Now that more than two weeks have passed (even though it feels like much longer), I feel the need to go on a second rant about season 5—feel free to ignore it <3
In every fandom a gap inevitably forms between how characters are written/interpreted and how they’re perceived, but with the Duffers the impression that comes through is that their understanding of their own characters is incredibly limited. Let’s take the most glaring example: El’s ambiguous ending. Leaving things open or ambiguous it's always a risk, which is exactly why so few writers attempt it.
Letting the audience decide whether El is alive doesn’t work because we’re given no real elements that would suggest Mike’s plan actually succeeded. It’s left to the fans to imagine a way for Kali to have survived and created the illusion, since the Duffers themselves (for whatever their word is worth at this point) confirmed that she was, in fact, shot. Including a montage of El walking toward three falls is just lazy. A single postcard from Iceland addressed to Mike or Hopper would have been enough to completely change the situation. The season would still have been mediocre, but at least Stranger Things would have shown that it retained that soul it’s often (undeservedly, it seems) credited with. The Duffers were so eager to repeat that their show wasn’t like Game of Thrones, but at least GOT when it killed or resurrected characters, had the courage to fully commit—certainly not to leave things halfway.
When you do worldbuilding, you need to establish rules and stick to them. Demogorgons were introduced as creatures that could literally only be taken down with fire or El’s powers, yet somehow in 1987 a single kick from Lucas is enough to send them flying backward. When they reach the hospital, they completely ignore Vickie—who was directly in their path—but immediately attack the soldier who just so happens to be arresting Robin. On top of that, not using the most terrifying weapon of your villain for an entire season is a truly baffling choice. What made Vecna genuinely frightening was his ability to enter people’s minds and manipulate them to the brink of madness, yet for the whole season we watch him chase kids we barely care about, threaten Will by saying he’ll use him as a spy, and finally use him only to find out where Max is (in the hospital—who would’ve guessed). Hopper’s vision—arguably the only interesting scene in the final episode—and his connection to the Mind Flayer are fully explored literally two seconds before killing him off.
Nancy choosing herself should be an empowering moment, but it isn’t. No matter how much certain parts of the fandom refuse to acknowledge it, in literally every one of her scenes with Steve in season 4 she was very emotionally engaged. She probably would have rejected him if Robin hadn’t interrupted them, but the show made it clear that she felt something for him, reiterating it again in her book. I can choose to interpret her eighteen months of silence as a way of burying her feelings for Steve and avoiding dealing with her failing relationship with Jonathan, but the lack of a scene that confirms this makes everything much harder to accept. If instead we act as if in season 4 she was simply confused but didn’t actually feel anything serious, then why didn’t she reject Steve? They worked closely together at the station for a long time—she couldn’t find two minutes to tell him she cared about him but didn’t feel the same way? And she can’t find two minutes to do so across eight hour-long episodes? And I’m supposed to find this empowering just because she shoots and kills soldiers without hesitation? The scene where she finds Karen and cries in the bathroom is heartbreaking, and it’s immediately brushed aside so she can go back to being hyper-focused on action.
And then I have a serious issue with how they handle her relationship with Jonathan. She wasn't allowed to be angry about the photo situation because five minutes later Jonathan gave that lecture about how she’s just pretending to be someone she isn’t, and the audience is pushed to side with him. The same thing happens with the sweater incident. You can’t seriously compare throwing away weed because your boyfriend is always high to throwing away your girlfriend’s pink sweater because you hate her favorite color. And instead of being upset about it, Nancy laughs. I get that they were basically on the verge of dying (well...), but with Jonathan it’s always like this. Steve was rightly punished by the narrative every time he behaved badly—even in situations where his actions could have been understandable. Jonathan, on the other hand, despite how much more interesting his fanon versions might be, remains a character whose full potential is never explored. Joyce keeps forgetting about him, and we’re never told how that makes him feel. In season 4, his big moment was reassuring Will, and throughout the entirety of season 5 they only interact during the coming-out scene (which I think we can all agree is a bit overcrowded).
In season 4, Steve was becoming something more than just the babysitter. While still taking care of everyone, he acted as emotional support for Robin, encouraging her to pursue Vickie; he formed a bond of genuine friendship and mutual respect with Eddie; he was reconnecting with feelings for Nancy that had never been fully resolved; and, for the first time, he voiced a personal dream in a very tender scene. His monologue in the Upside Down is beautiful: he acknowledges that it takes him time to learn, but that he’s always willing to put in the effort to grow; he dreams of having a family and traveling a lot—but the most important part of that dream is Nancy. And in season five, none of that complexity exists in Steve anymore. Throughout the entire season, he only interacts with Dustin, the dynamic the Duffers know will never attract criticism. In the final battle, he “almost dies,” giving his fans ten seconds to hold their breath (if anyone actually fell for it), makes peace with Jonathan—who still says that he doesn’t like him—hugs Derek and comforts him (a kid he had never met before, unlike at least four other characters, but this way they can once again reinforce his babysitter role and everyone’s happy), and in the end he’s the ONLY ONE (not even Hopper and Joyce, unbelievable) who stays in Hawkins, aside from the Wheelers. At least we’ll get plenty of material for fics where Nancy comes back for the holidays—’tis the damn season vibes.
I feel mocked. The Stancy situation is never actually addressed; as a viewer, I’m simply told how things turned out—that at some point before the season began, Steve realized things wouldn’t work with Nancy and that he’d rather have her as a friend than lose her, a lesson he had already learned at the end of season 2. The “growth” is that this time he’s fine staying friends? Wow. Truly impressive.
Over the years I closely followed filming and pre- and post-production, and I remember the statements they made very clearly: that season 5 would pick up by addressing the direct consequences of season four (a lie); that they would make a real effort not to introduce new characters (a lie); that they had shut out outside noise so as not to be influenced (a lie); that season 5 would return to the roots of the show and the group dynamics of season 1 (a lie). Regarding this last point in particular, the marketing was deeply misleading, starting with the first poster showing the party riding bikes (does anyone remember a single scene that even vaguely resembled that?). And finally, the biggest lie of all: there would be no loose ends, everything would be resolved (LIARS).
What bothers me is that season 4 left behind all the elements needed to build an epic final season, and instead everything turned out mediocre, then progressively slid into outright low quality. Even the argument about the immense pressure on the Duffers is valid up to a certain point, considering they were given a $400 million budget, full creative control, and three and a half years to produce eight episodes of television (and still ended up with that CGI). The excuse of the strike doesn’t hold for long either, since it began on May 2, 2023, and they had posted on Twitter back in late August 2022 announcing the start of the writing phase—not to mention that they claimed to have used the lockdown period to better outline both season 4 and season 5 (another lie?). That means they had 9 months before the strike to write something solid, and they simply didn’t.
The season’s main message isn’t even a good one. I realize this is ultimately a personal opinion, but I can’t even clearly identify what that message is supposed to be. After countless adventures, you’re meant to leave childhood behind and grow up? And I’m supposed to understand that by watching El disappear/die while everyone else moves on with their lives? Maybe the Duffers always saw El as a metaphor for magic, but I can promise that very few viewers experienced her character that way.
And again, since they left everything open to interpretation, I’ll imagine whatever I want based on what I find most consistent with the characters I’ve been watching—but it genuinely frustrates me that they had all the cards in hand to give this story the best possible ending, and they simply chose not to.
