Every show makes a contract with its audience about what kind of a show it is and what you can expect. Some elements of that are very general--STRANGER THINGS is always going to be intergenerational. It's always going to involve the Upside Down. It's always going to have at its core those five kids.
And some elements are very specific: STRANGER THINGS is going to find ways to reference 80s pop culture in fun, new ways. In season one Joyce's Christmas lights famously become a means of communicating with Will in the Upside Down. In season two we've got the kids, dressed as Ghostbusters for Halloween, actually using their ghost trap to trap a Demigorgon. In season three we've got Dustin having to sing "The Neverending Story" to get his girlfriend's help. (I realize, Christmas lights are not specifically 80s pop culture, but still, they're a riff on the mom in POLTERGEIST using a TV to talk to her daughter. They also feel like part of the overall CLOSE ENCOUNTERS vibe of Joyce and Will's stories in season 1.)
On the one hand, season four is doing a season long riff on NIGHTMARE ON ELM'S STREET, with Vecna in the place of Freddy. We even get Robert Englund as Vecna's one surviving victim. We've also got incidentals like roller skating parties and Dungeons & Dragons.
But for me the real "Oh this is STRANGER THINGS" moment is in 407, when the kids on our side and the kids on other side need a means to communicate; discovering that light works as a medium, the Our Side kids grab a Lite-Brite and use it. It's far less elaborate than Joyce's system, and it has no real set up--there's no one that's been working hard on their Lite-Brite art skills who is then required to use that talent to save lives. It's just a detail; and if I had to guess it's done that way to keep things new and surprising. If everyone expects you to do pop culture riffs, how do you keep making it fresh? You keep coming at the conceit in radically different ways.
It's sort of like Star Wars and "I have a bad feeling about this." We all know it's going to happen. We all want it to happen. But how can you make it still a surprise.
There might be more pop culture in the last two episodes. But the Lite-Brite is a fantastic choice, both because it's unexpected and it's laden with such positive nostalgia. (Coming in season five: Casio watches?)
