Spoilers ahead for “Stranger Things” season five.
It started with the warmth of friendship, aching suspense, comforting nostalgia, and coming-of-age pain. Now, nearly 10 years later, fans have been left with a shell of a season finale. Regardless of substantial lore reveals and a relatively happy ending, the show failed to extend the magic of previous seasons into the last glimpse of the “Stranger Things” main storyline that viewers will ever see.
Since the release of season four in the summer of 2022, fans had to wait almost three years to see their beloved characters again. Season four ended with a Hawkins that was split in four and merged with the Upside Down by the main villain, Vecna, played by Jamie Campbell Bower, making season five highly anticipated. The season was split into three releases, all on major holidays. Volume 1 was released on Nov. 26, Volume 2 on Dec. 25, and the finale on Dec. 31.
Volume 2 ends with Max, played by Sadie Sink, coming back from her coma and the core characters reunited, making it appear that the season five finale would host an extravagant and thrilling battle; one with risk, loss, and plot twists. Corroborating this expectation, the Duffer Brothers, made up of Matt and Ross Duffer, said that they had not read any online predictions that matched the true fate of season five in an interview on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Despite these indicators for a satisfying wrap to the show, season five offered a concrete build up to a finale with no genuine climax.
Following Volume 2, an unfulfilling three episodes filled with trite dialogue and excessive sidebars, the two-hour-long finale opens with the party heading into the Upside Down to take down Vecna, once and for all.
As part of the team starts to head to the top of the WSQK radio tower to cross over into the Abyss, another heart-to-heart seizes the screen with subpar acting. Will, played by Noah Schnapp, and Mike, played by Finn Wolfhard, pause on their way up, taking an intermission to agree to be best of friends, destroying the souls of everyone who ever envisioned them ending up together.
As the Abyss starts to crush the antenna of the tower, viewers receive a fake-out of Steve, played by Joe Keery, falling to his death. His romantic rival, Jonathan, played by Charlie Heaton, catches his hand, saving him at the last second, answering the web-wide question of whether he would be killed off.
Building on one of season five’s few cinematic strengths, the full content of Vecna’s traumatic childhood memory is divulged. After killing the unknown man in the cave with a rock, young Henry opens the man’s briefcase and picks up a small black stone with red, lava-like veins from inside. This is how Vecna became Vecna, as the stone is responsible for connecting him to the Mind Flayer. Unfortunately, the finale does not explain who the man in the cave is or where he got the stone from.
After Vecna confirms that he’s working with the Mind Flayer, the final boss fight commences. In the Abyss, Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, fights Vecna inside the chest of the Mind Flayer while the rest of the gang attacks from outside. Will then tears off one of Vecna’s arms through harnessing the power of the hive mind while Eleven forces Vecna’s body to be pierced by a tooth shaped spike. The fight then officially concludes after a whopping 10 minutes with Joyce, played by Winona Ryder, chopping off Vecna’s head with an axe. A gratifying scene, but really? Only 10 minutes? I thought Vecna was supposed to be this ultimate, unbeatable evil.
Once everyone escapes back to the normal version of Hawkins, the Duffer Brothers give viewers one last Mike and Eleven scene. Eleven stands in the doorway of a gate to the Upside Down and Mike realizes that she plans to stay in the Upside Down when the exotic matter, a theoretical substance with negative energy density, above Hawkin’s Lab is blown up, killing herself in the demolition of the bridge and its accompanying dimensions.
Eleven then meets Mike in the void before the exotic matter is blown to bits, where the combination of Prince’s “Purple Rain” and a montage of clips of Mike and Eleven from season one does a decent job of pulling on the audience’s heartstrings. It almost makes up for the lack of chemistry between the two in Volumes 1 and 2 of season five.
And that’s basically it.
Just kidding. Kind of? The last 45 minutes of the finale takes place 18 months after the bridge is destroyed, in an almost unsettlingly picturesque Hawkins.
Robin, played by Maya Hawke, is back at the WSQK radio station, announcing a cliché reflection on what the town of Hawkins and the party has been through, serenading the original crew through their high school graduation with “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies.
But before the heroic teenagers can walk the stage, Mike requires a mini therapy session with Hopper, played by David Harbour, about grieving the loss of Eleven. Hopper is shockingly unbothered as he talks about the death of his adopted daughter, but then again, nothing could beat the emotional words of his note to Eleven in the final episode of season three.
At the graduation, Dustin is announced as the valedictorian and pays homage to his deceased best friend Eddie, played by Joseph Quinn, who died in the final episode of season four. In the beginning of season four, Eddie said that at graduation, he would walk the stage, flip off the principal, snatch his diploma, and run. Dustin follows through with this plan, ripping off his graduation robes to display a “Hellfire lives!” shirt, representing the Dungeons & Dragons club Eddie started at Hawkins High before he died.
To wrap up the rest of the older characters’ endings, Steve is a high school baseball coach and sex-ed teacher, Jonathan has decided to pursue filmmaking, Nancy, played by Natalia Dyer, drops out of Emerson College to pursue journalism through an unconventional route, Robin attends Smith College, and Hopper and Joyce get engaged.
In the basement of Mike’s house where the show began, Mike ends a D& D game by narrating where he thinks each of his childhood friends will end up. Mike envisions Lucas, played by Caleb McLaughlin, and Max living happily ever after, Dustin attending college, Will moving to a bustling city where he can explore his sexuality, and himself becoming a writer, inspired by their adventures.
In the words of Max in this scene, “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. That’s it? Comfort and happiness?”
Yes Max, this is what “Stranger Things” has become. I bet you didn’t even notice that the Duffer Brothers completely left out an ending for Murray, played by Brett Gelman, and Vickie, played by Amybeth McNulty.
And guess what? It gets worse.
Mike then proclaims that Eleven isn’t actually dead, with almost no evidence to prove it. He theorizes that Kali, played by Linnea Berthelsen, who was shot before Eleven and Vecna’s face-off, survived a bullet to the chest and used her powers to create the illusion of Eleven dying on the bridge. Which, if true, results in a finale where not a single season one character dies. So much for a high stakes ending.
Where is Eleven now, you ask? Someplace with two waterfalls, because of course.
Luckily, the Duffer Brothers had enough sense to end the finale with a scene that ever so slightly dips its toe into the flood of nostalgia from season one.
After Mike’s friends leave the basement, his little sister Holly, played by Nell Fisher, and her gaggle of newfound friends rush down the stairs. Holly picks up the D&D manual and Mike gazes at her from the basement doorway, maybe reflecting on all the years that have passed since he was their age. Or, maybe he was fantasizing about all the other possible ways the episode could have been written. We’ll never know.
