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Buckle Up, 'Stranger Things' Season 4 Part 2 Streaming After Netflix Crashed

Fans were kept in suspense for Stranger Things 4, episode 8 and 9 (no spoilers).

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
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Richard Trenholm
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Gaten Matarazzo and other Stranger Things actors.
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Gaten Matarazzo and other Stranger Things actors.

The cast of Stranger Things return for the season 4 finale.

Netflix

Stranger Things is back for the final showdown. Season 4, part 2 is streaming on Netflix now, and after the intense battle with Vecna, the final two episodes have fans excited. Or they did, right up until Netflix crashed.

Viewers complained that the streaming service delivered them an error message as they stayed up late to watch the season finale. It seems to be working fine now, however.

Episode 8 opens right back where season 4, episode 1 began. A bloodied Eleven stands over the massacred children while Dr Brenner asks "What have you done?!" Except now we know what really happened -- and how it ties to the creation of the demonic Vecna. Meanwhile Steve, Dustin, Robin, Erica and Eddie race to rescue Nancy as Vecna stalks her through a nightmarish vision of the massacre at the lab.

The two extra-long episodes hit Netflix today, Friday, July 1. Episode 8 is titled Papa, after the cruelly ironic name the Hawkins Lab kids use refer to their captor, Dr Brenner. Check out our deep-dive recap of episode 8 here. Episode 9 is called The Piggyback.

Stranger Things is a Netflix hit series set in the 1980s in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana. Season 1 began with the disappearance of local kid Will Byers, who ended up in demonic dimension the Upside Down. Meanwhile a nearby mysterious government installation was experimenting on children with psychic powers. A powerful psychic teen known as Eleven escaped and joined forces with a crew of local nerds, Mike, Dustin and Lucas, to fight monsters including the demogorgons, the Mind Flayer and season 4's big bad, a demon named Vecna.

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Meanwhile local sheriff Jim Hopper wound up imprisoned in a brutal Russian gulag. As the crew uncover Vecna's horrifying past -- and his links to Eleven -- Hopper spent season 4 trying to escape. He and Joyce (and Murray) are reunited in the Soviet snow, but the cliffhanger sees them trapped by a demogorgon.

Read our full run-down of all the Hawkins happenings from the first three seasons leading into season 4.

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