This whole thing with cutgate (or whatever its called) is making me feel kind of insane because where did this come from all of a sudden?? No offense to people who believe it, but this volume felt pretty solid and a decent lead up into the finale?? It just feels like people are coping with not getting what they wanted....we haven't even SEEN the last episode? What happens if a lot of that is IN the finale?? Was Netflix still being evil then?? 🙃
Apparently these came from a leaker who was able to correctly name the run-times for the first 4 episodes, so the leaks are thought to be more "reputable," but I always take that with a grain of salt when it comes to leaks. That being said, I haven't seen the source they allegedly come from so I have no idea how reputable it is.
I have been through this before. I was here for spngate when fans took evidence from Misha being licensed to be in more episodes and the Spanish dub edit to mean that we got Dean's character arc of reciprocating feelings for Cas cut from the show. I was big into that theory then and Misha later came online to say that it was a rogue translator and that the final cut we saw was as it should have been. I'm not saying executives didn't get involved there either, but I'm just saying this is not my first rodeo with this type of speculation.
What I will say, is I do think the style of editing and narrative changed from V1 to V2. V1 felt more cohesive and had tighter narrative beats. This could have been for a lot of reasons, particularly I know the writer's strike impacted Stranger Things release and I'm sure that the final cuts were hard to make in a final season of a show as big as this. There might have been a number of factors that went into cutting out scenes, and the Duffers were working on the final edit into December, so it's very possible last minute changes were made. It's also possible scenes got moved into the finale cut since the run time of the finale is longer than that initial leak suggested. Whether changes were because of nefarious reasons like the executives forcing their hand, I don't know. But it isn't uncommon for scenes to be cut or rearranged in editing.
There were weird transitions, and especially how close Max and Will seemed, and Robin's sudden involvement in Mike's storyline seemed interesting choices for me personally, as well as the choice for Will's visions from Vecna to happen off screen. I would have liked more explanation for all of this.
But also, with a cast of so many people, trying to finalize each arc takes time, and while I didn't love that we barely got any Byler in V2, it does mean their plotline is wide open still and needs to be resolved, which will happen in the finale.
I think it's true that some of this is because we didn't necessarily get the scenes we wanted or expected. I personally didn't think Byler would happen before the finale because I know that Netflix and marketing need to keep viewership engaged until the last minute, so I was skeptical of theories about a Byler kiss in ep 7 anyway. It's possible that any changes made were to move Byler content to the finale so as not to alienate viewership. I sincerely hope that if cutgate is legit that it didn't mess with the storyline to the point where Byler doesn't happen. That would be a heavy narrative failing and would not achieve the feat the Duffers have repeatedly said they wanted in a Sixth Sense style plot twist. I don't think this is what happened, but I do sincerely believe that if Byler doesn't happen, it will be because of executives and not because of the storytellers themselves.
They might be trying to leave too much until the finale to get the type of twist ending they want, but I'm hoping that the best of the season is yet to come. Only time will tell. At this moment in time, I'm pretty neutral on cutgate. It could really go either way for me