Stranger Things 4 Episode 5 Review – “Chapter Five: The Nina Project”

Stranger Things Episode 5 “Chapter Five: The Nina Project”
Written by Kate Trefry
Directed by Nimród Antal
Premiered May 27, 2022 on Netflix

After the brilliant crescendo to close out “Chapter Four: Dear Billy”, it would be expected for “Chapter Five: The Nina Project” to feel like a bit of a step back, at least in terms of sheer dramatic tension. Unfortunately, “The Nina Project” is a bit of a swing too far in the opposite direction for Stranger Things 4, to the point multiple characters and plotlines are placed in literal boxes for the majority of the episode’s languid 76-minute running time. Sure, there’s a decent Hopper monologue and some strangely horny flirting inside the Creel home; outside of that, “The Nina Project” is about twice as long as it needs to be, considering how little it moves most of the season’s stories and themes forward until the final moments of the episode.

“The Nina Project” opens with what it assumes is a big surprise; however, the reveal Brenner alive isn’t quite the “oh shit” moment Stranger Things hopes it would be. His reemergence (in another underground facility, no less) is mostly necessary – as we’ve seen, Dr. Owens is way too nice a dude to push Eleven to the dark places she’ll need to go to re-access her powers (lest we forget her season one flashbacks). Unfortunately, that manifests in Eleven walking in and out of the same room for most of the episode, a literal hamster wheel that keeps her sidelined on a journey to find her powers – which she conveniently does at the end of the episode, in a moment that’s valuable more for its exploration of Eleven and Brenner’s twisted relationship, than it is for the inevitable restoration of Eleven’s powers.

The other boxes forced upon most other characters are a least slightly more dynamic, if not inherently interesting; over in Russia, Murray and Joyce break free of the season’s most pointless plot, defeating Yuri and crashing his plane in the woods. Though this particular plot impediment serves no purpose for Joyce or Murray (though I guess he gets to be a comedic hero for a moment?), it at least keeps them away long enough for “The Nina Project” to dig a little further into Hopper’s psyche, revealing he was drafted into Vietnam, worked on Agent Orange (being lied to by his superiors, explaining his disdain for the government in Hawkins Lab in season one), and has walked through most of his adult life feeling cursed. After the failed escape attempt in “Dear Billy”, it feels like Hopper’s circled back around to where he was before the pilot episode (in some ways, mirroring Eleven’s own regressions this season, though hers is more focused on her external powers), someone who has given up on the idea of hope and happiness, and is ready to succumb to the horrors of what appears to be a human vs. Demogorgon battle arena below him and Dimitri.

Elsewhere, Stranger Things 4 makes the interesting choice to bring the majority of its main characters into the Creel House – only to immediately split them off into pairs, mostly to get a few particular former romantic interests flirting with each other (Max/Lucas and Nancy/Steve). I imagine some of this was due to COVID filming protocols, making each of these individual sequences easier to manage, but they’re both a little repetitive in their design – and with so much more investment in seasons three and four in Max and Lucas’s relationship, it dims out the nascent attempts to tease Nancy and Steve as a potential endgame couple (to which… does anyone really care about this? Nancy and Steve both have so much more interesting things going on with their character – the only one who really feels defined by is Jonathan, but that’s mostly because it is the only coherent thing his character is consistently tethered to (well, that and his new sidekick Argyle, who continues to get more and more annoying with each passing hour).

Regardless, Max and Lucas’s scene together is a strong reminder that both are sharing season MVP awards at this point in Stranger Things 4, both familiar stories of teenagers trying to find themselves in the violent throes of adolescence, and how they continue to find that in each other, even if Lucas is off in his ‘new’ life, and Max has withdrawn to the point of actual concern. And it gives at least a few of the characters in Creel House something to do while everyone slowly – and often in boring fashion – tries to find the Vecna’s source (and maybe discover what the hell actually happened to the Creel family there).

“The Nina Project” ends with not one, but two characters breaking out of their proverbial boxes; the return of Eleven’s powers comes (pushed presumably by Brenner’s rough-on-the-edges approach) occurs just as Jason and his crew bear down on Eddie, who leaves the cabin behind to paddle a boat into the middle of the lake. This breakout is anything but encouraging, of course, as Eddie and Jason both watch Patrick be taken by the Mind Flayer – which happens to be the exact same moment everyone discovers the source of light in the Creel home, revealing Vecna lying in wait beneath them (the sweet camera work of seasons one and two depicting the shift into the Upside Down once again working to great evocative effect). After an hour-plus of narrative dilly-dallying (except the part where the Lenora boys bury a federal agent in the fucking woods, which they think will be helpful), “The Nina Project” ends on an encouraging note,

Grade: B-

Other thoughts/observations:

• Steve’s running meta commentary on his own character within the Stranger Things world is fun, but it feels like stand-in for actual character development a bit this season.
  
• Now we’re going to Utah? I can’t wait for Dustin to walk in, and Suzie’s an super enthusiastic Mormon.
  
• Sullivan is still stalking in the background; after seeing him with the still-alive agent, he’s drawing closer, to the point Owens vaguely tells Brenner they “don’t have much time left”.
  
• Can’t stress how much I don’t enjoy Argyle’s presence at this point.
  
• Eleven begins to see blood on her hands in her Groundhog Day flashbacks, suggesting she feels guilt towards what happened to the kids around her that we saw in the season premiere flashback.
  
• what parent buries their child in a church with a cross that looks that creepy?!!
  
• There’s on the nose, and then there’s “we cast the Freddy Krueger guy so we could have a plot point about how Freddy Krueger’s sci-fic nonsense logic is like Vecna’s”.
  
• Nancy is too smart for these people.
  
• I love how unconcerned Brenner is with Eleven using her powers against him. “It’s not going to be that easy.”
  
• Jonathan’s big contribution this episode? “We have to open our minds!” and “Just let the dude have some weed”.
  
• Dimitri: “We gambled, and lost.”