“Stranger Things” Ends After 10 Years – Here’s How Fans Reacted

You saw that spoiler warning up above, right? Good. Let’s get into it.

Full disclosure, Pandas, (and you’re free to disagree), yours truly is a big fan of Stranger Things, but I still think the very first season is the best of what the Duffer Brothers—showmakers Matt and Ross—had to offer when it comes to Hawkins.

Season 5 was, from my personal perspective, a mess. But! The finale managed to redeem not only the last season, but it also (sort of) neatly wrapped up the entire saga.

To be clear, the Stranger Things finale didn’t really do anything wildly unexpected or overly original. It really felt like the creators of the show were playing things safe. And that makes sense. After a decade of building the characters in Hawkins and diving into the Upside Down (and beyond), it’s hard to conclude the story in a way that will satisfy everyone. (I keep remembering Lost and Game of Thrones here.)

Could the finale have been more powerful? Of course. Does it disappoint? No, not really. It’s solid for what it is. And I’d argue that the second half of the finale, where you see the aftermath of the showdown with the Big Bad Evil Guy, is better done than the first.

The finale wrap-up, where you get to see what paths all of the courageous characters living in Hawkins are taking after finally taking down Vecna for good, felt the most satisfying.

Yours truly thinks that where Stranger Things truly shines is in seeing the contrast between our protagonists’ daily lives and the cosmic horrors they have to deal with.

When it’s all non-stop action in Hawkins, ironically, things are pretty darn bland. And I have issues with the quality of the CGI, too.

So, after an entire fifth season of poorly written dialogue, frantic running around without doing much of anything, and characters not quite behaving like themselves, it was nice seeing them go back to their roots. And you realize how much they’ve changed and grown up.

Stranger Things is at its best when it takes the time to humanize its characters, reminding you that, hey, they’re actually likeable (if flawed) people who are worth rooting for.

This is something the showrunners might have partially forgotten throughout season 5, in which we mostly got unnecessary bickering between friends, boring exposition, and villains whose evil power levels seem to change as much as the plot demands.

It’s been said that Netflix shows are now written in a way that the audience can still follow along even while they’re scrolling something on a second screen. And, barring the solid finale, season 5 felt exactly like that. It felt like the magic and mystery were long gone, and the showrunners had to stagger their way through a bunch of filler, with barely anything left in the tank, to wrap the story up.

I’d gladly rewatch the finale, just as I’d love to return to season 1 of Stranger Things. But I’d be lying if I said I have any desire to watch any of the other seasons. Aesthetics aside, they’re far blander than a tale about cosmic horror has any right to be.

According to showrunner Ross Duffer, the idea that Stranger Things begins and ends with a Dungeons & Dragons game had been planned for a very long time.

“It felt right to go full circle. This is about this group of characters saying goodbye to their childhood. That basement, specifically the Dungeons & Dragons game, represents their childhoods [and it’s] how we first met them as an audience. To say goodbye to it, you have to play one last time,” he told Netflix.

“It was such a blast shooting, and it really reminded us of the first day on set when we filmed the kids playing D&D [in Season 1]. That was the first thing we ever shot, and it felt appropriate that this would be the last thing we ever shot. We even tried to mimic with the camera what we had done back in Season 1 all those years ago,” he added.

Meanwhile, his brother, Matt, notes that it was very emotional and nostalgic to shoot that scene. “What was happening on the day [of filming] and what the actors were feeling and what we were feeling very much mirrored the scene. We’re really happy with how it turned out.”

Meanwhile, also speaking about the final Dungeons & Dragons scene, Ross told The Hollywood Reporter that “it’s kind of their last moment of childhood, reliving their childhood one more time. And then one by one, having them leave the basement and Mike shutting the door on it and saying goodbye to childhood and moving on. That was the idea.”

However, Mike’s sister Holly and her friends weren’t originally meant to be a part of the scene. “That was something we discovered as we were working and we really fell in love with this passing of the torch, and the idea of Mike looking down and realizing his sister and her friends are going to be able to experience the magic of childhood as he was. Hopefully just not as traumatically — although Holly’s already had a slightly traumatic childhood. But it’s why you see Mike smile at the end; is it’s him remembering back to them as kids and knowing that those memories are going to be with him forever. So while he is shutting the door on that phase of his life, it’s always going to be a part of him.”

Once you’re done looking through all the fan reactions and upvoting your favorite ones, we’d like to hear from you in the comments at the very bottom of this list.

What did you think of the Stranger Things finale, and what are your favorite scenes and actors? What are your thoughts on season 5 and how it compares to the previous ones? Are you planning on running Dungeons & Dragons for your friends for the first time, or are you a veteran Dungeon Master already?

What shows are you binging now that you’re all done with ST, or you picking things up again from the very first episode?

Personally, I’m finding my way back into Twin Peaks, Wayward Pines, The X-Files, and Riverdale. Got any recommendations of your own? Let us know! We can’t wait to hear your perspectives.