Paid Members TheBurningRed Posted January 4 Paid Members Posted January 4 He’s already doing a rewatch podcast on the show. It’s like he knows he’s going nowhere. I wasn’t a fan of the finale. Too long. Some terrible acting. Overrall the fifth season wasn’t great. Remember Kali from the worst episode of the show? She became the worst character. Utterly pointless. As was Linda Hamilton hobbling around. Why wasn’t Will in pain when the Mind Flayer/Vecna was dying? Shouldn’t it have affected him? Did Dustin never tell his mother where he was? That weird yoghurt room where Jonathan was awoken being splashed in the face like Bonnie Blue was all boring and had no consequences really. I know why they did at the end with the four older ones saying they’ll meet up once a month. But why? Robin never interacted with Jonathan. Her and Nancy were barely friends. It was all rather forced. I've seen the Duffer brothers have been answering questions and most of their answers were “it happened off screen” or “make your own mind up”. Should we have wrote the fucking episode for you, lads? Nell Fisher was really good, especially in the finale. So that’s a positive. Still better than the GOT finale I suppose. Quote
Paid Members Accident Prone Posted January 4 Paid Members Posted January 4 (edited) @LaGooshhit another main takeaway there; the final battle taking place in an empty, barren alien land devoid of the big boss rush of the various demo-monsters, looking all green screened to fuck, and not actually at Hawkins, really made it feel like a slapped together compromise rather than a solid creative vision. 2 hours ago, TheBurningRed said: I know why they did at the end with the four older ones saying they’ll meet up once a month. But why? Robin never interacted with Jonathan. Her and Nancy were barely friends. It was all rather forced. I agree with this too, there was absolutely no chemistry in that scene at all. Just a bunch of one-liners and non-sequitters, the cast reading out the lines with no feeling or even relating to it. It felt very much like a crew on their last legs, just getting the job done so they can finally go home. At least nothing "too bad" happened. Like nothing really ruined the show. You can watch it from the start again and be fine knowing how it all eventually turns out. It's just that the final hours reek of backstage Hoganism, creative Nashism and political Kaneism. Edited January 4 by Accident Prone Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted January 4 Paid Members Posted January 4 Maybe I missed the explanation but didn't Hopper get shot in the Upside Down in episode 1 and 2 and was slowly bleeding out? Did he get that sorted or did they just forget about it? Quote
Paid Members TheBurningRed Posted January 4 Paid Members Posted January 4 8 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: Maybe I missed the explanation but didn't Hopper get shot in the Upside Down in episode 1 and 2 and was slowly bleeding out? Did he get that sorted or did they just forget about it? That did happen. He got two shots to his side. I can’t remember him getting it sorted. His body is made from plot armor Quote
Paid Members mim731 Posted January 4 Paid Members Posted January 4 2 hours ago, Accident Prone said: At least nothing "too bad" happened. Like nothing really ruined the show. You can watch it from the start again and be fine knowing how it all eventually turns out. If you were going to do a rewatch, a friend suggested recently you could effectively watch Season 1 and then pretty much skip season's 2 and 3 before rejoining for S4, which I think is extreme, but not totally incorrect. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 5 Paid Members Posted January 5 I haven't got to the finale yet, still one or two episodes to go, but a lot of my criticisms remain the same as they were at the start of the series - it's an overwritten, bloated mess that the writers lost the thread of ages ago. I still hate Vecna, and think making the Upside Down something connected to a gloating comic book villain rather than an unknowable other realm full of monsters and weird shit was the point of no return for the series. If they needed a human villain, they had Dr. Brenner, they had evil scientists, they had the military, all kinds of people that could do the evil monologues and exposition without having to turn the Upside Down into a big baddy's secret lair. The Upside Down in general went from this scary other place that the military and scientists were afraid to go into without hazmat suits, that seemed completely inhospitable to human life, that was crawling with monsters, to somewhere that multiple characters can just hang out and have chats for several episodes at a time, and come and go from as they please. So far there have been more monster attacks in Hawkins than in the Upside Down. It even got to the point where Max tells Holly, "go to the Upside Down, it's the same as Hawkins, and hide in your house" - the scary other dimension is now just somewhere safe for little kids to hide! The reveal that it's a wormhole/bridge to another dimension really annoyed me. What difference does it make? In terms of the actual stakes, in terms of the plot, why add a third thing? What part of the plot functions differently with it just all being the Upside Down rather than complicating it needlessly? And that's ignoring the other additional space that exists in Henry's mind. It felt like the writers ever felt the need to, or were pressured to, get bigger and bigger, and lost the point. It stopped being about smalltown kids growing up while fighting monsters a long time ago, but the last series needed to be about that, so they tagged a load of that storytelling on to scenes that were just a grab bag of sci-fi cliches, but things had got so convoluted that half of the time those scenes had to double as everything grinding to a halt so a character could spout exposition, recap the plot, or remind us of something that happened years earlier. At the same time, the writers knew that on some level the show had to be about kids, but none of the cast are kids any more, so they had to introduce a bunch of new children and expect us to care about them super quickly, despite all but two of them barely qualifying as characters at all. Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted January 5 Paid Members Posted January 5 Finished it last night, and I have to say I was under-whelmed and disappointed. I don't think it's awful, but nowhere near the promise of the first season. Will post more details later, but my main issue is this: where did the horror go? It just stopped being scary. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 5 Paid Members Posted January 5 Oh, another thing I just remembered - there was a story thread running through Series 4 of Mike basically telling El, "we're always going to get bullied at school because we're different, we're nerds, people hate us", all while Lucas was making friends outside of the group, Dustin was making friends, and generally it was only Mike and Will clinging to things staying the same. The message seemed to be "Mike is being too controlling of Eleven, and needs to give her space", but I really hoped that at some point someone would just tell him, "you're not unpopular because you're a nerd, you're unpopular because you're a smug little prick who thinks you're better than everyone else", and as far as I can remember they didn't do that and never touched on it again. Quote
Paid Members I Bent My Wookie Posted January 5 Paid Members Posted January 5 @TheBurningRed @Accident Prone I do have to disagree on not liking the roof top scene but each to their own. It did make sense to me in a way, throughout Season 4 and 5 it did feel like Robin and Nancy got closer, the trip to the college undercover, noticing the little quirks in each other that made them a little similar and really getting over the bull crap of school and realising social cliques don't really matter. There's obviously the history of Nancy, Steve and Mike and even those two from hating each other to begin with end up having more of an understanding as Steve becomes a complete 180 on the douche that was meant to die. I think the scene had to be done. Even if it felt forced. 18 months later and after everything that happened for all to be back in the same area for graduation it would have been stupider for them to not meet up and be in one place. The main characters had their own summing up, there had to be one for those who were older and wiser but witnessed the same crazy stuff. It was also kinda that moment of making plans but knowing that you're too far apart now, especially in that time frame. In 2026 I chat daily to a friend in Canada, one in Manchester, another in Bath etc. All from the touch of a button. But the realistic nature of them meeting once a month in Philly, its more of them saying goodbye as theres no real connection there bar a creepy uncles house for them to meet up. Or maybe they do, Philly is the city of Brotherly Love after all and it seems romance is dead between any of those 4 but the love is still there. Maybe its rose tinted glasses, but I do feel the scene went well, even if it has started the obvious internet rumours of a spin off. Quote
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 5 Paid Members Posted January 5 On 1/2/2026 at 7:31 PM, Hannibal Scorch said: I’d happily see a spin off with the adults having their monthly catch up. Especially if they meet up to solve crimes in a mini van. I assume this was inspired by the meme, maybe even subconsciously? It’s a pretty easy reach although I don’t entertain Daphne looking twice at Shaggy, regardless of “shared trauma.” Although the trauma of enduring Scrappy, maybe. Who in Stranger Things would be…. Dustin?? To further borrow from other people’s humour, I look forward to a spin off featuring the main fivesome reuniting in their mid-20s, which of course, the actors are already old enough to believably star in. On 1/4/2026 at 9:02 AM, LaGoosh said: I have to say when I was watching a Jedi mind battle take place inside a giant spider on the shitty empty bad CG piss planet while Super Soldier Nancy Wheeler shot it with an assault rifle all to stop a giant alien planet from crashing into Earth it did make me think perhaps the show might have lost its way at some point... The mystery of the Upside Down being revealed to be "yeah it's just a bridge, the real threat is this boring rock planet" was very disappointing. I think they made a rod for their own back. In the pre-release blurb I saw them use a line like “will completely change the way we view the Upside Down” and I thought… didn’t they do that last time? With the whole nature of it actually being a result of the mental control of 001/Henry/Vecna and that the “Mind Flayer” was his own Borg to control all along? They needed to go big AND go home so I understand why they went with “Upside Down? Tip of the iceberg” as a concept but - see below - the execution was a little flawed. And out of tone with what had come before. On 1/4/2026 at 12:31 PM, TheBurningRed said: Remember Kali from the worst episode of the show? She became the worst character. Utterly pointless. Felt very much like “everyone hated this episode so let’s at least make it a part of the story that mattered in the end game.” But it felt forced and there was way too much of a sinister air to her behaviour for what actually happened at the crunch. 23 hours ago, mim731 said: If you were going to do a rewatch, a friend suggested recently you could effectively watch Season 1 and then pretty much skip season's 2 and 3 before rejoining for S4, which I think is extreme, but not totally incorrect. 2 was watchable but to be honest, eminently skippable save what S3E01 would recap anyway. It would be easy to say similar for 3 but somewhere along the way you need to remember why you give a shit about Max & Billy, which is kind of important for “Dear Billy” being such a great episode. 7 hours ago, BomberPat said: I haven't got to the finale yet, still one or two episodes to go, (snip) The Upside Down in general went from this scary other place that the military and scientists were afraid to go into without hazmat suits, that seemed completely inhospitable to human life, that was crawling with monsters, to somewhere that multiple characters can just hang out and have chats for several episodes at a time, and come and go from as they please. Well, I don’t know if I’m spoiling much here if I dwell on the storyline explanation offered up as to the reasons why there’s a distinct lack of hostiles (army aside) in the Upside Down… but there is one. (Spoiler here to avoid, Pat, if the thread hasn’t spoiled enough) … and see above ; the big flaw in presenting an Upside Down without General Vecna and his army of toothy beasts on the principle that they all went back to base to regroup, is when you don’t have a charge of the Light Brigade for the goodies at the end. In fact, there were zero minions. Didn’t feel right, unless you subscribe to the “merged flesh” notion that what we saw at the Starcourt Mall battle holds in other dimensions and that, in fact, all available matter to the secret spider was being used in its final form ahead of the planned Terran holiday. Regardless, despite any and all logic holes, I enjoyed the show in the watching. 5 was far more consistent than 3/4 and more consequential (obviously) than 2, so I think my code is 15423. Quote
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted January 5 Paid Members Posted January 5 @air_raid it was actually based on me seeing the action figures in my local toy shop and one was a Radio Station Van playset. A van which was used but I wouldn’t say enough to warrant a toy out of it. What’s the meme? Quote
Paid Members I Bent My Wookie Posted January 6 Paid Members Posted January 6 Watched a sit down interview with Maya Hawke this morning and she mentioned how the last scene an actor filmed was their last scene on screen, which probably adds to why I liked the rooftop scene so much, because it does feel like you've 4 people close in age who have toured together, some are dating, been this secondary group for 10 years in most cases having to reflect on how much it meant but staying in character and it did feel slipping at times. I'm probably gonna do a full rewatch in Feb when its a little less fresh in the mind but I think if it wasn't so long episodically in places it would be a comfort watch. Just sometimes I don't need 2 hours of comfort for one episode. Quote
Members SuperBacon Posted January 6 Author Members Posted January 6 I don't like to be negative but for me, Maya Hawke was one of the worst actors on the entire show. Her character also regressed towards the end to the point where she was probably my least liked. Considering that when Robin first appeared she was really fun, is quite the downturn. Quote
cobra_gordo Posted January 6 Posted January 6 Erica uber alles. I enjoyed the finale, it did the job and was pretty much what I was expecting but I think that may be skewed by how much I liked the epilogue, or more realistically, how the four-hit combo of songs in it made me feel (spoiler tagged as I think it's pretty important to the episode) Spoiler Purple Rain, The Trooper, Landslide, Heroes. As soon as When Doves Cry started I had a feeling we were getting Purple Rain but still wasn't quite prepared for how misty my eyes would get with that song soundtracking the montage of clips, particularly the series 1 stuff. The Trooper speaks for itself and was a nice call-back to Eddie, Landslide always hits me like a ton of bricks as it was on the radio just after my youngest son was born and it was nice to hear the original Heroes, felt a ton more positive and uplifting than the Peter Gabriel version they'd used during the bleaker scenes in the first series, although I do prefer his version. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 7 Paid Members Posted January 7 I finished it last night, and I actually liked the epilogue, even if Peter Jackson would have been telling them to wrap it up halfway through. It felt like the show remembering that, at its heart, it's about kids growing up, and their relationships, and focusing on that without having to get too bogged down in increasingly convoluted world-building and sci-fi concepts. Some more spoiler-y thoughts: Spoiler The finale reinforced my feelings that Vecna was a mistake, and that The Abyss was an even bigger one. That the final battle took place in a new empty space that the audience have no investment in, rather than in The Upside Down or in Hawkins itself, almost completely robbed it of any feeling of catharsis or satisfaction - it should have been a fight in the Upside Down, with Demogorgons, so it felt like a full circle moment to when Hawkins first started turning weird. The only upside to having Vecna be the bad guy was to have Joyce be the one to fuck him up at the very end, but that could have been avoided had they done anything at all with Winona Ryder for this entire series, rather than just have her fretting in the background for half of it. A complete waste of a great actor. But that's what a lot of the problems come down to - the cast is too big, there are too many characters to keep track of without having to grind to a halt and have them recap or explain something, or check in with what absolutely everybody is up to. Going back to the Upside Down, I don't think there's a bigger sign that the show completely lost track of what it was about than Dustin cheerily saying, "we're going back to the Upside Down!" after beating Vecna; at no point in the show as laid out from series one should people be treating the Upside Down as somewhere safe, or somewhere they're happy to be going back to! It feels mad that you would even have to say that. I guess the US military just forgave everyone who had been fighting against, and in some cases killing, their soldiers? Once Eleven was "dead" they just decided to forgive and forget and move on? The show didn't need to be even longer and not everything needs to be explained, but it wouldn't have hurt to have thrown in a newspaper headline or a line of dialogue about whatever the government cover-up explanation for what they had been doing in Hawkins in the first place was, and how they justified leaving it all behind - or, indeed, to the existence of Demogorgons and Vecna, which have now been seen by multiple witnesses, not just a bunch of kids and unreliable mad Joyce. Speaking of Eleven being "dead", and the possible fake-out around that - it would hit a lot harder if they hadn't already bait and switched on Max being dead, and Hopper being dead maybe three times now. Overall, I don't know how much of my criticisms are the fault of the Duffer Brothers and how much are the fault of Netflix - I never know how much to believe when there are stories of Netflix telling writers to over-explain things within the show because they want people to have Netflix on all the time, so they want the shows to be easy to follow even if you're playing games on your phone or cooking food or doing something else while watching, but that would at least be one explanation for why characters have to keep explaining the plot to each other. But the real weakness of Netflix is how many constraints are removed - you can make your episodes two hours long, because there's nothing stopping you. If this were regular TV, and the episodes had to be pared down to 30-45 minutes, I think there would be a much stronger show in there with those constraints forcing them to cut the fat. Quote
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