Why I am satisfied enough with the ending and final season of Stranger Things
If you love this story and have been feeling unsatisfied by the ending, I hope this can be helpful!
I want to start off by saying that objectively speaking, this season is somewhere between mediocre and good. It is by no means great because there are pacing issues, unresolved or unsatisfying plot moments, etc. I have no issue with the characters surviving (and for this story it is fitting), but their survival does feel a bit unearned because to make it feel dramatic and intense, I think the showrunners resorted to tactics such as: too many slow-motion scenes rather than having physical consequences for the characters. However, they have had emotional consequences in these moments of danger, which I guess was their goal.
The heart of stranger things has always been its characters. Up until season 2, the plot was quite nice, but it has suffered massively since. The mind flayer had the potential to be one of the greatest antagonists in fiction, paralleling Lovecraftian horror (not in terms of writing of course), but nope there was no exposition done other than "we've been building it for you" and a wimpy 5-minute appearance in the finale. For the longest time I thought Vecna was an unnecessary character, but it works and explains how El got her powers. Yet, this costed us the mind flayer. Also Russia and the military since season 4 have been mega-annoying; I get that its important but it should've been more focused, delivered better and had less screen-time (take some from this and put it in season 5). Plot and world-wise Stranger Things had some nice pieces floating around but, in my opinion, only assembled some of them and aligned some others incorrectly.
However, I think season 5 closed most character arcs very well (the only one I can't figure out is Lucas because I guess his arc was about Max?) and that was the point of the season. That has been the focus of this story and El's ending was perfect in that sense.
A key moment is the conversation between El and Mike in s5e6. El says that Mike doesn't get to write the ending, and Mike says:
“We do. You, me, Lucas, Will and Dustin."
That's not the original party though, is it? And even if it is, Eleven did take her part in writing the ending. The other boys together have hope which we can see in the final DnD game. One of them will be disheartened, but the others will find a way. This comes from the innocence of their childhood which, while disrupted, is still there. Eleven never got that. She got a glimpse of it because of the party and especially Mike, and because she cares for them so much she chooses to sacrifice herself to protect them. She saves the world because she doesn't want there to be more kids like her and Kali that suffer.
I think that's why the ending is open-ended. Do you think El doesn't have any hope and her story is over, or is there a glimmer left that leads to her waterfall ending? This minimal hope isn't in any way her fault, of course, it's the stupid military and an unfortunate fact of her life. Right after watching the finale I was convinced that she dies, but I think about it this way, I think she survives.
That's also why these characters don't die. I have been trying to justify a lack of character deaths, but I haven't come up with a sound reason yet. I wanted to say that never was anything actively trying to kill the characters except at the end of episode 4, but yeah no, they were in a plethora of dangerous situations. This show is about hope and determination and the characters getting their happy endings is a part of that message; I think this is fine but admittedly not delivered well. For instance, I think Max should not have graduated in the epilogue to show that she lost time.
Another note on El's fate: it's similar to what happened at the end of season 1! Is she dead, is she trapped in the upside-down, or, based on Hopper's actions, is she still around?
I think i just like open-ended character arcs (not too many though), because this speaks about El's freedom, the one thing she has been missing all her life (what Kali said about people always telling El to do things). Freedom often comes with some level of solitude because relationships, no matter what kind they are, are binding. This was El's choice, but in the second one, she is finally free at the cost of her friendships and especially Mike. Speaking of whom, I think Mileven is an adorable couple and the ending confirms that, even if the actors don't have chemistry since season 4 haha.
Eleven is the first person outside the main group to be introduced in the show, and she is not by the party's side by the end. Max is a second one and she nearly leaves them, but her arc was about finding that hope that the party shares (largely because of Lucas, of course, but not just him). El and Max both come to terms with their guilt and know who they are, but their traumas differ so vastly in context of the future: one is over, while the other is persistent. It still looms in El's life and it's the one thing she cannot control. Robin… I am not too sure about, but she was integral to Will's journey, which was about rediscovering the innocence and freedom of childhood! Without her, Will could have died with the hive mind.
That's why none of these characters could have died. Steve couldn't because of Dustin, Jonathan couldn't because it was his chance of finally living for himself, and Nancy couldn't because she has been fighting since the beginning with a kind of strength and determination that no other character has, so I think it would be pretty brutal to kill her. When we think of the story as a whole, this feels fitting and earned. When you look at season 5 locally… "uh, so there are no stakes?" which is no excuse; season 5 should have felt bigger than it did.
But I think I will eventually forget about the unsatisfying plot and retain the satisfying characterisation, which is why I am happier now with the ending than I was when I first watched the finale, and why I think the epilogue is nearly perfect.
If you have made it till here, thank you for reading my long, messy and hole-y thoughts!
I think one reason the ending speaks to me personally is that I have lately been chasing some aspects of childhood, and after watching the epilogue something just clicked and I've started to get what I wanted. I don't think people should completely leave their childhood behind - nurture your inner child! But you grow up, which is a bittersweet fact of life.
