Chapter Four: The Body

Wow .it is a very good episode

Season 1 started off excellently with "The Vanishing of Will Byers", which made me very excited for what was to come. Was a little let down by "The Weirdo on Maple Street" while still finding a huge amount to like about it. The season returned to form with one of its best episodes "Holly, Jolly". So if the previous three episodes impressed you, like they did me, any high expectations for "Chapter 4: The Body" is completely understandable and natural.

"Chapter 4: The Body", the halfway mark of Season 1, turned out to be not only every bit as brilliant as "Holly, Jolly" but perhaps be even better for similar reasons. It continues to build upon what was set up to begin with, moving the chess pieces around and continues to start putting them into place. While also including more pieces to deepen the mystery. Meaning that questions are answered while introducing more to be explored later. It is a brilliant episode and shows that such a promising first season has not in any way lost momentum.

The production values are superb. Very stylish and atmospheric, with some truly beautiful images that one can't believe such high quality comes from a Netflix show. Not to mention the highly impressive special effects that put a good deal of big budget films in recent years to shame. The music has a wonderful 80s nostalgic vibe while also being quite haunting, enhancing the atmosphere beautifully.

Writing is thought-probing and has a lot of brains and heart. The humour is gentle but very subtly witty and funny, while there is a poignancy (without being too sentimental) and tension. Throughout "Chapter Four: The Body" has creepiness, intriguing mystery, inventive sci-fi, affectionate nostalgia and emotional impact. The mystery is deeper and more complex but is always intriguing and never confusing, and while the suspense factor is not as high as the first and third episodes this episode is not entirely devoid of it.

As to be expected, the character writing is still meaty and worth investing in, the character interaction is tense, entertaining and poignant and the performances (especially Millie Bobby Brown) are uniformly great. Winona Ryder started to grow on me too.

Summing up, fantastic. 10/10.

It was soo satisfied when the mystery and all the story come together. It's like everything are planned. And with that, It is fun to watch.

What are those guys at the plant up to? They send some poor guy in a radiation suit into a mass of rubbery plantlike stuff where he is sucked into something beyond. He is tethered to a very strong cable. He screams, disappears, and the cable is returned with only a chunk of him attached. Just previously, the body of Will has been brought in by a mass of police cars. At least we think it is Will. Joyce refuses to believe it is him. When she goes to identify the body, she is convinced that this "thing" is not him. Meanwhile, the kids dress Eleven up in more conventional girl clothes with a blond wig. They are able to hear Will's voice on a walkie talkie. Nancy goes to the party house and sees a faceless creature. Joyce had previously been chased by a faceless creature from inside her bedroom wall. Jim Hopper continues to investigate why there was so much attention paid to Will's body, and he gets information from the man who discovered the body. He now knows that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Joyce has another incident, Things come to quite a head as this ends. Great storytelling. Better than most television.

Okayy. So there were many influential scenes in "The Body", an episode filled with narrative intricacies, if though, a little light on suspense.

The major reveal of course is kind of partial, as the show had led us to believe that there was something else, more sinister going on and it couldn't be as simple or linear as it appeared. This isn't to say that it wasn't any less effective; in fact, the execution is close to perfect.

Winona Ryder continued her exceptional run as Joyce, and the kids gave their all as well. The storyline meanwhile, expands a bit, taking on a more metaphysical direction. More detail and explanation would no doubt be provided in the subsequent chapters. What matters though is whether the direction the story takes is interesting or not.. And I can assure you that it's interesting, and then some.

Taken separately, "The Body" doesn't offer as much of depth or emotional impact as "Holly, Jolly" did, but that's not the issue. Because, like mentioned previously, this miniseries is designed to be regarded as an extended movie, and not a weekly drama. Thus, the bits and pieces it places in the middle of the story to make it more beefy and comprehensive form a very important process, especially now that it has to shape the factors and form an ending.

There's a school scene involving bullies and underdogs near the second half of the episode and it's the highlight. I think it's safe to declare at this moment that Stranger Things has succeeded in creating multiple characters so wholesome and so 4- D that you can't help but root for them.

Verdict: 9/10. A necessary if a bit of a slow-burn chapter that forwards the story while maintaining the level of entertainment we've come to expect of this show now.