Stranger Things

Season 5

Thaddeus Appleton

I had initially come into writing this review expecting to be fairly cruel towards this season of Stranger Things. The bloated cast and (what to me felt like) rushed storylines this season left a somewhat bad taste in my mouth. I did not particularly care for many of the sideplots (do they count as sideplots?), like the one with Erica and Murray, running throughout the season, and I really just wanted it to be over. It is true, I do believe that the show should have ended four seasons ago, and that the monster fight with the Mind Flayer and Vecna was far too superhero-esque and, to be frank, dumb. However, the heartwarming last thirty minutes or so of the final episode made me smile. Something in those final minutes of the—far too long—finale touched me. Maybe it was seeing the characters I had grown up with finally achieve their happy endings, maybe it was the heartfelt conversation between Mike and Hopper, or the description Mike gave of the party’s futures, maybe it was a combination of all that and more, or maybe something else entirely. I don’t know. What I do know is that the last half-hour was the best part of the whole season—in a good way, and it did make the whole season, and all those leading up to it, worth it for me. Goodbye Stranger Things, I can’t say it has always been great, but I’m glad I saw it through.