PHEW I finally made it
Eps 7-9 did get my interest back again, but it's just so tropey. I stand by what I said earlier, that it's collapsing under its own hubris - I could accept such long episodes if it felt like it was justified. The Russia subplot was not interesting at ALL and had about 2 minutes of relevance to the plot except getting the grownups out of the way. The whole evangelical lynchmob storyline, where did that go? A minor obstacle in the finale and blondie getting gooped in half with little fanfare.
TBH I didn't like any of the new characters, Argyle was alright at a push but what a 1D character, dude! drugs! pizza! Eddie, who cares, well done you made a useless sacrifice to make a point.
Max is great, I hope they aren't benching her. I would've said Robin was great too but she ended up the token #nofilter character by the end.
Special mention to Mike, whiney little puke who was just scowly and unpleasant the whole time, and then we are supposed to believe he is the heart of the group? NOPE. And IS Will gay for him? Were we supposed to get that from him just staring and crying at Mike repeatedly? Oh and Murray needs to get gone right now.
Vecna was a decent villain, even if his plan was just asking to be thwarted. I didn't see who he would end up being (tbh I wasn't really interested in more Eleven backstory), but I like how they thought this was so shocking that they revealed it like 3 times and I think we were supposed to be shocked all three times? Ohhh the kid was send to that lab to be the assistant!! Ohhh he's got powers!! Oh Eleven made him into Vecna!!! Oh he's got a tattoo 001!!! I don't think you are able to reveal a twist more than once, right?
sigh
Anyway I think I liked this season more than season 3, but it did NOT justify the long runtime
And like a stupid anal completist that I am, I'm sure I'll try to get some closure on this in season 5 and whinge about it then too