Nine years ago, Netflix released the first season of the hit series “Stranger Things” and it quickly became a flagship series for the platform. Written by the Duffer brothers, “Stranger Things” follows a group of young teens uncovering secrets in their small town, including government plots, supernatural monsters, and a little girl with telepathic powers.Audiences were instantly drawn into this small town mystery haunting Hawkins, Indiana, and fell in love with the nostalgic 1980s backdrop. Since its debut, “Stranger Things” has released five seasons, with the final season coming out during the final months of 2025. Although the first half initially received praise, the second half of the season has been criticized by fans for its unsatisfying ending, lack of character development, and generally weak send off for such a critically acclaimed show.
Volume 1 of season five released on the 26th of November. This volume contained four episodes, each varying in length between 50 to 80 minutes. The finale ended up being about two hours long. The volumes’ runtimes were already long, but along with that, the episodes felt unconnected and janky to follow. “I feel that the episodes felt rushed and needed to be longer to wrap up each event properly,” junior Colbie Ho said. With so many new characters and plot points developing and taking up more screentime, the overall narrative suffered immensely.
On a good note, the first four episodes that dropped were received positively by audiences. In the first two episodes, the tension was high and stakes were present. There were numerous instances where viewers felt a real sense of danger for the main cast. But over the course of the season, these stakes were completely removed. “The final fight scene felt very short and lackluster, and there were not a lot of high stakes,” junior Tati Romero said. Characters had to face the highest threat they had faced yet, but none of them died or sustained any large injuries.
This issue, combined with the Duffer Brother’s constant addition of new characters, lead to the show’s cast being overly full. One of the main plot points of season five is Vecna, the main villain of the show, and his plan to destroy the world by using 12 children as vessels of his power. In theory, this introduces new characters who can have their own form of development and add more depth to the show. “Some things I didn’t enjoy was having Vecna use new children to complete his plan, since it took away screen time from the base characters,” Romero said. All of this is disappointing for “Stranger Things”, especially considering how great of a job the writers have done in the past, creating characters you could really root for with grounded motivations and likeable personalities. The final season ended up butchering these characters’ endings and making their journey feel inconclusive.
It wasn’t just newly added characters who suffered this season. Fan favorites like Dustin, played by Gaten Matarazzo, had their arcs cut short this season. Dustin’s arc revolves around him mourning the death of his close friend Eddie. This is a very interesting arc to explore, but it was poorly executed and comes off as two-dimensional. Dustin only acts in anger, and even goes on to have a hand-to-hand fight with his best friend Steve. There are far better ways to interpret grief, but the writers chose to simply reduce the complexities of grief to simple anger, making Dustin’s characters two-dimensional and unlikable.
By far the most obvious culprit of lackluster character writing is the telepathic teen, Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown. Being part of the original ensemble of kids, Eleven has been a pillar of the series since its beginning. She has grown from a gifted child for a government experiment to an independent, smart, and caring character. In the finale, Eleven is forced to sacrifice herself in order to protect the rest of the main cast and close the gate to the upside down. Fans remain very torn on this ending. “She was treated as a disposable item, and everything that had been built around the character over four seasons, over ten years, was destroyed,” Adna N. said in a review on RottenTomatoes.
After the series concluded, many of the show’s hardcore fans felt immensely disappointed and unsatisfied with the finale. Some of the more radical fans even began to argue that this wasn’t even the true finale of the show. This theory, coined “conformity gate,” quickly blew up on X and Instagram. The theory was based on the idea that the main characters actually lost in the finale, and Vecna had taken over the world. Viewers pointed out that a number of small details were off. They pointed out that the main cast’s graduation took place during what appeared to be fall weather instead of summer, and they all were holding their hands together similarly to how Vecna did prior to his possession by the mind flayer. Also, fans saw that books lined up on a bookshelf in Mike’s basement said “X A LIE,” referring to Venca’s defeat in Dimension X was false. Because of all this evidence, fans theorized that a “secret” final episode would be released on Jan. 7. But once the day came, no new episodes were released. “I thought the ‘conformity gate’ theories were really well thought out, but too good to be true. They definitely weren’t real,” Ho said.
Although no secret episode was dropped to properly send off this series, “Stranger Things” remains as one of the highest grossing shows Netflix has ever had, and the disappointing ending mirrors the endings of other shows that audiences didn’t like. Widely loved shows like “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead” have followed a similar trend as “Stranger Things” with fans theorizing better ways to end the popular shows. Often it’s hard for such successful series to please all of their fanbase with their respective series finales since there are so many storylines and arcs which need to be wrapped up all in one episode.
In total, the final season of “Stranger Things” was not bad by any means. Obviously there was room for improvement in a number of areas, but no production and writing process can be perfect. Even if no secret episode is coming out, “Stranger Things” remains one of the most influential and excellent series available today, regardless of its ending or not.
