A decade ago, the first season of “Stranger Things” dropped on Netflix, starting a fandom that would explode in popularity as time went on. For some fans, this series has been a part of their lives for 10 years, and many teens have grown up watching the show. Personally, I have many fond memories watching “Stranger Things” with my dad throughout middle school.
With the release of the fifth and final season of “Stranger Things”, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the show. Many fans are unhappy with the ending, as the internet is flooded with negative reviews and opinions. Despite this, I feel as though there were many things done well during this popular series’ finale.
I am in the minority of viewers who enjoyed “Stranger Things 5”, so I want to share some of the elements that particularly stood out to me. Before I go on and get into the details, I’d like to make it clear that there will be many spoilers ahead. If you haven’t watched Season 5, I would highly recommend that you stop reading to avoid this. Now that that has been established, let’s jump right in.
“Stranger Things” is well-known for its lovable characters. They move the story forward and make the viewers care about what’s happening on-screen. It’s rare for me to become attached to nearly every character in a TV series, and yet “Stranger Things” has accomplished this feat. It’s not only the singular characters that define the show, but also the relationships between them. Whether it be Nancy and Jonathan, Hopper and Eleven or the original group of kids, all of them have a dynamic that feels real.
Almost everyone I know who has watched the show has a favorite friendship or romantic relationship. Senior Mykel Gonzalez, who has been watching the series since the release of the first season, has always been a fan of Steve and Dustin.
“[They] were the best duo through and through,” Gonzalez said. “I’m not gonna lie, it even made me kind of sad at the end when they were beefing, but I’m glad they worked through it.”
Steve and Dustin definitely earned the title of “Best Friendship” for me as well. Their banter is funny and quippy, adding some levity to a show that would otherwise be very grim. Although “Stustin” struggled quite a bit during the first half of Season 5, I was satisfied with the resolution of their issues.
The believability of these characters could not have been accomplished without good acting. All of the cast in “Stranger Things” is talented at their craft, portraying unique characters with their own personalities and viewpoints.
A good chunk of the actors playing leading roles have spent 10 years of their life honing their characters, and I think that really comes through during this final season. Season 5 brought many emotional scenes to the table, and the acting was superb in all of them.
“[The acting] was very heartfelt, like you could feel everything that was happening,” Gonzalez said.
Admittedly, the writing might have been a little iffy in some of those moments (ahem, Will’s coming-out scene), but that’s not any of the actors’ faults; they were only following the script and directions given.
As most people know, there were three separate volumes of episodes for Season 5. I think they all slightly vary in caliber, and my favorite was definitely the release of Volume 1. After waiting so long for this season, the delayed gratification benefitted my enjoyment of these episodes greatly. I appreciated the immediate jump into action during Episode 1 and getting to see all of my beloved characters again. But what really made it for me was the battle at the end of Episode Four, “Sorcerer”. I don’t think anyone can deny that Will’s power reveal was an excellent plot twist, and as a viewer, I found it very satisfying. To be honest, it was the highlight of the season for me. Gonzalez shares a similar opinion.
“Once [Will] started using his powers on the first demogorgon, it gave me goosebumps,” he said. “But when he was controlling three at a time, me and my brother were both jumping up and down.”
Now, I need to talk about the final episode of Season 5. For many fans, it was a huge let-down. There were many plotholes (even I will admit that) and the boss fight wasn’t quite long enough. But I still enjoyed it, despite some of its issues. One particular scene from the finale stood out to Gonzalez.
“They ended Vecna with [Joyce] going all out on him,” he said. “Now that was amazing. That was definitely the right call.”
I would have to agree. The whole show started with the disappearance of Will Byers, so it was very memorable when Joyce finally got revenge on Vecna for all he’d done to her son.
After the boss fight, there was a significant amount of time left in Episode 8 dedicated to wrapping up the stories of the various characters. Ethan Van Winkle, a science teacher at LSE, enjoyed this aspect of “Stranger Things 5”.
“A lot of finales usually don’t give each character or each group of characters their own little send off,” Van Winkle said. “I felt like it did a good enough job with that.”
It was meant to give viewers closure, and for me, that was accomplished. I always love it when there is time spent at the end of a story, after the climax, that shows the characters in the aftermath of what happened.
All in all, I believe that “Stranger Things 5” received an excessive amount of negative reviews – even though I will admit that some of them were warranted. However, when I watch a TV show, I don’t watch it to nit-pick every single little detail: I watch it for entertainment. I’m a glass-half-full kind of person, so I try not to let the weak points of a series overshadow the more numerous things that I enjoyed.
