Netflix’s Stranger Things has become one of the most popular TV shows of the last decade. Created by the Duffer brothers, the series premiered in 2016 and gained everyone’s attention for its mix of science fiction, horror, and 1980s nostalgia. Over the years, fans have become deeply connected to the show and the characters in the mysterious town of Hawkins.
People have been eagerly awaiting season 5 for over three years. It was announced that season 5 would be the last, adding to the already extremely high expectations and fan theories, before and after it was released. With that said, the Duffer brothers had a lot of people to please, and the last season came with mixed reviews.
As with any series finale, fans have opinions about the Stranger Things final season. Some fans were pleased, feeling like the ending wrapped up the story the Duffer brothers set to tell from the beginning. However, some fans were left disappointed. Some were so upset that they hoped for a bonus episode post-release. Disappointed fans include Point Boro sophomore, Ziona Thrasher, who says, “As I came to the end of the show, I was crying a lot.”
Ziona wasn’t the only fan feeling emotional, as many fans took to social media with their emotional reactions to this season, as it was the end of a story and characters they had followed for nearly ten years. Ziona also shared that “On TikTok, a lot of people were freaking out about Steve dying, only for Eleven to ‘disappear.'” Many fans did not appreciate the ambiguous ending, as the Duffer brothers left it up to fans to decide if Eleven was dead or not, but many wanted to know Eleven’s definitive fate.
Something else fans critiqued was that in season 3, it took the characters such a long time to kill the Mind Flayer. But in season 5, for a monster that is much greater in size, it only took them ten minutes. For four previous seasons, fans watched as the characters struggled to find the right way out of the chaos, to anticlimactic battles in season 5. Many feel that the action should have been dragged out a little bit longer and that there was a lack of conflict this season.
The characters continued to adventure, as they had done in previous seasons, but it wasn’t scary or suspenseful to me. And while I love the characters, many fans like myself were expecting a big death in the final season. It seems the Duffer brothers were too scared to kill off any of the main characters and only added new characters to kill them off to avoid the death of a main character. For example, in season 3, when Max and Billy joined the show, Billy ended up dying. Again, in season 4, Hellfire Club was created, and Eddie was the leader, yet killed off in the same season.
Overall, in my opinion, even though season 5 of Stranger Things was a good watch, I was so ready to be sobbing the entire time due to the shocking twists and turns, but it felt like nothing happened. I think the Duffer Brothers could’ve done so much more with the season in the three years they had to make it, and had a duty to the fans to deliver the story they expected.
