After nearly 10 years of psychic powers, monstrous creatures, and 80’s nostalgia, the “Stranger Things” series has concluded with the finale, “The Rightside Up”, which aired on December 31st, bringing all the chaos to an end with the crew finally defeating the show’s main antagonist, Vecna/Henry Creel, finishing the stories we’ve followed for so long. But did the ending prove to be as amazing as the show we’ve grown to know and love?
In case you forgot, the “Stranger Things” Season 5 Finale followed the Hawkins gang as they put their plan to defeat Vecna once and for all into action, going through the Upside Down and into the Abyss to defeat their enemy, save the captive children, and stop their worlds from merging. All while the government is hunting them down and Eleven struggles with the choice of living in fear her whole life or dying to stop the government from making more psychic children like Henry. After a battle with a monstrously upgraded Mind Flayer, Joyce takes the final swing to defeat Vecna. Their victory is short lived however, as when they return, the government takes them captive and Eleven lets herself stay in the Upside Down as it gets destroyed. Finally, we get conclusions to these characters’ stories in a very emotional hour of television.
When it comes to the positives of this finale, one of the major pros is the performance of Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna/Henry. He gives an absolutely stunning performance as the gritty, irredeemable villain he’s been, and he only shines even brighter as the episode continues. Both as the monstrous creature Vecna, but also as the cunning and sly “Mr. Whatsit” who manipulates the captive children to merge the worlds. Quite easily, the best performance in the finale was when it came to giving us very strong and aggressive scenes.
Another major pro of the episode was the defeat of Vecna. When they finally have their villain impaled and defenseless, Joyce Byers remembers all the damage he has caused her friends, family, and her son Will. Fueled by the rage Vecna has induced, she takes her axe to his head repeatedly, all while the cast watches, remembering the pain he has caused them, until he is decapitated. This scene really highlights the emotional journey the cast has gone through, and Winona Ryder’s raw emotion in the scene is just the cherry on top.
Finally, the conclusions we got for the characters were really sweet and emotional. We got closure on many members of the cast, with the young adults of Jonothan Byers, Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley, and Steve Harrington promising to remain friends, Jim Hopper proposing to Joyce, and most of all, the core cast of Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Will Byers, and Max Mayfield getting to play one last game of DnD as they say goodbye to their childhoods and look ahead to their futures. This whole epilogue really hits you in the feels with the sentimental goodbyes. The actors gave such a good performance, possibly because their emotions weren’t entirely acting-this show had been a major part of their lives. The music and cinematography only add to the emotion, giving this show a heartfelt, bittersweet ending after all the pain they suffered through.
However, that is all I can say for the positives in this finale. Unfortunately, I do think it has more faults. To start, the action in this finale was incredibly lackluster. During the final fight with the Mind Flayer and Vecna, not only were there barely any interesting and intriguing fight scenes, but there was not one demogorgon, demodog, or demobat in the battle, even though the gang were in the creatures’ home turf. That and the fact that the battle was very short-lived, it left a lot to be desired from what once was a show with very cool action scenes.
Secondly, the fact that none of the main cast suffered an injury or even died was extremely disappointing. In each season, a supporting character was brutally killed off to raise the stakes, making it logical to assume someone from the main cast would perish in the final battle. But other than Eleven’s sister Kali (a guest character), not a single member of the core cast suffers a scratch. While yes, Eleven does seem to die, Mike gave the suggestion she could be alive, which has a lot of evidence and makes her “death” seem less impactful. Her death could have been much more impactful if they didn’t leave it up for interpretation. Overall, the lack of any severe casualties made the show lose a lot of the stakes it had built up.
And even though I thought the epilogue had many pros, it also had its own issues. Some characters didn’t even get proper conclusions, such as Murray Bauman, Mr. Clarke, and many other side characters that the audience has grown to love. And while the emotional conclusions were very nice, it was almost too picturesque of an ending. This group went through so much trauma and pain, and yet they seem to move on from it pretty quickly after their enemy was defeated (sans Mike, until Hopper talks to him and he snaps out of his rut). While I wouldn’t say the happy ending wasn’t earned, it just felt slightly out of place with the show’s past seasons and a bit cliché, which is hard to avoid in a finale, but it could be done, unfortunately, not in this case.
In conclusion, while I did think the finale had some positives with Jamie’s performance, the defeat of Vecna, and the epilogue, I feel the negatives outweighed them by a significant amount, with the lack of stakes, poor action, and cliche ending. Overall, I’d give this ending a 5.5/10. If you’re incredibly invested in the show and have very high hopes for the ending, I am sorry to say you will be disappointed. However, if this show hasn’t meant too much to you and you just casually enjoy it, I believe the ending will seem quite satisfactory to you. Whether you hated the ending or loved it, Stranger Things has come to an end, and all we can do now is enjoy the show for what it is and what we cherished about it-and hopefully we’ll be able to look back on the show with happiness regardless of what we felt about the ending.
