I think my most unreasonable annoyance with the finale of Stranger Things is how Jonathan and Nancy were acting. It kind of feels like they were implied to still be interested in one another, and I think my unreasonable annoyance with it stems from a larger issue I have with the show, and I think that's just got to do with finality.
None of the on-screen couples that broke up on screen ever felt like the end of their relationship was actually the end of it. Lucas and Max? They broke up several times and still ended up together (I do actually love them, but they're part of this issue for me).
Nancy and Steve seeming to have some romantic tension left after their breakup. Mike and El who took me by surprise by still being together in season 5 even with them breaking up once, with a possible final breakup happening after season 4.
The only characters who stayed broken up were Joyce and Lonnie.
And this bleeds into the same issue existing with deaths. Characters being implied to have died (El, Hopper, Brenner, Vecna, Hopper again, and then El again(maybe)). There's this incredible commitment to not committing.
And with all of these couples getting together and breaking up and all of that, it feels even more glaring that Will got the Shiro treatment and never got to end up with anyone within the non-epilogue part of the story. Had it been that he was genuinely uninterested in romance, like he said back in season,,, 1 or 2, I don't remember, that would have been fine, good even, but it's very clearly shown in season 4 that this was not actually the case. That boy wants to find love as much as the rest of the party, and he's not allowed to apart from Mike's DnD narration.
Speaking of DnD and the party. I do also find it kind of funny in a way that Will turned out to be the only confirmed gay character in that friend group. They're all bullied, except for Max, and they're all nerds or geeks, except for El. They're a small, tight-knit friend group, who at the end of the day all play make-believe in Mike's basement, and I'm supposed to believe that Will is the only LGBT+ character in that group? I think that might be one of the least realistic parts of the show aside from monsters and sneaking into military bases with little to no issue.
When it comes to Mike's DnD narration, I personally believe that was his way of imagining his friend's happily ever afters and El still being alive. I don't think Kali would have lived long enough to keep up the illusion of El being alive. And I hate this ending for El.
This show was said to be one for lifting up the outcasts. El is the character that holds most of the traits for one. She's an anomaly. She struggles to communicate. She's bullied. She's mistreated by everyone around her, including her father, her friends, and her boyfriend. And her story accumulates in her killing herself, as is the fate of many outcasts. I don't love that message, I must say. Out of all of the characters in the show, she was most deserving of a happy ending, and I'm pretty tired of the suicide mission plots in shows, especially when they're not thematically appropriate.
If she had to have an ending away from her friends in Hawkins, it could have been her and Kali moving away and learning who they are as people outside of constantly being in life or death situations. Of actually getting to come to terms with and moving past their trauma, supporting each other along the way. I hope someone writes that fix it fic.
Anyway, I didn't actually hate the ending. It met my expectations, and my expectations were not high, but I don't think it's the worst finale I've ever seen. Certainly not the best either, but I don't hate it, I just kind of dislike it.
Also, I'm a Jopper hater. With the amount of fake out deaths they could have brought back Bob and had him and Joyce end up together, but she's apparently destined for violent, angry men, who didn't mature much past their teens.