‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Review: An Okay Goodbye to Hawkins
3/5 caves
Spanning almost 10 years for fans, Stranger Things has dominated Netflix. The popular series was all about Hawkins, Indiana and the Upside Down world the kids of the small town had to encounter. And in the 2+ hour finale, fans were gifted an okay goodbye.
Since season 1, it was established that characters will die and get hurt on this show. Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) was safe by the end of the season. Barb (Shannon Purser) was not so lucky. From there, we said goodbye to Bob (Sean Astin), Billy (Dacre Montgomery), and of course, Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn). All those deaths led to a series finale that felt more like a dream than a final moment.
Spoilers for the entire series of Stranger Things lie ahead. Read on and fear Vecna.
Introduced in season 4, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) became the “big bad” of the entire series. We didn’t really know what the deal was with the Upside Down and Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) powers until the penultimate season began laying out the groundwork. All of that led to an ending story that kind of answered all of our questions but not really.
Vecna got his powers from a rock from some guy in a cave, implying that the powers of Vecna can just keep transferring people. Which, while I don’t really remember specific lines from The First Shadow, I don’t remember Henry Creel needing a stone but hey, I’m not the Duffer Brothers.
But ultimately, the 2+ hour finale led to a somewhat easy defeat of Vecna, one tease of Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) almost dying, and then everyone getting a happy ending. There were moments when fans could get emotional. Eleven and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) saying goodbye to Prince “Purple Rain” being one. It also felt rushed.
How did it feel rushed and dragged out all at the same time?
Starting with season 4 and on, each episode of Stranger Things seemed to get longer and longer. Some of them were straight up the length of feature films and this finale is well over a normal television episode length. So how did the finale feel like both a rush to the finish line and the longest drag to its end?
We wrapped up Vecna’s storyline, maybe said goodbye to Eleven, and there was still almost 40+ minutes left? Sure, I loved seeing where all my favorites went after Hawkins. The Byers boys were in New York with Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Jim Hopper (David Harbour) nearby in Montauk. Nancy (Natalie Dyer) was working in Boston, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) gave a nod to Eddie at his graduation, and Max (Sadie Sink) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) were the one couple left standing. All that was great and 30 minutes of the episode.
Watching Mike see the next generation take over his D&D game with Holly (Nell Fisher) as the Dungeon Master was emotional and beautiful and I loved every second of that. It is the other hour and 30 minutes I have issue with.
So they just had to stab Vecna?
Ultimately, the end result of Stranger Things was stab Vecna, pretend Eleven is dead again and then the military will vanish. To be fair, a lot of the military stuff still went over my head. What exactly was Linda Hamilton’s entire deal? They wanted the power of the Upside Down and all ignored the Vecna of it all?
I didn’t want anyone to die from our crew. As someone online pointed out, if The Goonies came out today, people would want someone to drown given how we’re all reacting to everyone living in Stranger Things. But it does feel like a lackluster final chapter.
(featured image: Netflix)
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