Stranger Things finale discussion
So what did everyone think of the finale?
Spoiler heavy below, beware!
Personally I'm a little torn. Overall I would say the finale was just okay. This whole season has felt a little bit mid for me, but I've watched it since the beginning and wanted to see it end. I felt like they could have done a whole lot more with some characters, Dr. Kay, for example, just didn't really seem to do anything and she just kind of packed everything up and let all the kids go at the end. She was a pretty important character in El's backstory and she seemed to do nothing the whole season except drive around trying to chase them. It seemed like she was going to finally do something meaningful in the finale but nothing really materialized.
Vecna's death was satisfying to me, with Will helping out in the end with his new "sorcerer" powers. The backstory we got for Vecna too, was interesting, and the fact he "chose" to cooperate with the Mind Flayer. I'm still not sure if he was actually corrupted and is made to believe it was his choice, or if he was as powerful as he claimed and truly chose to work with it. Either way, watching Joyce tell him that he "fucked with the wrong family" and then decapitate him was chefs kiss.
As for El's "death", I'm not sure I am convinced she is actually alive. I looked back at the scene at the end after I had finished and didn't see any flickering on her, or any doors opening in the background. Maybe the sonic devices just don't pierce the veil between worlds. That being said though, it is interesting that some people have pointed out she doesn't have a nosebleed after talking with Mike or pushing him back.
I still think Season 4 was probably my favorite season. I was on the edge of my seat, literally, through some parts of that season which shows don't often do for me. This season did have some moments, but it just didn't seem to capture the same feeling Season 4 did for me.
I'm curious what everyone else thinks though.
I deliberately sat down with my wife after the finale to talk about it before reading any sentiment or comments online. Somewhat in an attempt to more purposefully digest what media we just consumed, but also to formulate the opinion before being coloured by convincing arguments.
Preamble done, I think the finale played it incredibly safe. All neatly wrapped with a bow for every one in the (very sizable) cast without going too deep into resolving open plotlines or loose threads. Possibly to skirt responsibility for having to sufficiently close storylines? Maybe to prevent another finale that crumbles public opinion so much your show isn't talked about anymore like Game of Thrones?
Some things are never resolved, never brought up again, or never explored beyond the surface. What happened to the pregnant ladies? Would season 5 be materially different if you'd flat out remove the entire military plotline? Were there any consequences for the cast in the 18 months post Upside Down?
The show suffers from an immensely large cast. No plot point or relationship receives the appropriate attention it deserves because they have to move things forward for 20 different pairings, multiple friend groups, age groups, B plots, C plots, and the main story thread. One of the consequences is that there's absolutely no stakes whatsoever. None you can feel anyway. The last time this show put me on the edge of my seat was an entire season ago. Neither danger or emotional beats hit the way they should.
Besides the structure though, it looked like a show with an infinite CGI budget and therefore absolutely gorgeous. I'm not sure I like the Mind Flayer being just some alien spider but I also don't really care because that sequence was awe inspiring. Nevermind there's inexplicably no more monsters whatsoever, the action is beautiful.
More than once my wife asked me something about the structure and it boiled down to me saying "don't think about it too much". It's good as a standalone popcorn season/flick, and slightly disappointing as an end to a decades old show.
All in all, it's just aggressively mid.
Not entirely in a bad way mind you, I think the 7,9 on IMDb is a little higher than deserved by IMDb standards, but not by much. A soft landing is probably better than the Game of Thrones disaster, but it also guarantees it'll never end up in the best of all time lists.
When I then read some of the comments online it sort of matches what I thought.
TL;dr
Good, not great. Slightly disappointing, but also fine as a standalone film.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think I enjoyed the finale at least a little bit more than you. The multiple endings sequence reminded me of Return of the King, and I don't think I could have expected anything different from the show. There's just no way to provide a satisfying conclusion to so many disparate characters without having multiple scenes after the drama has been concluded. My only problem there is where the hell was Vickie? It's an odd choice to just not have her seated next to Robin at the graduation.
I agree with your comment about the military being wholly unnecessary. I believe they were a foil to allow the characters to upgrade their firepower as much as they did. Going from slingshots to automatic weapons over the course of the show was necessary for them to battle a giant spider on another planet.
My biggest dislike with it was the gratuitous beheading of Vecna. It just felt unnecessary and lackluster to me, in a rather ham-fisted attempt to allow Joyce to get some form of revenge on screen despite the battle already having been won. I think that was probably a favorite scene for a lot of other viewers, though. I tend to not have an appreciate for revenge flicks, and the sudden shift to gore porn/troma genre was a bit jarring to me so late in the game. Suffice it to say that scene simply wasn't for me, and I can accept that and still appreciate it for what it was.
Okay, one more criticism: these kids not having complex PTSD and a myriad of other psychological issues is just preposterous. Lack of consequences has become a theme of the later seasons, unfortunately. It's probably a reason why so many of us lost interest in the main plot of the show: because it simply didn't feel like it even mattered to the characters by the end. It was more like they played an epic D&D campaign instead of literally fighting a gigantic monster on another planet. They can just go and hold down a day job after that, and be valedictorian? At the start of the series Hopper was a drunk and ruining his career because he lost his daughter to cancer. There's nothing even close to that emotional gravity and consequence given to the events of the finale. It made things feel very emotionally thin, which is culturally very common in modern cinema. Compare it to Oedipus gouging out his eyes (off screen) in Oedipus Rex between the climax and denouement.
I also thought it was pretty weird. I understood that this was supposed to be Joyce's cathartic moment, but the execution almost felt like a lynching. Like, here is a person who transgressed the social norm, and rather than dealing with him through an act of justice (which probably actually means killing Vecna -- he was very dangerous after all!), the showrunners have Joyce kill him in this overtly violent manner while everyone else gives their silent approval.
I tend to agree. Some episodes in the later seasons became extremely bloated, lasting as long as a feature-length film while barely trudging the plot forward. (In particular, I'm thinking of the parallel plot lines of season 3: Jim enduring a Russian prison, El regaining her powers, the hunt for El, the hunt for Jim, the hunt around the mall....) I wish the showrunners had dedicated episodes to subsets of the cast instead of constantly interrupting the pacing by switching back and forth between five ensembles.
I agree on almost all fronts. Overall, it's fine. They didn't "Game of Thrones" it like some are claiming and the comment's made by Mike's actor about how bad it was seemed unnecessary.
I think my biggest disappointment was reading a Reddit comment after season 4 that talked about how the storyline actually matched a plot line for the demogorgon/mindflayer in the real 70s D&D games. I'll see if I can find it and link it later, but effectively the demogorgon had a henchmen that was a vampire who ends up betraying the demogrogon and that's how the group is able to defeat it. In this theory, they thought Eddy would have been saved but converted by the the mindflayer into a henchmen type role (vampire following the metal/gothy aesthetic of Eddy) - not unlike what it turned out with Henry - but at the climax he would regain his humanity and betray the demogrogon/mindflayer/Vecna having a really interesting character arch. I loved Eddy so I was all about this potetntial climax, but alas it is not the direction they went with.
It’s the Vecna plot line - he gives Kas, his lieutenant, a powerful sword, and Kas ends up turning on him and using the sword to kill him.
I laughed out loud. Well said.
I thought season 5 was an improvement over seasons 3 and 4. While the storyline was predictable and quite bloated, and things seemed to move on rails, I still enjoyed the ride. Kudos to them for concluding the story and wrapping things up to the extent that they did. I particularly liked the coda, seeing how life went on with everyone.
The last episode could perhaps have been shorter. I agree that it was disappointing that they didn't do more with the army and Dr Kay. I was also hoping that El's sister would have made a more meaningful impact. But I must also say that I lost any real interest in the central conflict already a couple of seasons ago, so I guess I was just happy that things came to an end.
During this whole season, and in the finale in particular, I felt like the producers had been buried under song offers from artists and estates after the show catapulted Kate Bush's song back into the charts in a previous season. Some songs worked better than others. I love Prince but I'm not sure the two song snippets that they chose were particularly suitable for the scenes in which they featured, although I suppose Purple Rain is at least in some sense about the end of the world (the titular purple rain is supposedly blood raining from the sky: red and blue make purple).
While watching, I was thinking that I wouldn't mind a spin-off series with Dustin and Steve running a paranormal investigation agency in the early 1990s, with Nancy making appearances in her full-on Rambo mode and Rockin' Robin providing commentary.
I'm on mobile so I apologize but I am not going to go in depth.
I thought the finale was about as good as you can expect from a show that's become so bloated and at the end of a season that felt neither particularly strong nor weak.
I'm mostly grateful the show was allowed to have a finale at all given that most other Netflix originals I've gotten into ended up cancelled.
However, after watching the finale I learned that there is a stage play titled First Shadow that gives (in my opinion) critical background info for the main antagonist. I read a summary of the play and it turns out that what I thought were loose ends or possible seeds for a spinoff are actually small elements from that play that you can only really understand if you've seen the play. My whole concept of the antagonist's motivations turned out to be wrong because I haven't seen this play.
What bothers me is that this play, which provides crucial context for the whole last season, is only available to view in person in either New York or London. The show runners don't seem to think it's a problem that the vast majority of the show's audience will be missing this information.
Netflix is famous for making films and TV shows accessible to everyone, everywhere, anytime. You could binge an entire series from an Antarctic base, moments after learning the series exists.
How ironic, then, that the only way to completely watch their flagship show is to physically travel to one of two specific locations in the world, within a limited window of time, and buy one of a limited number of tickets.
For me, it was fine. It's always been a safe, easy-to-binge heroes' journey with just enough commitment to wholesome drama, the setting and to light horror to make it accessible for a broad audience.
I got what I was expecting and in the best possible way.
Slightly offtopic, but the Mind Flayer spider looks what I'd imagine Sanderson's chasmfiend appears as in Stormlight Archives.
I watched Season 1 and thought it was interesting. The next season took a Westworld -like nosedive so I didn't bother. From all I've read about it, seems to have been the correct choice for me.
You all are allowed to like it though, obviously.
I liked S1. I progressively lost interest the longer this show went on. I've said it before and I'll say it again: not every good idea needs to be milked for 20 seasons. A lot of shows would remain memorable to me if they didn't drag to the point I lose all interest.
If it ended after they defeated Vecna I would have actually been pretty happy with it. The Duffer brothers are absolutely terrible at drama and so the fact that they dedicated such an extremely long denouement entirely to drama really ruined the experience. Also the reveal at the end that Eleven was still alive really didn’t come as a surprise because nobody dies in this series except all of the people the main characters have murdered.
For what its worth, I think the reveal with El is meant to be ambiguous. Personally I thought it was a nice touch, as it simultaneously gave the ending real stakes while also leaving room for hope.
If you rewatch the scene with the truck, you can see El exiting out the back with the others, so she was on the earth side of the portal. While hypothetically they could have snuck back through, I'm not sure how they would manage that.
I remember liking this show when it came out. In the first few minutes of S1E1 they have a scene that was a homage to an old anime I liked many years ago, Elfen Lied. Then they had the D&D theme, which I also found cool. That was so long ago! My feeling finishing the finale was "I'm glad that's over."