As the new year rang in, people across the world celebrated the new beginning, but many people also looked back on the last 10 years of their lives. 2016 was a year filled with many huge pop culture moments from bottle flipping to the Kylie Jenner Lip Kits, but the one thing on everyone’s mind as we entered 2026 was none other than “Stranger Things,” the hit TV show that follows an unlikely group of friends and family as they work together to fight monsters from another dimension. Fans across the world gathered to see how the story they have been following for the last decade was going to end, myself included. As I watched these characters that I have grown up with head into their final battle, I couldn’t help but feel disappointment as the final chapter came to a close.
Throughout my entire viewing experience I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed by so many aspect of the final episode: poor continuity, the epic final battle that was anything but epic, and most of all, the complete destruction of character development.
Compared to the last four seasons, season five felt like the characters were in a different world. A lot of this was because of the disconnect between past lore surrounding the Upside Down. In seasons one through four there was always a sense of danger when entering the Upside Down, but it felt like in this volume all of the characters were going to the park rather than an alternate dimension filled with monsters, and a lot of this seems to stem from the fact that there were no monsters there this season. In the past, every time a character went into the Upside Down they were faced with a Demogorgon, Demodog or some other variation of those monsters, but they were nowhere to be found in Volume Five. On top of the lack of monsters, it seemed as if the Duf- fer brothers completely forgot the lore they created in season four surrounding the hivemind’s connection to the vines in the other dimension. When Steve, Nancy and Robin went into the Upside Down just one season ago, they carefully crept through a tangle of vines in the Creel House as they made their way to attempt to kill Vecna. This intense scene was made even more agonizing when an earthquake caused them to step on the vines, resulting in all three of the teens being grabbed and twisted into their web. In this season, this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. As Hopper, El, Kali and Murray walk into the Upside Down version of Hawkins Lab, they are constantly bumping into the vines. Rather than facing a near-death experience like expected after last season, they continue on their merry way as if nothing happened. On top of the lack of monsters the Upside Down no longer seems to have the toxic environment that it had in seasons past which, once again, took away from the sense of danger that the Upside Down is supposed to have.
Putting aside the inconsistencies in the Duffer brothers’ writing there were still so many more issues with the finale, one of the bigger problems being the completely lackluster final battle. In every other season finale there was always a huge sense of imminent danger as our heroes faced whatever monster was their current problem, but in Volume Five it didn’t feel this way at all. I’m not sure if it was just the fact that I could tell that nobody was going to die or if it was simply just poorly executed, but as I watched my favorite characters get ready to face what was supposed to be the biggest threat yet I didn’t feel fear at all.
What is supposed to be the most dangerous fight they have ever faced lasted for less time than the final fight in season three, episode eight, which resulted in Billy dying and El being hurt, unlike season five where nobody was killed or even injured. This was probably my biggest problem with the finale overall. What do you mean that the biggest, scariest villain in the “Stranger Things” universe didn’t even manage to hurt a single character in the final battle? Throughout the ten minute battle we had the opportunity to see multiple character deaths with Dustin falling behind and Lucas saving him at the last minute and Nancy nearly being eaten by the giant Mind Flayer after she volunteered to be bait. But instead the only major character death we get in the entire finale — which wasn’t even 100% confirmed — doesn’t even come from the battle. It came from El sacrificing herself to save others from her own fate, which I’ll get into more later. I just feel like this scene would be so much more impactful if it felt like the characters’ lives were at stake. I feel like a major character dying would have made the actions of the others even more impactful, especially given that in every other season we had major character deaths or near-deaths. I honestly think that it would have been hugely impactful if Jonathan had died. The scene when Joyce chops the head off of Vecna would have left me much more emotional if she was killing the person who had taken both of her boys away. Instead, everyone survived unscathed. It felt to me that the Duffer Brothers were so scared of facing backlash for killing characters like in the “Game of Thrones” finale that they instead went to the complete opposite side of the spectrum and killed nobody. On top of the overall lack of any epicness, the final battle felt like it came out of a poorly made superhero movie. The overly bright lights, El “flying” into battle, and the corny lines took me out of the world even more than I already was because it didn’t feel like I was watching the dark small town mystery show that I fell in love with all those years ago.
However, the part of the finale that broke my heart the most was the complete destruction of El’s character arc. The only real character death that we had in the finale was El’s sacrifice to prevent more “numbers” being made from her blood. While this death does make sense in a way, it also felt like the Duffers didn’t want her to die in combat so instead they created a fresha and random plotline about telepathic children being bred with El’s blood. To stop the government’s cycle, El would have had to sacrifice herself — but even with her sacrifice, the Duffers left the reality of her sacrifice up to interpretation with Mike’s theory to end the series. But my biggest issue with El’s sacrifice is that in her final moments, she is reduced to nothing but Mike’s girlfriend. In El’s final moments we see Mike and El say goodbye as memories from their relationship play back, defining El in her last second of life as simply Mike’s girlfriend (to whom he still couldn’t say ‘I love you” as she sacrificed herself).
What is supposed to be a heartfelt and emotional final goodbye instead felt like destruction of El’s character. El was so much more than just Mike’s girlfriend. She was Hopper’s daughter and the second one he was going to lose. She was Will’s sister even if not by blood. She was Max’s best friend, and more than anything else, she was a teenage girl who deserved a normal life. That was the saddest part of her death: El would never be able to live the life she should have gotten. If the Duffers were always planning on killing El, I just wish we would have been able to see her for everything she was and not just the girlfriend of the main character that tragically had to die.
While there were some points I liked in the finale, it felt like the Duffer brothers were just trying to make me forget how bad the first half of the episode was by making the entire second half nostalgia-filled full circle moments, which I will say I enjoyed to a point. I grew up watching these characters so much that it felt like we grew up together. Watching the younger kids graduate a few months after my own high school graduation as well as watching the older kids come back together after going to college and talking about how much they miss each other were definitely highlights of the episode.
Despite these bittersweet moments that did hit me in the feels, I still couldn’t get over all of the inconsistencies and overall poor writing that the Duffer Brothers had this season, especially in this final episode. It seemed to me that the Duffers lost track of the story that they were writing: a show about outcasts, for outcasts, by outcasts and instead got lost in the popularity and in turn ended up writing a show that lost so much of its originality.
