Spoilers ahead.
My first impression of the Netflix original series “Stranger Things” came in my sophomore year of high school, when I decided to give it a try. I was immediately hooked and emotional; it felt like some of the best original TV I had seen in years.
I continued to follow each season with its expected release date, anticipating each one a little more than the last, and I must say I’m not the only fan who is confused and frustrated with this show's ending.
Season five of the show split up its last volumes between Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. Already, this had raised flags from a marketing and advertising standpoint, as it utilized the holidays for merchandise. The episodes from the very beginning had ridiculously predictable dialogue, pulling cliches to fill time. Characters were difficult to follow as soon as they split up, following nearly five different story sequences that felt cut short and not even tied into the final episode.
Another qualm fans have with this final season is the bait surrounding LGBTQIA+ characters and stories. Actor Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers, even told interviewers he had to ask the writers for a scene to be written in to close his character’s storyline properly. At the end of the show, none of the original romantic storylines followed through, which was ultimately a disappointment for many fans.
Another huge issue is plot holes. There are too many loose ends at the end of this series. The ending is already too cheesy; we don’t get to see certain sides of characters' stories, despite them playing a significant role in the finale. There’s too much introduced this season that leaves lingering questions, like what happened to the lab built in the Upside Down after the bridge collapsed, or the government agents who were after Eleven.
The biggest issue with the actual final episode is how safe it was played. In the end, we don’t see any risk or even any doubt that the characters will persevere. It feels like a brief, Marvel-style final battle with a happy ending, which is only about four minutes of screen time.
The final scenes were masked with epic music from the 1980s, the main time period in “Stranger Things," and the nostalgic crutch surrounding these characters.
The Duffer Brothers themselves have had to answer questions about their finale in several post-interviews, also giving fans unsatisfactory answers to the story they spent so long building.
Matt Duffer even told fans to “give him a break” regarding post-finale interviews, regretting doing any of them in the first place. The fact that nothing had been tied up in the first place, then to ask for forgiveness, doesn’t sit right, especially announcing a spin-off of the show immediately following the finale.
Ultimately, this series finale was rushed. The final season got caught in the writer’s strike crossfire and had a lot of pressure on satisfying such a large fanbase; however, the way this finale was rolled out was horrifically done.
Scenes looked worse than in previous seasons; some acting stood out, while other performances were clearly glossed over. The end of this long-awaited series is finally here, but at the cost of diehard fans who were expecting more. This is clearly greed taking over what was something that had so much potential and continuing in the form of whatever spin-off is planned in the years ahead.
Abby Jenkins is a senior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Abby about her column? Email her at aj205621@ohio.edu.
