The long-awaited finale of Stranger Things left a bitter taste in the mouths of fans across the world; and rightfully so. In fact, the show’s devoted fanbase created a viral theory online, dubbed #conformitygate, that a secret ninth episode would be released. This of course did not happen, leaving fans even more disappointed.
The fifth season picks up 18 months after the events of season 4. Hawkins is under military lockdown, with the Vecna-made rifts in the ground seen at the end of season 4 now patched up with metal sheets. The previous season finale indicated that an apocalypse-like scenario was going to take place, but instead everybody is going about their lives as normal. Everyone apart from the Hawkins crew, who of course know the truth.
The first volume of episodes set the scene as well as it could’ve done. Highlights include the Demogorgon attack on the Wheeler household, masterfully paired with Abba’s Fernando in a jarring contrast. Everything else is forgettable, really. The dialogue is worse than ever, and the actors clearly want to be anywhere else than on that set. Oscar-nominee Winona Ryder especially, who was disappointingly reduced to just Will’s overbearing mother.
It only went downhill from there. Volume 2 and 3 saw an even further decline in the quality of writing, with the finale leaving fans with more questions than answers. The CGI is shockingly bad at times, despite the season reportedly costing almost $500 million to produce.
Killing Eleven couldn’t have been a worse decision. According to the show’s creators Matt and Ross Duffer, Eleven represents “the magic of childhood,” and her dying was necessary in order for the other characters to “move on.” Though they try to give an ambiguous ending for the character, it was still a cruel ending for a character who has been abused her whole life.
The writing generally felt lazy and soulless. Fans were promised a return to the small-town feeling of season 1, but the final result couldn’t be further than that. Stranger Things was an immediate hit back in 2016 because of how grounded it felt; the characters felt real and relatable, and at the core of this sci-fi show was a coming-of-age story. It was also genuinely scary. Although Jamie Campbell-Bower’s performance in the season is one of the best, Vecna as the main villain just feels a bit…silly.
Comparing the earlier and later seasons makes you wonder how on earth the writers of season 5 were the same as the ones who wrote earlier seasons. Some fans have gone as far as theorising that Leigh Janiak, ex-wife of Ross Duffer, ghostwrote the show prior to their divorce, and others have theorised that they stole the script idea from someone else. This hasn’t been proven, but clips from the behind-the-scenes documentary One Last Adventure don’t exactly paint them in the best light. In fact, they admit to going into production on the season before writing the ending, and in response to the many plotholes, they respond with “it happened off screen.”
Season 5 wasn’t all bad, and did have its moments of enjoyability. The majority of it, though, just feels like watching something written in three weeks, not three years. It lacks everything that made the show so beloved. The love and care poured into the characters has now been poured into maxing out Netflix’s bank account as much as it can. Just because you have the budget to use CGI for every scene doesn’t mean you should.
Image credits – The Movie DB
