Making any kind of art is tough; there’s no doubt about that. And when it comes to pulling off a final season of a highly anticipated show that’s watched by millions of people, it’s essentially Mission: Impossible. In my experience, the only series that has managed to bring things to a close flawlessly is Dark. And then there’s the other end of the spectrum, which is where Game of Thrones lies, where everything that could have gone wrong in terms of storytelling did go wrong. Now, I was under the assumption that things can’t get better than Dark and can’t get any worse than Game of Thrones. I stand corrected, because Stranger Things 5 has set a new standard for horrible final seasons. To be clear, I am not one of those snobs who hated the show from the beginning and is feeling vindicated because it’s “getting the hate it deserves.” Season 1 was perfect. Seasons 2-4 had issues, but I can assure you I was crying when Max ran out of Vecna’s Mind Lair while Kate Bush’s “Running Up The Hill” played in the background. Watching Season 5, though, was like witnessing a train derailment in slow motion. So, allow me to process my feelings by listing down the 10 reasons why I thought the final season of Stranger Things was the worst of the lot.
Spoiler Alert
Metal Sheets on Interdimensional Rifts
The show should have been set in a post-apocalyptic Hawkins, because that’s what Season 4 promised. I am tired of pretending that it didn’t, and that covering up interdimensional rifts with bloody metal sheets was a good analogy for government cover-ups; it wasn’t. The Upside Down bleeding into Hawkins was the cliffhanger of Season 4. Hitting the reset button for the final season was idiotic. I thought that the Duffers did that because creating a post-apocalyptic Hawkins would have been too expensive. But after seeing the characters spend most of their time in the Upside Down and the Abyss and then seeing that kaiju Mind Flayer, that excuse didn’t exactly work. I am sure that the Duffers had nearly unlimited resources to do anything, and the fact that they chose to shoot their own creative choices from the previous season in the head is truly impressive.
The Plot Armor Was Plot Armoring
Sure, killing off characters doesn’t automatically make a TV show amazing. I’m just saying that when your human characters are facing off with literal demons from a different dimension, getting crushed by an interdimensional merging, and then fighting with a goddamn kaiju, realistically speaking, some of them should have died. Kali was not around for 2 whole seasons. She was one of the most hated characters of Season 2. Bringing her back and killing her off isn’t the bold decision that the Duffers probably think it is. What about Karen? How did she not only recover after being hacked up by a Demogorgon but also kill a bunch of Demodogs? She’s a wine mom, for crying out loud! Max? She had multiple fractures in her limbs and she was blind. How’d she recover from all that? What kind of meds do they have in Hawkins Memorial Hospital? What about Murray? How in the hell did he make it all the way to the end? All those people who were standing like idiots on the comically large platform atop a radio tower while a planet was crushing it—how did all of them survive? Okay, fine, you don’t want to kill any character, except for Kali and some random army men, but what about injuries? There’s a moment when Eleven squares up against the kaiju Mind Flayer, and she hits the ground pretty hard while trying to avoid its legs; not even a scratch. Just look at the characters after they come out of the Upside Down. They look like they’ve walked out of a freaking spa. They had to go through the goopy material between the dimensions and inhale the air of unknown realms. None of them got even a little sick? Not even dehydration from all the running? Cool.
Overreliance on Spectacle
I don’t think any of us became fans of Stranger Things purely because of its action scenes. It’s the dialogue scenes, the moments of raw emotion, that moved us. At the same time, I understand the need to go big with each installment because, well, you are exploring different realms and introducing demons whose character designs are so complex that you don’t know how the VFX and CGI artists even came up with that thing in the first place. I will even go ahead and say that the kaiju Mind Flayer was well-rendered. But what’s the point of all that if it doesn’t enrich the storytelling? You have created this giant monster, and then you have Eleven tearing through its throat like it’s a wet napkin? And what was up with that cave inside its throat? Why did the Abyss look like that? Why was the compositing of the human characters into the Abyss so horrible? Why was the color grading so awful? Why did the action feel so weightless? If you are creating a spectacle, you have to go all-out. You can’t do it half-heartedly. And if you think you aren’t built for that kind of action filmmaking, just stick to your bread and butter, which is crafting intense, dialogue-heavy scenes. I mean, for its first season, IT: Welcome to Derry exhibited that balance so beautifully. I don’t know if its future seasons will suffer the same fate as Stranger Things, but for anyone who’s searching for examples on how to do spectacle and character work, look towards Derry, not Hawkins.
Horrible Dialogue Writing
The exposition scenes were painful to sit through. If you haven’t watched the show and you see people online complaining about the examples that the characters used to explain a plan or the wormhole, and immediately think that the viewers are overexaggerating things, trust me, we are not. When they used a Dungeons and Dragons board to explain the concept of the monsters and how they function, that was fine. But then they started pulling random objects from cupboards and whatnot to flesh out the theory that was already clear to the public. I mean, why did Steve need to use that Slinky and torchlight to talk about the merging when Dustin had used that transparent writing board to do the same a few seconds ago? Are the writers obsessed with making their characters say “imagine this”? What’s the deal? Also, what the heck was that coming-out scene? I know some people might have interpreted the backlash around that scene as an instance of homophobia. I can assure you that that wasn’t the case. The monologue was just way too long, and then that “or me” nonsense killed any sense of gravitas that the moment could have had. Having Will say “I am gay” and then engaging in some discourse with the characters probably would have been better. Then again, there’s a dimension that’s about to crash into Hawkins. So, why the hell are you all sitting and talking? Where’s the sense of urgency in your dialogue?!
Too Many Goodbyes, Too Many Unanswered Questions
Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to complain about Return of the King having too many endings. As a matter of fact, nobody gets to complain about any movie having too many endings. If you do, I’m going to chuck the 35-minute-long goodbye sequence of the season finale of Stranger Things 5 right at your face and tell you to shut the hell up. You know what? I would have been fine with that long epilogue… if the Duffers weren’t leaving us with so many unanswered questions. There’s so much ambiguous stuff that’s been left unaddressed that I had to write a whole other article on that! And I am not even a fan of such articles because I believe that leaving some plot threads open-ended is fine, as it allows for discourse. But, for the first time in my life, I found myself asking repeatedly, “What was the point of that?” Yes, I know that they are leaving the door open for some spin-off, but that just means that this series is incomplete. Why are you making me do homework that I didn’t even sign up for? I mean, hate Game of Thrones all you want, but at least it completed its story. I didn’t have to rely on House of the Dragon to understand it. In this show, there’s a whole villain whose backstory is merely hinted at because the Duffers want to build a spin-off show around it. They couldn’t just include it in one of the overlong episodes of this painfully long final season.
Unnecessarily Long and Horrendously Paced Episodes
Nobody who has watched the last 2 seasons of Stranger Things ever gets to complain about movies being too long nowadays. I have revoked that right of yours. Same goes for those involved in the making of these massive episodes; if I see any of you complaining about movies being too lengthy nowadays, “it’s going to be on sight.” I am not joking after slogging through that nonsense. How does one justify the length of these episodes? A two-hour-long finale where the villain dies at the halfway mark? Are you kidding me? And then there’s the pacing. These guys sit and yap so much that you’ll forget that there’s a dimension that’s about to crash into Hawkins. A whole planet hurtling towards Hawkins, and they are all sitting around and talking? Usually in instances like these, shows or movies use a device to serve as a visual reminder of the ticking time bomb aspect of the plot. The Duffers are too cool for all that. They just had some characters remind the audience that a world-ending event was about to happen and then went back to the ongoing yapping session. I think the pacing of Season 5 was hampered by the release schedule as well. They used up all their hype moments in Volume 1. Volume 2 had next to nothing, and that really killed the momentum. And then there was the finale. Either do the weekly release thing or release it all at once. Don’t play the waiting game if you don’t have anything worth waiting for.
If you want me to know about the play, give me the play
Only a handful of people have watched The First Shadow! There are millions of people who watch the show. If you don’t want me to be confused about certain plot elements in the show that I will understand only if I have watched the play, then give me the goddamn play. It’s been playing since 2023, and you’re telling me that you couldn’t record it and put it on Netflix? What do you want me to do? Read its plot synopsis and explainers? Why? Just give me the play or book me a ticket for the play, covering the travel costs as well, because the play isn’t available worldwide, and let me get the details properly. Or don’t include details from a play that isn’t widely available. Or shoot scenes based on the play and include them in the show. The episodes are long anyway. Who’s going to complain about a few hours of flashbacks, am I right? Do something. Don’t just hint at a play, then say that you are going to do a spin-off show that’ll come out god-knows-when, and expect me to be satisfied by your final season.
Forgettable Performances
In seasons 1-4, it seemed like everyone knew how to act. Season 5? Everyone has forgotten how to act. Millie Bobby Brown was so impressive despite having so little dialogue. Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, and Noah Schnapp’s chemistry was so good. Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, and Natalia Dyer’s whole dynamic was so interesting to watch. Sadie Sink, Priah Ferguson, Maya Hawke, Dacre Montgomery, Matthew Modine, Paul Reiser, and Jamie Campbell Bower were so amazing. Winona Ryder and David Harbour were knocking it out of the park every time they appeared on the screen. And in Season 5, all the actors just seemed bored out of their minds. They cried or screamed sometimes, and even then it felt like their heart wasn’t quite in it. I see that the internet has zeroed in on Finn and Millie’s final interaction as the best example of how the series’ quality has plummeted. But I think the entirety of the final season is one big example of how the showrunners didn’t care about extracting even half-decent performances from their characters. Also, so many of them had such bad wigs that I couldn’t even focus on their facial expressions. If only they had used all those millions of dollars on making the actors look right, instead of wasting it on those VFX-heavy scenes, I think this final season would have been more tolerable.
Will, Not Eleven
Making Will the focus of Season 5 after dedicating 4 seasons to putting Eleven front and center was one of the most stupid storytelling decisions of all time. I have an idea of the reason behind it, but I won’t state it explicitly because the showrunners and the stars haven’t. Much like the unanswered questions of the show, I’ll leave it to your imagination. But yeah, it was frustrating to watch Will hog the limelight in the final stretch, while Eleven just got sidelined. The issue was further exacerbated by the fact that Noah Schnapp isn’t as good of an actor as Millie Bobby Brown, who wasn’t acting very well this season, by the way. I mean, I empathized with Will’s plight, but he was collateral damage. Eleven was abused ever since she was a little child, and this was the story of her healing. What did she get? She might be dead, or she’s somewhere in Iceland? And Will is in some bar with some random dude? Really? Really?!
A Wasted Villain
At the end of the day, Vecna just killed a bunch of random people and didn’t even come close to executing his plan. People laugh at Voldemort for getting killed by a bunch of schoolchildren. Now, they can channel that energy towards Vecna. What’s worse is that it would have been better if Vecna was shown to be someone who was evil just for the sake of being evil. But the Duffers gave him this “complex” and elaborate backstory. They hinted at his obsession with time and ritualistic practices. They had him yapping about the broken state of humanity and how the merging of these two dimensions would somehow fix that. And then… nothing? How was Bro unaffected by bullets, impaled by the tooth of the mind flayer, and decapitated by a simple axe? What were the limits of his invincibility? Or did it vary according to the requirements of the plot? I thought that Vecna was a metaphor for how victims of abuse often become the abuser themselves. I still think that’s the case, but it got lost in all the spectacle and drivel about wormholes, interdimensional merging, and homosexuality. It’s funny that the Duffers created Vecna as a homage to Stephen King’s work, and then the recent iteration of Pennywise came along and stole his thunder. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on Stranger Things Season 5. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
