Meanwhile, Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle continue to look for her in the desert; the party in Hawkins concoct a plan to attack Vecna physically in the Upside Down, with Max as bait; and Hopper, Joyce, Bauman, Anton, and Yuri flee the gulag.

1. Will’s Tearful Confession

While Jonathan is driving around looking for the coordinates Suzie pinpointed, Mike expresses doubt that El still loves him, prompting Will to reveal the painting he made of their old D&D party. Will explains he depicted Mike as the “heart” of the group, proving he is worthy of love in turn, and that El will always love him. As confirmed by Noah Schnapp, Will is also indirectly confessing he is gay, and that he is in love with his best friend; I thoroughly recommend Catholic priest Jim McDermott (who is gay)’s take on the scene, which he praises as a very realistic depiction of how a gay kid in the ’80s would “come out,” without any of “the images and words” you would require to “articulate your experience.” (I think it also goes without saying Will’s afraid of how Mike would react if he actually understood what he was implying.)

2. D&D vs. Gun Culture

Because of its nostalgic Reagan era story, Stranger Things is sometimes (fairly or unfairly) seen as having a conservative bent — after all, the premise involves the government accidentally unleashing otherwordly monsters on a small town. However, this season has seen one of the worst events of the ’80s — the Satanic Panic — rear its ugly head, and the Hawkins gang are visibly uncomfortable stocking up at the arms store to take on Vecna, since everyone else seems to be buying weapons to kill Eddie Munson — it feels like the Duffers are saying, in the real world, there’s no reason to have this many weapons be so readily available. Nancy also gets into a stand-off with toxic masculinity poster boy Jason Carver, while Robin is attacked by heteronormativity when she spots Vickie with her boyfriend, in case it wasn’t clear how skeptical the show is towards those who consider themselves a “well-regulated militia.”

3. The Reckoning

El and Brenner’s truce comes to an end when she discovers he had the guards imprison Owens, in a vain attempt to stop her from leaving. El loses it, calling him out for every terrible thing he’s ever done, and winds up deducing he had her explore the Void because he was secretly looking for Henry. It is awe-inspiring to watch, not only because it’s great to see her eviscerate her tormentor, but because she does so with such fluent confidence, that demonstrates she has well and truly outgrown the abuse that slowed her speech-and-language development. As someone who’s followed Eleven’s story since the beginning, and seen Millie Bobby Brown portray this role since she was a preteen, I can’t help but feel proud witnessing her truly grow up here, and I can only imagine how inspiring it must be for kids watching the show who are living in similarly abusive situations.

4. Denied Absolution

Brenner shockingly responds to El’s defiance by personally sedating her, and placing an inhibitor around her neck. It proves to be his downfall, and catastrophic for everyone else, when Colonel Sullivan’s troops arrive and invade, slaughtering most of the troops and scientists inside. (Owens is thankfully spared, although he is presumably left to starve to death.) Brenner is forced to carry El out to safety, causing him to be fatally shot by the snipers on Sullivan’s helicopter. It’s a good thing El turned out to be far stronger than the collar, downing the helicopter and destroying all of Sullivan’s Humvees with it still on; it ultimately reflected how everything Brenner did only hindered her, and harmed everyone else. It was perfect that, at the end, when he lay dying, she did not condemn or absolve him; he was a nuisance, and the most mature way to respond to a nuisance is to ignore them and move on.

Continued below

5. However

It’s a testament to Matthew Modine’s performance, and the writing, that I still shed a tear when Brenner died: he was an awful man, but everything he ever did, every heartless decision he ever made, sprang from fear of something as dreadful as the Creel murders ever happening again. It doesn’t excuse him, but he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing, and that’s far worse than if he had just been a power-hungry cynic. He wasn’t a good man, but he wasn’t pure evil either, and another reason why El’s ambivalent response to his passing was such a perfect way to write out his character — every person who goes down the wrong path in life is still a tragedy, and there was nothing to gloat over here. I imagine many of us who have complicated relationships with our parents will find El’s feelings familiar; whatever they were, they ended up disappointments, and there’s no need to waste energy being angry at that.

Other Things:

– That’s right, I had nothing to say about the Siberian portion of this episode, since it’s all merely set-up for the next episode; Yuri was funny though.

– That said, it’s funny each of the story threads gives its characters their own van: there’s the pizza van Jonathan drives, the one Hopper et al. escape in, and last but not least, the RV Eddie carjacks to give his friends a mobile hiding spot in Hawkins.

– Steve telling Nancy about how he’d imagine having many children has to be one of my favorite scenes on the show: it’s so rare to see male broodiness being depicted so relatably like that.

– The use of the remix of Journey’s “Separate Ways” at the end felt a little weird given it wasn’t set up in the show itself, but by the first trailer for the season: it felt almost contractually obligated. Still, it was a very atmospheric and lyrically appropriate choice.

See you all next week for the season finale, “Chapter Nine: The Piggyback.”


//TAGS | Stranger Things

Christopher Chiu-Tabet

Chris is the news manager of Multiversity Comics. A writer from London on the autistic spectrum, he enjoys tweeting and blogging on Medium about his favourite films, TV shows, books, music, and games, plus history and religion. He is Lebanese/Chinese, although he can't speak Cantonese or Arabic.

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  • STRANGER THINGS. Joseph Quinn as Eddie Munson in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022 Television
    Five Thoughts on Stranger Things 4‘s “The Piggyback”

    By | Jul 23, 2022 | Television

    Welcome back to our weekly look at Stranger Things season four, today we’re looking at the finale:“Chapter Nine: The Piggyback”Written and directed by the Duffer Bros.The party in Hawkins enacts their plan, while El “piggybacks” from her location to confront Vecna in Max’s nightmare. Hopper, Joyce and Bauman return to the gulag after realizing the […]

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