The Case Of The Russia Storyline.
The Russian storyline has been the subject of many debate & controversy in the show. First presented to us in Season 1, which remained largely under building the world of ST during the cold war. It became a very big presence in S3 to the point some felt it didn't fit in the story & world of ST and/or that their portrayal was too cartoonish to be taken seriously & while the storyline continue in ST4, some felt that, at large, the Russian storyline did not bring anything significant to the overall story of ST.
And people this time are not... wrong. Doesn't mean they're entirely right though but they're not wrong, it is by far the weirdest and out there storyline of the show. Even the wackest stuff from Season 4 makes more sense than that storyline.
Our first real encounter with it is during Season 1 when El encounters an agent in which the governement seems interested in, we don't know why, who or what he does but it's through that agent that we end up coming into contact with the Demogorgon of the first season which is really interesting. The Russia storyline has a lot of connections/parallels with the UD and it's very peculiar that our first real interaction with it is connected with the UD.
In Season 2, they're not really present apart in the conspiracy theories of Murray plus Owen's fear that they might learn of the UD (which they already have, big fail there.). But we never really learn how, in that Season 3 flashback taking place in-between S1&2, how they came to be aware of the UD and how they were able to figure out so much about it and how some of it works. Yes, spies are a thing but HNL and Hawkins are in the grand scheme & landscape of the US rather small, not insignificant but a bit with it's own system (And in Indiana, of all states.) so how they came to know of it's existence is a bit important.
It's in Season 3 where that storyline really becomes a focus of the show, they've infiltrated the US, have built a giant secret base under Hawkins in ways we don't even know how or understand (and in one year at that!), have a full & stable operation going & are opening a gate to the UD. How in the world they were able to pull that off is completely unknown and even with the Mayor Kline explanation, some of it just doesn't stick.
How come are they so advanced technologically as well is completely unknown. If you had told me that Stranger Things was a Fallout prequel which was going to explain how the timelines diverged, I would have believed you honestly at this point. (Especially with the two keys thingy, like yes bring us more nuclear element into this...)
Their base is very reminiscent of spaceships in Star Wars (*wink wink*), the soldiers could even be considered a variant of Stormtroopers given how they act like them & sometimes are just as incompetent and that whole storyline is very cartoonish and over-the-top which is very similar to many 80's action movies that inspired it. But the portrayal of the Russians is also... well, of that time, they're cartoonishly evil and with no complexity at all.
It's quite a detour from the main story and to this day people don't understand it's bigger purpose.
And Season 4 is not going to provide any more answers to that storyline, whether in or out of the show. The Russian storyline in Season 4 serves mostly as a way for Hopper's character to progress & evolve and keep the adults out of the states so that they can't handle the military/NINA/hawkins situation.
There isn't anything that we learn about Russia's true motivations, how they came to know of the UD & understand so much about it, why it's experimenting on it, what it intends to do with it. Are they still trying to open a gate ? We don't understand more about the UD either and there isn't anything particularly new about what they're facing there in terms of the "supernatural".
The portrayal of Russia is slightly better & darker but the average Russian remains a drunk dumbass with a deep grumbling voice or an evil soldier and that's about it. Dmitri is the only Russian character in the show with some form of complexity but the rest are very stereotypical.
So it's a big "What ?"...
There's also a bit of a problem with the Russia storyline in S4 which doesn't track with pre-existing rules in ST plus the post-credit scene of Season 3.
In Season 4, where Hopper is located in the Kamchatka facility is largely focused on the prison side of it. While yes, they conduct experiments there, it is largely a prison facility/forced labour camp. And even, when he gets sent to the Demogorgon's feeding table, he doesn't go very far nor inside the shelter, deep underground levels of Season 3.
In the Season 3 post-credit scene, while the Kamchatka facility is the same, the part that we see of it is totally different from the part that we see in Season 4.
It is deep underground and the place where The Demogorgon is IS even deeper, the prison Hopper should be in is located inside & has no contact with the outside world whatsoever. It is also the place where the Key to the UD are created but we don't see any in Season 4 at all and we never enter that part of the facility at all.
It seems significantly smaller when it's actually a military base and was huge back in Season 3 and we only spend time in the prison portion of it in Season 4 when it's significantly bigger than that & should have more people in it/things to take care of things like the Demogorgon or Demodogs. In Season 4, there only seems to be a couple of soldiers and their firepowers/strength seems ridiculous compared to what they had in Season 3. Both there and in Hawkins.
Also, isn't it safer to keep the creatures from an alternate dimension that have shown nothing but the desire to kill you, deep underground rather than in the middle of your facility that has a direct reach to the outside world and whose security is a few barbwires on the walls and with the manpower and firepower of the local mafia ? You're telling me that after the stunt they pulled in Season 3, capturing those things, controlling them and even able to lock up a piece of the Mind Flayer, they can't take care of a few Demogorgon/Demodogs ? Not a single soldier had a flamethrower or one of those electricity sticks with them ? ESPECIALLY when they've been experiencing on them, dissecting them and opening them up plus putting them in tanks ?
There's being a bit incompetent and then, there's things just not making sense.
We also clearly see that Hopper before going to Kamchatka is somewhere else being tortured. So why show him being there first in a part of the facility he never mentions or recall being there, than show us he was somewhere else being tortured then sent there again in a part of the facility that has no connection to what we were teased & shown in Seasok 3 ? It makes no sense!
Unless the Russian storyline is not finished & the American turns out to be someone else, it just doesn't fit together. Because also why was he not sent down there in that post-credit scene, they made it look like the Russians wanted to keep him alive for some reason but they're fine giving him anyway in Season 4, it doesn't make sense.
The presence of the UD there doesn't make any sense AT ALL.
First in Season 3, the gate was opening, it was not open. How were they able to get Demogorgons, Demodogs and a piece of the Mind Flayer when it was not open properly, they had no direct access to the gate and how were they able to catch all those stuff and bring it to Russia completely unnoticed ?!
We have also been shown that anything from the UD that exists in the normal world needs a gate to be open so how come were they able to experience on them and keep some of them alive when no gate was opened. Unless one is open in Russia, this does not make sense at all and it does not make sense it was not brought up in the story again.
People say it's just creatures that are flayed BUT the Demodogs back in Season 2 were not flayed, Dart spent most of it's time with Dustin and outside the Mind Flayer's reach and still responded to the Hive Mind's will when he was locked in the storm cellar to the point he dug a tunnel to reach the gate. And we never saw a flaying of the Demodogs, and when they were apparently back in Season 4: they don't show any particular difference in their behavior compared the human who are flayed.
So a gate should have been opened which they can do now since they were opening one back in Season 3 & successfully at that but it's never brought up again nor shown in Season 4.
The Mind Flayer is locked up but somehow gets out and possess the dead demodogs ? What the hell is going on ? I feel like I am the only who thinks none of this make sense.
It also doesn't help that the Russians has parallels, shot to shot of many other events that happen in ST, particularly related to the UD.
And that's just two examples! There are others plus many more questions that are left about such parallels that are just way too intentional.
So we don't know what was the purpose of that storyline, what's the meaning of it and how things were able to unfold in it ?
Yes, they likely want to take over the world and beat the US with the UD but what else exactly and how are they going to do it ? What more do they want to do with it ?
It is so tonally different from the rest of the story and we have no good explanation for that.
Because yes, the Russians might not be as present as they were in Season 5 but they were able to stay relevant from Season 1 to Season 4 so maybe we will get an explanation in Season 5 at some point about their actual roles in the story.
I don't think it's a coincidence that El & Hopper, outside of their own relationship, one of the two characters that are the most connected to the Russian plotline will spend a severe amount of time together in Season 5.
The military is controlling Hawkins both because of the breach of the UD and of the breach of the Russians. Linda Hamilton's characters is literally looking like a female Brenner plus is in the military and it seems that many experiments are being conducted in Hawkins again. The Russian storyline parallels the HNL storyline in multiple ways (the two militaries as well), bringing them together in the end would make a lot of sense.
Maybe we will finally get answers on how they know about the UD, how they entered the US and left with things from it undetected and what they might truly want to do with all of this. And that might be answered in that storyline.
It's connection to the UD and the many parallels it shares with it, that I may have an explanation.
But as the snow is starting to fall, I feel like my mind is pushing me to go deeper somewhere else at the moment. Somewhere with even more less informations than the Russian storyline.
