WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5, including for the ending. It also deals with sensitive themes, including suicide.

Stranger Things will likely be known as one of the defining shows of our generation. Running for a total of nine years and ending on its fifth season, many viewers had high expectations, especially considering the high stakes and many questions left behind after the Season Four finale. However, there were many fans left disappointed after the final episode. This article will unpack potential reasons why that may be.

Not enough character death?

Going into Season 5, I was fully expecting to get my heart broken. I was certain at least one of the Core Four (the original D&D party – Will, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin), or at least one of their family members, were doomed. Instead, there were very few deaths. In fact, the only major characters to die are Vecna (obviously), Jane, and Kali. Everyone was expecting Vecna’s death, and it was the only way to successfully and satisfactorily end the story, so I won’t talk much on that. Jane and Kali, however, showcase a different story. Jane and Kali have both been abused, mistreated, and traumatized their entire lives, arguably more than anyone else in the show, possibly excluding Will. Out of anyone, they absolutely deserved a happy ending. Instead, the story insists that the only way for them to successfully heal from their trauma is to commit suicide. I’m sorry, what? What kind of message does that send to the viewers? The only characters to die are the traumatized young girls, while everyone else gets to live long, happy lives. This might have been seen as acceptable if more characters had died, but as it stands, I find it repulsive. This brings me back to my original point – very few characters died or were even seriously injured at all. The stakes in the finale felt incredibly low, and thus the final battle felt unearned and, frankly, boring. Vecna was easy to kill, and the fight took roughly 30 minutes in total (depending on where you measure its starting point). For a show that spent four seasons building up how formidable and practically undefeatable its villains were, such low stakes felt like a huge letdown.

Poor Dialogue

The dialogue writing in Season Five felt severely lacking. For starters, Jane’s dialogue in this season felt as if she had regressed back to roughly her Season Three language skills. She had made major progress in learning to speak in Season Four, just to somehow lose said progress for some unknown reason. In fact, much of the dialogue this season felt forced and a bit corny, a bit like a Disney Channel flick as opposed to the finale of one of the most influential shows of our generation. Take, for example, Will’s coming out scene. While Noah Schnapp’s physical acting was phenomenal, the actual writing of the scene felt a bit ridiculous. There were far too many people in the room, including those he barely knew or had just met. The context of the scene is additionally rather offensive. Will is one of the show’s main characters and deserved his coming-out scene to be intimate and meaningful, as opposed to a group event inspired by the fear of his abuser. Another example of questionable dialogue is the multiple phallic jokes made by Robin, who is the show’s token lesbian character. Having the only lesbian character be the one to make all those jokes felt like an odd choice to me.

Unsatisfying Character Development

Another problem this season seemed to be the pervasive mischaracterization of the show’s main cast. Take Joyce, for example. Sure, Jonathan has always been a bit of a glass childand Joyce has always been rather overprotective of Will. But this season, instead of subtly hinting at these underlying conflicts, the show spoon-feeds them to you, painting Joyce as simultaneously neglectful of Jonathan and overbearing towards Will. At the same time, Joyce’s own trauma feels rather overlooked. Mike is another example of this mischaracterization. While I do feel that the writers did justice to him in the beginning of the season, by Volume Two, he seemed to have lost his personality entirely. By the end of the show, he couldn’t even tell Jane he loved her back to keep her from committing suicide. I also found his “best friends” line insulting, as it has been apparent from at least Season Three onwards that Will has had romantic feelings for Mike. Therefore, for him to lead him on, even if only for a second, felt cruel. Ultimately, the show spent four seasons building up Will’s feelings for Mike, only to reduce them to a hallway crush in the end and leave his ending ambiguous, possibly ending up with an unnamed, random man in a gay bar in an unknown city. To me, this is a repeating pattern with Stranger Things’ Queer characters, as evidenced by Robin and Vickie’s relationship. Robin and Vickie’s relationship was developed entirely offscreen, shown briefly, and then implied to have broken up offscreen in the epilogue.

Is he going to mention Byler…?

Yes, I am going to mention Byler, but only as a stepping stone for a broader message. I ultimately didn’t really care whether Will and Mike ended up in a relationship. All I wanted was for Will and Robin to get the well-written Queer storylines they deserved, and I was let down. I do believe that could’ve happened without any “ships,” so to speak, though it would’ve been the easiest solution. I, as a Queer person, am tired of seeing the same story of learning to love yourself despite no one loving you in return, at least romantically. I want to see Queer love stories, I want to see Queer characters in mainstream TV, and I want to see Queer individuals existing and loving each other while also fighting interdimensional demons. Again, I don’t think it had to be Mike and Will. All I wanted was a satisfying, happy ending for these characters that meant so much to so many and provided much-needed representation for marginalized communities.

Edited and Reviewed by Zoe Carter