Warning: this recap contains spoilers.
Well, here we are. Nearly 10 years after a group of scrappy, D20-rolling preteens decided to take on Demogorgons, evil scientists, and alternate dimensions, we’ve reached the long-anticipated end of Stranger Things. The kids are all grown up, and so are we, and with all the nostalgia thrown into the mix, there’s no way that the Duffer brothers could have messed up their beloved show’s series finale, right?
Well.
As fans and critics alike noted when Volume One dropped on Netflix last November, showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer seemed to be packing a lot of new lore into their final season. Unfortunately, Volume Two suffers from the same case of exposition dumping. In its first episode (“Shock Jock”) alone, we get two simultaneous and equally convoluted plotlines: half of the Party wants to Frankenstein a Demogorgon to tap into Vecna’s (Jamie Campbell Bower) twisted mind, and the other half wants to bully science teacher Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens) into building a telemetry system (whatever that is). Yes, those are already major plot points, and yet, there’s more to come.
Other plotlines in the series’ final four episodes include the Upside Down not really being the Upside Down (there’s a healthy amount of physics involved here, so buckle up!), Vecna unleashing a pack of Demodogs on the local hospital, and something strange is going down in the mines just outside of Hawkins, involving a scared, young Henry Creel (Raphael Luce) and a shiny stone. But alas, the Duffer brothers have saved all stone-related tidbits for the spinoff. Oh, and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is, once again, an only child no more, but her sibling’s being a real Debbie Downer about what their lives are going to be like if they don’t put an end to the evil Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton).
Weak Emotional Punches
To their credit, the Duffer brothers tried to balance out these prolonged moments of plot vomit with sequences of emotional gravitas. Their final episodes, in fact, all seemed to follow the same rhythm: start with a significant plot point, then maybe a major scare, and then a major moment of character development. Rinse and repeat. To give us time to breathe in between reveals, we saw Joyce (Winona Ryder) (once again) telling Will (Noah Schnapp) how she’ll always be his mother, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) (once again) pushing everyone away in his grief over Eddie (Joseph Quinn), and Will (once again) wrestling with his feelings for Mike (Finn Wolfhard). Unfortunately, many of these emotional moments were already covered and resolved in earlier seasons, but hey, it’s the series finale, so I can forgive a little bit of nostalgia-grabbing.
But this messy balancing act caused more than a few important moments of character growth to miss the mark. Case in point: Will’s coming-out scene. Although the show had been building up to this for the last two seasons, it made the mistake of cramming Will’s coming-out right before the Party members attack Vecna. Everyone’s strapping on guns, grenades, and axes, and the getaway truck is just about to pull away from the Party’s makeshift HQ, but yes, this is the perfect time for Will to gather everyone around the living room table and speak his truth. Some of the people in the room, like Murray (Brett Gelman) and newcomer Vickie (Amybeth McNulty), had no business standing there while Will poured his heart out.
One by one, everyone tells Will they love him, and then they promptly rush out to get their attack back on track. Although Matt Duffer told Variety that the duo had spent longer writing the coming-out scene than any other, and had even moved it from Season 4 to spend more time developing Will’s arc, fans have complained about its pacing and inclusion of necessary characters.
Will’s speech about wanting to be accepted is undeniably heartwarming, and if there wasn’t so much going on in this finale, we’d probably have had more time to sit with our feelings and cry even harder about this anxious teenager who just wants to be loved; unfortunately, there are children to save and a Vecna to kill.
Unanswered Questions
When we finally make it to the grand showdown between Vecna and the Party, however, we are met with a new, and arguably more damning, problem: too many plot points crammed in a limited running time. Not a lot of this boss battle makes sense, and fans have been quick to call out the Duffer brothers on thinking that we wouldn’t notice such glaring mistakes. Where were the Demodogs, Demogorgons, and Demobats, and wouldn’t they have attacked the Party? Why could everyone breathe normally in both the Abyss and the Upside Down, when previous seasons had already established that the air in these dimensions was toxic? How did Vecna not have a contingency plan when it came to protecting himself against the Party, who more than proved last season that they could kick his ass? And what do you mean he was in high school at the same time as Joyce and Hopper (David Harbour)?
What’s even more frustrating is the Duffer brothers’ response to these criticisms. In the days after the finale’s release, both of them have appeared in interviews trying to clear things up. Hopper and Joyce realize offscreen that they went to high school with Vecna, the special stone is from a “completely different mythology” and that will be important later on, and Vecna didn’t have any back-up ready because he just wasn’t expecting a sneak attack on his “home turf.” The brothers have since voiced regret over trying to explain away plotholes, with Matt asking fans to “cut [him] some slack” and blaming a bad case of the flu for his answers.
Did It Stick the Landing?
But I must confess: for all my complaints about Stranger Things and a finale that leaves so much more to be desired, this last season did have its moments.
While fans have already loudly started complaining about the epilogue (where was Vicky? And how did Max (Sadie Sink) graduate after a two-year coma?), the Duffer brothers did leave us with an earnest final scene back where it all started: down in the Wheelers’ basement, with a bunch of friends screaming over a DnD campaign. The cynicist in me is tempted to say this is yet another nostalgia grab, but having grown up loyally watching each new season as it came out, I couldn’t help but grow emotional watching Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and yes, even Max, grapple with life after Hawkins all while rolling their 20-sided dice.
So much good came out of the world of Stranger Things that are worth celebrating, from bringing the retro ITC Benguiat typeface back into the mainstream to Kate Bush climbing the Hot 100 charts. It might not have ended perfectly, but there’s no denying that this was a show that left a giant impact on its viewers and will most likely continue to do so for years to come.
