The Stranger Things finale was beautiful – people need to stop complaining

After nearly a decade, the Duffer brothers’ supernatural Netflix series, Stranger Things wrapped up its storyline with a mammoth two-hour long episode that was, quite frankly, moving.

*Warning: spoilers ahead for the final episode of Stranger Things 

If you’re like me and you watched the season-ender on a hangover while recovering from New Year’s Eve celebrations, the chances are that you sobbed your way through all 125 minutes of Upside Down madness.

But following its rather unsuccessful release at 1am UK Time on New Year’s Day, a worrying amount of hate has already been levelled against the finale.

During the final season’s run, there’s been petitions to get ‘deleted scenes’ released, accusations of co-stars harassing each other and even a critical tweet from Elon Musk. Viewers have called out the show’s supposedly sloppy dialogue, dodgy CGI and inconsistent plot lines.

However, I’m here to urge you to look past the latest season’s minor faults and enjoy the much larger picture. 

Namely, we should all be thanking our lucky stars that this miracle of a series was made in the first place, seeing as the brothers were rejected over a dozen times before Netflix, let alone producing five seasons and keeping together the original cast.

For all its arguable missed opportunities, season five of Stranger Things showcased the show’s electric ability to propel you through action.

When the gears really got turning in both Vol. 1 and 2, there’s no show quite like Stranger Things when it moves at a ferocious pace. I don’t think anyone saw Mrs Wheeler’s fight with the demogorgons coming.

This finale, which I believe had the best interests of fans at its heart, also let us say goodbye to this wonderful cast of actors that we’ve had the pleasure of growing up with. 

Being able to see the party graduate high school, Steve get his deserved peace, and Hopper and Joyce finally get their Enzo’s date, was the ending we deserved. 

The emotion in this final episode was arguably one of the most powerful in TV history, I don’t know what more the fans could have asked for. 

It’s frankly bizarre to ignore quite how much this episode managed to wrap up such as the kid’s (hopeful) futures and Henry’s origin story. 

All while still maintaining a level of intrigue whether Eleven truly did disappear or if Mike’s theory in the final game of Dungeons and Dragons is just a coping mechanism to help him deal with grief.

Like every television show ever made, season five of Stranger Things (shock horror) is obviously not without fault. 

Users on X (formerly Twitter) have been quick to point out the overly easy demise of Vecna and the Mind Flayer, compared to previous showdowns. There was also a noticeable lack of main character deaths in this series, which many may arguably feel was a missed opportunity to pull on our heart strings even further.

Personally, I’ve cried enough at TV this year (I’m still not over Joel’s death in the Last of Us). But the point still remains that it felt strangely wrong to see the entire cast standing there by the end.

For a show that had a number of deaths and suffering in season four, it was certainly a surprise that nearly everyone escaped the Upside Down with only a scratch. 

There were also certain music choices, such as Purple Rain, in particularly emotional scenes that slightly took me out of the moment, in the final episode. 

And throughout this latest season, you could certainly make the argument that the colour grading and more consistent use of CGI does appear more artificial, especially compared to the excellent use of lighting in the first season.

But to criticise certain plot directions and particular scenes misses the entire point of what this latest season of Stranger Things has been and what an accomplishment it has been.

Perhaps more than any other show I have ever seen, watching Stranger Things feels like catching up with your old friends. The final scene of Mike looking at his younger sister Holly and her friends play Dungeons and Dragons before they head to college was life-affirmingly heartwarming.

So, before you choose to focus on the valid issues within this piece of art, remember to enjoy it, because shows like this don’t come around very often.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing M.Navarrogriffiths@metro.co.uk. 

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