Before I say anything about One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, let’s put this out there now: the Duffer brothers are not cruel, evil men trying to ruin one of the most beloved shows of the 21st century. They’re not incompetent storytellers who blundered their way through the final season of Stranger Things, because if they were, how else would they have given us such a sharply written, high-stakes first four seasons? 

The release of the documentary has renewed the fan backlash against Matt and Ross, and although it’s tempting to join the pitchfork frenzy, it’s also important to remember that these are just two nerds who love DnD, Steven Spielberg, and grabbing a camera to tell a story with their friends.

Now, having said all those nice things about the creators of Stranger Things it should also be said definitely made mistakes this final season.

The biggest mistake, and arguably the most unforgivable, is going into the finale unprepared. “We went into production without having a finished script for the finale,” Ross confesses in a voice-over. The camera pans to the Duffers and their team of writers, biting pencils and scratching their heads as they brainstorm in the writers’ room. “That was scary because we wanted to get it right. It was the most important script of the season.”

The unfinished script looms like an angry ghost throughout the documentary, with cast members, the production team, and the practical effects team scrambling to make sense of what little the Duffers have told them about their grand finale. While the brothers were writing their most important script on a time crunch and adding major set piece upon major set piece, their teams were trying to cater to their whims. “I can’t tell… if I need to raise an alarm bell in terms of the amount of shoot days that I foresee,” one team member says after a meeting where the Duffers explained everything they wanted to see in the Abyss. 

Plotholes and Wrong Choices

The confusion continues in the writers’ room, where even the Duffers’ writers are trying to gently inject some logic into the finale. “There have to be some monsters in the Abyss,” says one writer, and one of the brothers hums in agreement offscreen. “There has to be a Demogorgon, bat, dog, like something. It’s crazy if there’s nothing there, I think.”

In response to this excellent point, Matt pushes back by bringing up the battle in “Chapter Four: Sorcerer,” where six Demogorgons attack the kids simultaneously. Another writer throws out the phrase “Demo fatigue,” which the brothers latch onto. “Like, how exhausting, right?” Ross says. “It’s crazy.”

Even the Duffers’ actors seemed to be unsure of how things were meant to unfold in the final season. Beyond being unclear about scene directions, some Party members also pointed out plot holes in the scripts. The best example is Maya Hawke, who pointed out that her character, Robin, had yet to make her relationship with Vickie (Amybeth McNulty) public.

“I have a question about the scene,” Maya Hawke tells director Shawn Levy just minutes before they shoot the laundry room scene in “Chapter Six: Escape From Camazotz.” Beside her are McNulty, Caleb McLaughlin, and Sadie Sink.

“It hasn’t been talked about much in the scenes we’ve been in together,” says Hawke, “[but] no one knows that we’re dating, including Caleb. I would like to play this scene in a whisper.” 

It’s never a good sign if your actors are pointing out character arcs you’d forgotten about, and considering how Robin and Vickie’s relationship plays such an important part in this final season, it’s a wonder how the Duffer brothers kept any of their plotlines in check in the first place.

That’s A Wrap

As far as endings go, Stranger Things’ finale is definitely not in last place (That special spot goes to the Game of Thrones finale). But now that fans have gotten the chance to take in all the slip-ups, flaws, and blatant mistakes made in the making of Season 5, it’s impossible not to feel just a little disappointed about how the Duffer brothers handled their precious series’ final days.

However, making a finale, especially one so important to so many people, is never easy. The documentary makes this clear multiple times, particularly when it cuts to the brothers writing and re-writing their script as chaos unfolds in production. “We were getting hammered constantly by production and by Netflix for Episode 8,” one of the Duffers says in a voice-over. “There’s never been so much noise at the same time. It was the longest time we’ve ever spent on a single episode.”

Maybe the Duffers caved under the global pressure that comes with creating such a behemoth of a show, and while that’s no excuse for them to trip at the finish line, it does make the brothers a little more human and a little less like the wicked show-ruiners that fans are making them out to be. Here’s to hoping that they don’t make the same mistakes again on their three upcoming projects with Netflix.