Strangers Things Season Five: How The Duffer Brothers Failed Us

Illustration by Nick Latham

In middle school, I was faced with a very important decision: what would my birthday party theme be? The answer was actually so simple. It, of course, would surround the television show that I was unhealthily obsessed with: “Stranger Things”. Everyone dressed up, we had Eggo waffles, and it was a blast. I say all of this to prove that I have been a fan of the series “Stranger Things” for a decade now. That is why it hurts me to say that its final season was one of the biggest letdowns in television history, rivaling the disaster that was the finale of “Game of Thrones”.

To start, the plot holes are BLAIRING. Science fiction or fantasy genres tend to have small plot holes. That is the nature of making a show or movie in an entirely false reality. But the plot holes in this final season were nowhere close to small or ignorable. For instance, Holly Wheeler, one of the main characters in the final season, seems to magically age up from the age she has been portrayed as in other seasons. Speaking of age, it was bad enough that back in season three, Will’s birthday was completely forgotten by the writers, but in this season, they have completely forgotten how old he was in season one. Joyce verbally says one age, while the posters from the first season say another age. Then there is the plot hole where,  at the end of season four, Max is blind, but when she wakes up in season five, she can see again? And better yet, even though she was in a coma for 2 years, she then graduates at the same time as the other boys. And the graduation. In season four and the beginning of season five, everyone assumes that the “Hellfire Club” in the show is a club of boys who murdered an innocent cheerleader. So why, at the end of the graduation, is the entire town and school cheering when Dustin reveals his Hellfire shirt? I could go on, and on about these plot holes, and that is the problem.

Then there are the issues with the Abyss and the final battle. This was a huge plot point, introduced in the last season of the show, yet claimed to have been present all along. It just doesn’t add up in previous seasons. This dimension is meant to be the homeland of every big bad we have seen in the show so far. Yet, when the characters finally make it to the Abyss to fight Vecna, there is not a single Demogorgon or Demobat in sight. The final battle then takes place in this dimension, where we find out that the Mind Flayer’s physical form has been helping Vecna all along. The mind flayer is then defeated in under ten minutes. With no characters being killed or even slightly hurt. In fact, Dustin was beaten up worse by bullies at the beginning of the season, then anyone was hurt by the giant ancient monster. What really hurts about this whole scene was how interesting and epic the visual effects were for the physical mind flayer. It was stunning, from a VFX standpoint, and it was introduced and killed within ten minutes.

In addition, the dialogue and tropes used in this season felt like major fan service. They reduced certain characters to tropes such as Joyce and Karen. Both of these women had complex storylines in other seasons that gave them nuance, but this season Joyce was simply the doting mom, and Karen became the tough-as-nails super mom. Most of the characters’ dialogue felt awkward or repetitive. Even a great actor would struggle to adequately deliver stale dialogue, and with the wide range of talent in the cast, a lot of these lines were painfully coming across the screen. The show repeated the same scene over and over again, every time they needed to have a character explain something. For these reasons, it often felt like the writers were coming up with scenes based on fan theories online or by using ChatGPT. 

 The best scenes in the show come from the epilogue, and that is purely because of the mass nostalgia that the audience feels for this show. Not only have the actors grown up during shooting, but the audience has as well. In the last few scenes of the series, where the lines blur between real life and fake tears, those scenes are the best in the season. The only reason I felt emotional watching the ending was because of what this show’s ending meant for so many lives, not because of the storytelling. Overall, I think the Duffer Brothers were not only lazy in this season, but also only interested in making the most money possible. I’m sure Netflix has a huge influence on this as well, but this idea is evident in the way they chose to release the volumes. Releasing in three parts is a sure way to keep people talking and coming back. They were also released in three separate months of the year, meaning three different months of Netflix subscriptions. The writing was sloppy, and even the actors seemed to be unhappy with how the show ended, as seen in interviews. This season broke my heart, as a die-hard fan of the show, as it had so much potential. From now on, I will be telling people that my favorite show is, specifically, “Stranger Things” seasons one through three.