A Messy Adieu to Stranger Things

How long can a show run on nostalgia? Three years after its acclaimed season four, Stranger Things releases its highly anticipated final season, and audiences who have grown up alongside the cast have high expectations. Despite initial cheesiness and the bizarre aging of the beloved cast, Volume One manages to be entertaining. It brings back real stakes with Holly Wheeler’s abduction and ends with a thrilling moment in which Will awakens his powers. But as any marathoner will tell you, never open too fast. Volume Two, and especially the finale, is underwhelming. Vecna, built up as the ultimate villain in the cliffhanger of Vol. One, is dispatched in a Disney-like fashion. The show leans into excessive deus ex machina, offering “feel-good endings,” while the show leaves a myriad of questions unanswered. Audiences who had speculated about countless plot twists and nuances are fed a microwaved dish from the frozen food aisle. 

The season opens with dry acting. The main cast of teenagers now feel awkward and corny; adults masquerading as children. The show falls into the classic 80s bully tropes, the “hey freak” lines, or “everyone in?” moments with their hands in the middle; these cheesy aspects worked when the cast was twelve, but now it feels like they are beating a dead horse.

However, the show counterbalances this loss by reintroducing Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher), the sister of Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard). Her authentic, youthful energy brings back the sense of genuine fear and innocence that made the early seasons what they were—gripping; when the danger felt real, and the kids faced the insurmountable. When a demogorgon attempts to kidnap her, it is genuinely scary, and she screams. Meanwhile, our regular characters are veterans of this conflict, and they are ready to smoke it. The Duffer brothers, the creators and directors of the series, must have been aware of Fisher’s energy, as she gets far more screen time than any other character in this season, and for good reason, too. 

Alongside her is the breakout character of “Dip[EXPLETIVE] Delightful Derek” (Jake Connelly), who, despite being ridiculed on Instagram before the series’s release, becomes one of the season’s most beloved additions. His raw, adolescent energy—on full display when he screams ‘suck my fat one’ at a monster—is hilarious. He evolves from a generic bully character to a member of the main squad, despite initially being cast for just the former. While this does fall into the common trend of Stranger Things redeeming bad characters (Steve Harrington and Billy Hargrove) and risks feeling tired, it manages to work this time around.

Still, pacing is a serious issue. The entire season is swollen with budget, new lore, and endless subplots. Every episode feels like a mini movie (most are over an hour). There is an enormous flesh wall surrounding the Upside Down. A new dimension emerges. The military is conducting yet more experiments. Plus, the introduction of new characters strains the show’s various arcs. Older characters are split across parallel conflicts: a mini-feud between Steve (Joe Keery) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), El/Hopper (David Harbour) in the Upside Down, a love triangle… There are just too many threads in this nebulous spiderweb. 

What saves Vol. One is its ending. Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), the perennially abused weakling of the group, finally gets his empowering moment. He emerges with newfound superpowers, destroying the invincible demogorgons of this season and entering an empowered trance state. This scene—the blank white eyes—will likely give you chills. For a moment, it feels like the story has left the cul-de-sac and is poised for an epic confrontation with Vecna. 

But then, everything goes wrong.

Vol. Two is problematic for many reasons. It leans harder into the worst elements of Vol. One: the slow pacing, overstuffed exposition, and the corniness, and augments them. There are too many Scooby-Doo explanations and eureka moments. Robin (Maya Hawke) uses vinyl records to detail the trance states of Holly, Will, and Max; Dustin goes full Wesley Crusher Syndrome, being able to decipher complicated science in seconds and explaining it on a whiteboard for a plan. It verges on the edge of being ridiculous and is an insult to the intelligence of audiences who aren’t expecting such childish resolutions. Many attribute this decline in quality to a Netflix issue in which they ask screenwriters to have characters announce what they are doing— antithetical to the principle of show-not-tell in writing, but commonly seen in modern scripts. 

Will’s much-awaited coming-out scene is complicated. The timing is off; the showwriters wanted to end Volume Two with the scene, but it felt forced. It is odd that Will has to come out for a climactic moment with EVERY single character in the room. It is a big-hug-circle moment, and unlike when Robin came out, which was a personal, one-on-one conversation with her acknowledging the tensions and being fully honest. Will is vague and overly public. He never explicitly mentions his crush on Mike. It is obvious that the Duffer brothers rushed this moment in. Still, Schnapp’s performance was deeply moving—his sobs, emotions, and stuttering felt painfully real, especially in light of his coming out in 2023. The writing is subpar, but good acting salvages the scene. 

The finale is underwhelming. For a two-hour episode, the final showdown is surprisingly short. All the buildup of Will/Eleven ready for war, the Mind Flayer’s return, and the military closing in ends with a blip. Social media anticipated some deaths or emotional scenes, but the mind flayer, the “big bad” of the series, is defeated by a ragtag band of teenagers with knives, Molotovs, and shotguns. Vecna, who emerges from the Upside Down to completely eviscerate the military in Vol. One, is defeated quickly in a force-duel with Eleven, with Will playing a tangential role snapping his arm… and he’s finished off by Mrs. Byers? 

It is a completely Netflix-ified conclusion, and for audiences expecting a big fight in the two-hour-long finale, the sub-30-minute fight is disappointing. The show does give audiences one major sacrifice (no spoilers!), though, and that was worth something. 

The finale does manage to pull a few heartstrings. Seeing these characters (who audiences have grown up with) find peace, graduate, and enjoy a sense of normalcy is so satisfying. The final scene with Dungeons and Dragons is that last childhood moment before the door shuts. For Gen Z, who grew up in the presence of the show, it is a familiar feeling and, in many ways, a bittersweet goodbye. It isn't a stretch to say you might still cry. 

In the end, Stranger Things doesn’t fail because it forgets how to tell a story; it stumbles into the dirt because it loses sight of what kind of story it was telling. What begins as a character-driven show evolves into a bloated spectacle of Netflix plots, with the emotional heartbeat fading. Nostalgia and hype may have carried this show further than it should’ve gone, but even they have their limits. The final season gives us flashes of greatness that remind us of a show long gone, but too often, they are buried beneath fan service and lazy plot devices. It is really frustrating that the finale makes me cry despite having so many obvious flaws. That is the best way to describe the messy goodbye to this show that meant so much to us.