*SPOILERS AHEAD*

After almost 10 years of running, the hit Netflix series has come to a close with the final episode of Stranger Things released on December 31, of 2025. The build up to the conclusion of the fifth season was heightened further by the staggered release of the episodes: Four episodes were released on Thanksgiving, three on Christmas, and the finale on New Year’s Eve. While the anticipation was at the maximum, the delivery was widely regarded as lackluster.

If you’re unfamiliar with the show, the plot essentially follows an 80’s friend group as their small town Hawkins is slowly overtaken by monsters from a different dimension, resulting in the destruction, death, and a wider mystery to undercover magical protagonist Eleven’s backstory and powers. Although the ensemble cast faces many adversaries throughout the series, season five mainly focuses on defeating Vecna — a former science experiment turned supervillain. 

After four other seasons with an overall very strong quality of production, acting, and storytelling, season five had high expectations placed on it by both critics and viewers. Although the series is not revolutionary when it comes to writing quality, the preceding seasons were generally very entertaining, especially the first season.

Mainly, what made the series so effective in the beginning was a slow revealing of new monsters, intrigue, and performances (something that was made even more impressive as the early seasons relied almost entirely on child actors). However, the final season not only fell flat in terms of performances, but writing as well. Not only was the dialogue repetitive and had relatively little substance, but the show’s lore and world building felt very rushed and convoluted.

The first volume of the season started pretty strong, effectively setting the tone for what the audience expected to be a brutal, hard battle to end Vecna and his minions. For example, The Turnbow Trap, the third episode, was dynamic, exciting, while also still having the same humor that carried much of the first couple seasons (mainly due to the new character Delightful Derek, played wonderfully by Jake Connelly). This continued up until the beginning of volume two, which quickly began to show the writing and performance errors. 

For instance, Will Byers’ coming out scene, although having good build up from past seasons, was close to terrible. Will’s actor, Noah Schnapp even came out after the release of the episode, saying that certain aspects made him unsure when he first read the script. 

As for the actual events of the final episode, the premise of the final episode climaxed with a classic showdown full of convoluted plans and high stakes fights over roughly two hours. Although the goal of the characters was to successfully annihilate Vecna, there was  distinct lack of death in the finale. It may sound cruel, but the squad chosen to head into the villain’s domain and kill him consisted of about a dozen people, and only two of them died. This severely diminished the intensity of the episode. 

Additionally, one character who died, Kali, was introduced in a prior season as somewhat of a side character used for plot development, and she was only reintroduced in season five to prevent the death of the main character. Regarding the main character Eleven, her moment of death was ambiguous and strange, leaving room for the other characters to hint at a theory that she may have survived, which they unanimously agreed to be the truth. If Eleven canonically survived, then the only death was that of Kali, an underdeveloped side character.

The death of the villain itself was also a bore. It was chock full of near death experiences, but of course, none of those sparked any genuine engagement since the audience knew very well that the writers would never kill off their favorite characters. Once the main squad finally got to Vecna, Joyce, the mother of a character who was a victim of Vecna in the first season (but who, of course, survived), chopped his head clean off, and that was it. 

Also, the acting itself leaves something to be desired. Robin, played by Maya Hawke, has devolved from her character’s debut in the third season. She was originally a mysterious yet likable character with funny quips that solidified a sassy persona, but by the fifth season, she morphed into a more one-dimensional character, primarily functioning as a therapist to coach Will through coming out. 

In addition to Hawke’s performance, acting from Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), and Noah Schnapp all felt very one note. Not only that, but when paired with extremely repetitive dialogue, any scenes that aren’t pure fighting tend to be very boring. 

Despite these blunders, the second half of the finale does evoke a sense of nostalgia for the viewers. After seeing the ensemble cast of characters graduate high school, the series ends with the main four protagonists playing Dungeons and Dragons, the game that inspired the monsters of the show and ties in heavily to the plot. 

This positivity and reliance on nostalgia would be a good note to end the show on, but the technical and performance issues make it hard to look back on the final season with any sort of praise or good will. Stranger Things is an incredible series, but unfortunately, the ending left a stain that is hard to undo.