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'Stranger Things' season 4 volume 2: Critics are calling the finale 'near-perfect'

Stranger Things
Stranger Things season 4 finale was worth the wait. (Netflix)

Stranger Things season four has finally dropped its last two highly-anticipated episodes on Netflix - but were they worth the wait?

The verdict so far is that volume two, while lengthy at nearly two-and-a-half hours for the final episode, is pretty flawless.

Read more: All the cast and characters you need to know in Stranger Things 4

Be warned: there may be some spoilers in the review links.

Stranger Things season 4 volume 2: What the critics are saying

The Guardian - 4 stars

Jamie Campbell Bower and Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things. (Netflix)
Eleven faces another nemesis in Henry/Vecna. (Netflix)

"Stranger Things season four was already bigger and better than anything the show had done before. It was clearly more expensively produced, with a larger cast and a surer sense of why all the monsters, heroes and hangers-on were there. The double-bill denouement – held back for a month by Netflix to allow hype to build – is more expansive still. It’s crazily, luxuriously sprawling, running to nearly four hours, and does everything fans could have expected plus several dollops more."

Read more: Is there a Stranger Things season 5?

The Independent

"There is no need for Stranger Things to be as good as it is. It’s marketed towards a generation who are happy scrolling through 10-second videos of their classmates dabbing, or 10-hours-long Fortnite streams. They could’ve simply phoned it in, and yet what they’ve created is a lavish yet intimate drama, blending almost every genre – from comedy to horror to romance – into a show that is a near faultless crowd pleaser. This excellent penultimate season of Netflix’s golden goose is the perfect antidote to lowest common denominator television: a show that offers much more than its audience asks for."

Games Radar - 4.5 stars

Stranger Things
The epic finale runs to nearly two-and-a-half hours. (Netflix)

"By shifting the focus back onto Hawkins, rather than the wider world, the finale makes for an epic ending that's a near-perfect conclusion to the season. Both episodes are visually stunning, with truly cinematic sequences that will have you wishing Netflix released the almost two-and-a-half-hour finale in cinemas."

Read more: Everything new streaming on Netflix in July 2022

Evening Standard

"You want a finale, the screenwriters seem to be asking, we’ll give you the finale to end all finales. To put it succinctly: I haven’t sat through anything quite so mind-meltingly, stonkingly epic in quite some time."

Collider

"The performances in these final episodes are staggeringly good; Noah Schnapp especially delivers in two particular scenes that serve as a testament to how far he's come as an actor."

Stranger Things season 4 volume 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

Watch: How Priah Ferguson became Stranger Things' most beloved little sister