Stranger Things Just Committed The Worst TV Finale Sin
Another trip down memory lane?
At the end of an era, the instinct has always been to look back. That’s especially true for television, and just as valid: audiences want to reflect on all the ways their favorite characters have grown, the hardships they’ve overcome, the relationships they’ve forged. It’s why it’s so common to see flashbacks in a series finale — but the final episode of Stranger Things takes that expectation and pushes it far beyond its breaking point.
Inarguably Netflix’s biggest series, Stranger Things was always going to get an outsized farewell. It’s a major money-maker for the streamer; the foundational franchise for an entire generation of TV watchers. But from the very beginning, the final season felt way too bloated. Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of the sci-fi series, described Season 5 more like “eight blockbuster movies” than a television show. They also intended to split all that into three “volumes,” adhering to one of Netflix’s most irritating release habits. The more the Duffers spoke about their plans, the more they seemed to get lost in their own ambitions. And though the season certainly started strong, it eventually lost all the goodwill it’d spent years building, skimping on satisfying answers to nearly a decade’s worth of questions — or any truly challenging developments, for that matter — in favor of tedious walks down memory lane.
Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things Season 5 Episode 8.
The Stranger Things finale was way too focused on the past than the future.
Stranger Things Season 5 was less a finale than one frustrating flashback. A few reminders of how far this cast has come — whether it be Mike’s (Finn Woldhard) first time meeting Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in Season 1 or Max’s (Sadie Sink) first victory over Vecna in Season 4 — are more than welcome, especially given the expanse of time between seasons. But the Duffers don’t use those retrospectives to say goodbye, per se; rather, they mostly pad out a finale that’s already longer than it has any right to be.
This season’s last episode clocks in at a little over 2 hours, a ridiculous runtime for a show that’s been pushing its limit since Season 4. Stranger Things is the poster child of streaming bloat: the series would long have benefitted from more efficient, less indulgent writing, but the Duffers take their time because they can. There are no rules for a show on Netflix, and that opens the door for any number of flaws in pacing. In Season 5, those flaws are impossible to overlook — in fact, they’re even easier to spot, because they’re punctuated by another flashback we just don’t need.
It makes sense that Stranger Things do all that it can to give fans a farewell that feels earned. Audiences have invested so much time into the show that most don’t mind a season full of 90-minute episodes (if anything, they welcome it). The Duffers and their team of writers, meanwhile, have made an attempt to meet fans halfway, penning plenty of reflective goodbyes between characters like Mike and El, or El and her surrogate father Hopper (David Harbour), or the series’ band of savvy teens.
After five seasons of boundary pushing, Stranger Things ended things by playing it safe.
It helps that the stakes here make it seem like our heroes might not ever get the chance to reflect down the line: the threat of Vecna or the Upside Down (which is actually a wormhole to another world, for some reason) is forcing this cast on a potential suicide mission. So naturally, Eleven would want to look back on the years she spent with Hopper, learning what it was to truly be a daughter, when he asks point-blank if she plans to sacrifice herself for her friends. Of course Will’s coming out would trigger a montage of memories with his friends. The problem here, apart from the mind-numbing tedium, is that Stranger Things doesn’t give that same attention to its future.
Despite a 40-minute epilogue, the Stranger Things finale is way too keen to ignore loose threads in favor of more pats on the back. The final episode plays things way too safe, for one: besides Vecna, only Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) definitively bites the dust — though there is yet another fake-out for Steve Harrington (Joe Keery)! Its other, most glaring flaw, is its total disinterest in answering the show’s biggest questions. How did the Hawkins gang escape Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) after their capture? How did Hopper get his old life back after everyone assumed he perished in the Battle of Starcourt? How’d Max graduate with her class despite spending two years in a coma? Is Eleven alive, despite seemingly sacrificing herself to the Upside Down? Too many answers lie off-screen, but there’s plenty of nostalgia to go around. It might be the worst example of the Finale Flashback trend, and the worst way to bring such a massive story to a close.
