Stranger Things Final Season Review: Worth the Wait?

As many of you may already be aware, the last season of Stranger Things was recently released on Netflix. Stranger Things is a sci-fi horror show set in 1980s Indiana. It follows a group of kids and the events that take place after the disappearance of one of the main characters, Will Byers. It contains themes of supernatural mystery and government conspiracies. As someone who has loved this show since I was 10 years old, I had really high expectations for this final season. Overall, I liked the ending; it was emotional and definitely felt final. However, it left me feeling strangely unsatisfied.

One big issue I had with the season was the number of plot holes. A lot of plot points didn't add up, which made some moments feel less impactful than they should have. For example, in this season, the audience was expected to accept that the characters were suddenly able to breathe freely in the Upside Down, (an alternate dimension of the town), when previously they could only breathe there freely for a few minutes at a time before coughing and choking. Additionally, this season, when several members of the group were in the Upside Down, there were seemingly no demodogs or demobats anywhere which was very odd because the Upside Down used to be swarming with them.

The season 5 poster for Netflix's hit series, "Stranger Things"

The other issue I had with this season is that I felt that there was basically no additional character development, and the creators focused a lot more on the action instead of the characters. For example, Mike, who in previous seasons had been a very important character, was heavily sidelined this season. Even as someone who never really loved Mike’s personality, I thought he was written very well. I personally think he was one of the most complex characters in the show, but then they never followed through with him, and he got practically zero character development this season which was very disappointing to see.

Finally, I really missed the vibe of the earlier seasons. After season three, which was personally my favorite, I feel that the show started to lean more on magic and less on sci-fi and mystery, which I personally think made it lose some of what made it so special in earlier seasons.

But with all of that being said, I still really liked this season. I also think it was an amazing touch to have Heroes by David Bowie play during the credits of the last episode, and I will not lie, I started sobbing when that happened. While season 5 and its ending were not everything I was expecting or wanted it to be, it still reminded me of why this has been my favorite show for so long, and I will forever be sad that it is finally over. Despite its flaws, I would still recommend watching the final season, and the entire series, as it’s truly a generational show that is definitely worthy of your time.