Stranger Things’ delivers emotionally satisfying finale

CEBU, Philippines — It’s been a running joke on the internet that it took almost a decade for the five-season run of “Stranger Things” to finally wrap up, to the point that fans measure the show’s timeline by major cultural events to determine just how long the show took to conclude.

In the time it took for “Stranger Things” to finish, the United States went through four presidencies. The United Kingdom saw the deaths of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II, leading to King Charles III taking the throne. Taylor Swift released seven albums and four re-recorded albums.

From a local perspective, the longest-running teleserye “Ang Probinsyano” wrapped up its seven-year run two months after the blockbuster Netflix series aired its penultimate season in 2022. Kapamilya love teams KathNiel, JaDine, and LizQuen all saw both their rise and eventual end during the time “Stranger Things” was still being developed.

The highly anticipated final season was released on Netflix in three batches: the first four episodes on November 26, the remaining three on December 25, and its two-hour series finale on New Year’s Day in the Philippine.

Spoilers ahead, as the fifth season of “Stranger Things” will be discussed extensively.

 Likable characters to the end

Set in 1987, “Stranger Things 5” picks up a year after the epic events of the fourth season, where Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) successfully splits Hawkins, Indiana, into four despite being mortally wounded.

The town is under quarantine, with the red cracks covered by a metal-like material. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) goes into hiding as the military continues tracking her down, while the rest of the gang make their final moves to defeat Vecna once and for all.

At the same time, several characters are dealing with personal struggles. Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) become overly protective of their respective children, Eleven and Will (Noah Schnapp). Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) stays by a comatose Max (Sadie Sink) in the hospital, hoping she can wake up. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) continues grieving the death of the town’s most-hated person, Eddie (Joseph Quinn).

There remains an awkward distance between Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) as Steve (Joe Keery) re-enters the picture anew. Will is still coming to terms with his homosexuality, while Robin (Maya Hawke) navigates her extraordinary life alongside her romance with Vickie (Amybeth McNulty), a nurse, in the challenging social climate of the 1980s.

What hooked viewers in the first place was the show’s growing list of likable characters. Even newer players such as Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Nancy’s younger sister, Holly Wheeler — now with an expanded role played by Nell Fisher — as well as Jake Connelly as Derek, managed to leave strong impressions on audiences despite appearing so late in the show.

This is perhaps why killing characters off purely for shock value wouldn’t make sense, despite fan expectations. The number of characters killed does not make for a good finale; how the show naturally concludes their character arcs is what matters most.

A hero’s sacrific

Out of the ensemble cast, Eleven, Will, and Vecna undergo the most crucial character developments.

Having been kidnapped by a Demogorgon early in the show, Will becomes a key figure in the series’ eleventh hour. He remains marked by Vecna due to his still-vulnerable state — a personal battle he must face on his own for the gang to have a fighting chance while Eleven is out of reach.

Much of Will’s character development hinges on coming to terms with his sexuality and his implied feelings for Mike, which he must face in order to overcome his fears and confront Vecna mentally.

The scene itself feels somewhat corny in execution, as it would have benefited from involving only a few people most important to Will rather than the entire group, which included Eleven’s long-lost friend Kal (Linnea Berthelsen), who had never met Will prior to these events. Still, considering how rampant homophobia was in the '80s, Will’s coming-out scene remains a crucial moment of representation for the LGBTQIA+ community and fits naturally within the narrative.

As for Vecna, the series further elaborates on his backstory as Henry (Jamie Campbell Bower) by revealing his greatest fear involving a cave. It is there that Henry obtained his powers from a powerful rock from outer space, locked inside a briefcase carried by a double agent who shot him in the hand. Because the injury was fresh, the wound became an entry point for the Mind Flayer to infiltrate Creel when he held the rock.

While acknowledging that he was a victim of the Mind Flayer’s influence, Vecna still chooses to side with the monstrous entity. His justification is that humanity is beyond redemption — and that he never truly controlled the Mind Flayer, just as the Mind Flayer never controlled him, because they are “one.”

This came as a sigh of relief for many viewers who feared Vecna would receive a sudden redemption arc — an outcome that would not make sense given the numerous deaths he committed.

The show offers a rare portrayal of how villains become one: while they may be victims of their circumstances, how they choose to act moving forward ultimately defines their morality. It’s a refreshing take in an era where villain turnarounds have become an overused trope in movies and TV shows.

Keeping Vecna as a villain allows Joyce Byers to deliver a satisfying final kill by beheading him after he is defeated in battle. The moment is underscored by a montage of characters killed in his name, juxtaposed with shots of those still grieving their losses.

The show’s most important character, Eleven, faces the biggest decision of all. Determined to end Vecna and the experiments committed against her and others like her, she chooses to sacrifice herself as the Upside Down is destroyed, knowing she would otherwise be hunted by the military for the rest of her life.

But Mike believes Eleven is not truly dead. The series suggests a possible outcome in which Eleven survives, theorized to be part of an elaborate plan between her and Kali. According to Mike, a dying Kali created an illusion of Eleven standing in the Upside Down portal to convince the military she had died, while the real Eleven escaped through an underground tunnel. This, he believes, allows her to live a peaceful life somewhere far away.

Eleven’s death — and the ambiguity surrounding her fate — received mixed reactions. Some viewers felt it was a cop-out, while others saw it as a fitting conclusion. Whether you believe Eleven is alive or not, one thing remains true: heroes rarely get to enjoy the rewards of their sacrifices.

This isn’t the fairy-tale ending viewers may have hoped for Eleven — a girl robbed of her childhood who experienced only brief moments of normalcy — but it is a fitting end for a character who spent her life saving those she loved. Her sacrifice is one of the few times she gets to make a decision entirely for herself, allowing her to finally feel like an adult for once.

Slippery worldbuilding?

 While the Duffer Brothers excel at crafting characters that audiences invest in emotionally, their worldbuilding leaves much to be desired.

 Many fans felt that Vecna’s role, introduced in the fourth season, was an afterthought —an attempt to give the series a menacing human face as it headed into its final stretch.

 It’s also evident in the final season that retconning was necessary to push the narrative forward. At times, it feels as though the Duffer Brothers are unafraid to break their own rules, which can be frustrating for meticulous viewers who care deeply about continuity.

 Yet despite the increasingly convoluted lore, the strength of the Duffer Brothers’ writing shines through in the emotionally satisfying resolutions.

“Stranger Things” manages to distance itself from more controversial endings, such as “Game of Thrones,” where a beloved character’s sudden descent into madness became the show’s Achilles’ heel, or the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, in which its main female character unearnedly declares herself a Skywalker.

 Despite its flaws, what ultimately makes the finale work is its faithfulness to the show’s central theme of growing up. Ending the story where it began gives the series a full-circle closure — one that makes the almost decade-long wait worthwhile.