From “Conformity Gate” conspiracies, Lily Allen’s diss track album dedicated to ex-husband David Harbor to allegations of ChatGPT writing the final season, the “Stranger Things 5” release was a roller coaster spiraling toward longtime fans’ unmet expectations.
While there were a few honorable mentions of movies that you may have missed over break, none felt as worthy of a hot take as the final season of “Stranger Things.” Besides, if you were like me, you caught the movie-length two hour and eight minute finale on the big screen in a theater near you.
The season’s first volume debuted Nov. 26, with four episodes that captured fans’ hearts and expectations well. We saw fan favorites return to screen, the humor and charm were there and the exposition was well-paced, giving the audience enough context to what may have occurred since we last saw our group of ragtag Hawkins heroes. We even got a brand new, iconic character who served as a much needed comic relief, evolving from “Dipshit Derek” to “Delightful Derek” (Jake Connelly). Our main antagonist, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) made his return scarier than ever, even if looking rather snatched in the waist line. The audience also got to see Will (Noah Schnapp) finally have his super power moment, leaving every viewer on the edge of their seats awaiting Volume 2.
With Volume 2 set to debut on Christmas Day, the anticipation became an internet phenomenon; people created viral videos showing themselves bailing on family Christmas plans, sneaking away from dinner and opening gifts to watch the second volume unfold. Unfortunately, this is where things for viewers, including myself, began to feel like they were going off the rails. Volume 1, left the audience wanting more screen time from Eleven (Millie Bobby Bongiovi) and answers to purposefully planted Easter eggs around Henry Creel’s (Vecna’s) past, which we assumed would be covered in Volume 2. However, hardcore fans soon learned this wasn’t coming. Instead, we were never going to get from this series but instead be advertised to go watch the recorded London Broadway performance of “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a prequel stage-production written to provide context to how Henry Creel became One, who then became Vecna.
Instead of getting more of either of those two characters, we instead got lengthy episodes with questionably long dialogue scenes that – while important to various characters’ development – were done in such over-the-top ways that the audience began to laugh instead of care at what otherwise should have been serious character arc moments. These scenes became so laughable that recently cast members Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) poked fun at these scenes in sketches on “Saturday Night Live.”
The second volume also failed to keep up with the pacing established in Volume 1. It felt to me that the show put all its attention into setting up for a big theater-worthy finale, instead of matching the energy the audience enjoyed in the first half of the season. Despite fans’ qualms with the season finale, I will say the in-theater energy, as a fan of the show for nearly a decade, was magic. The audible gasps, cries and cheers from the audience was something special and for a show that made this big of an impact on its viewers I think offering it in theaters was a great choice, something I am curious to see happen with other shows in the future.
Breaking the finale down into two pieces, hour one, or as I see it the “last battle,” felt rushed. We finally got to see the team almost as a whole take part in ending Vecna and disconnect the real world from The Upside Down, but it felt almost too easy. Some may argue that of course it was easy with all hands on deck with a crew as experienced as the team fighting, while others felt there were some major plot holes that allowed for the advantages to take place;accusing the Duffer brothers of some lazy script writing.
The second piece to this finale was for the sake of nostalgia. Without it, I am not sure there would have been much of a saving grace to the ending half of this show’s final season. We got a proper goodbye to nearly all of the characters, we saw them grow, had an idea of what their futures held and it was almost all happy endings. We also got some killer sound tracks, perfectly backing these painful closing chapters. That included, never before used in television history, Prince’s “Purple Rain.” The closing scene also felt incredibly full circle, connecting the show not only to its beginning but also to the fans, posing the question to us all, “do you believe?”
As a show that managed to hit the big screen, take over the holidays and amass a slew of its own conspiracies and hot takes, I think it’s fair to say “Stranger Things 5” garnered all the spicy attention – even if it wasn’t the best attention. Earning this final season a 3.5 out of 5 on the spicy scale.
Don’t worry this column is not taking a turn toward TV. Next week I will be back covering the latest films to hit our big screens, picking out some Valentine-themed favorites, collabing with Eli Heck on some page to screen adaptations and chatting with you all about the Oscars.