Armed militias roam the streets fighting for something much greater than themselves. The U.S. government presence proves useless and unnecessarily violent. And a nearly decade-long saga barrels toward a dramatic, long-promised conclusion.
I’m not talking about the recent geopolitical headlines, I’m referring to the nearly six hours of television I became a hostage to over winter break while watching the final four episodes of “Stranger Things” Season Five.
The second half of this season was staggered in two volumes with episodes five, six, and seven released on Christmas Day, and the finale released on New Year’s Eve. If you are further behind than Max and her schoolwork leading up to graduation and are still watching the first half of the season (or have skipped right to the ‘good’ part), feel free to read my three-page rant endorsed by The Tribune.
Honestly, I thought the second half was okay.
I’m not sure if the writing of the final episodes improved or if my expectations were so low going into it that the bare minimum would have satisfied me; the army of incensed critics online suggests the latter. The introduction of a wormhole threatening the world was engrossing because it finally raised the stakes of the conflict beyond wanting vengeance against a scrawny white man in an outdated suit. Terrifying.
Candidly, I’m not very well versed in the science-y stuff brought forth this season (that’s why I write for the school paper), but I don’t think most people would be. Where are the Duffers even pulling a lot of this science fiction from?
With the wormhole and the exotic matter, much of the show has the feeling that the Duffers walked into a theoretical physics class and wrote down as many buzz words as possible while joking about how they could parallel the concepts to eighties paraphernalia. But then again, the show has two openly gay characters who are fully embraced during the height of the AIDS crisis–I think a little suspension of disbelief is to be expected.
Even though it improved, the writing still fell into many of the pitfalls from the first half of the season. After nine hours of the same narrative, the cyclical dialogue was nauseating. The writer’s room this season was just a barn full of one trick ponies, if the trick was writing monotonous planning sequences and training montages. Not everything needs to be a metaphor! Sometimes a bomb is just a bomb. It doesn’t have to be a record or a slinky or a bike bell or anything remotely associated with Kate Bush.
I’d like to call you all together to address the demogorgon in the room. I’d just like to formally announce that I am offended on behalf of all queer people. The one heart to heart conversation the season actually needed, was an abomination. I genuinely had trouble making it through Will’s already notorious coming out scene without cringing–and this is coming from someone who frequently plays harmonica in the hallways of a public high school.
What should have been intimate and reserved for close family or friends was crammed with every person that ever stood within five feet of Will. It is not empowering to have him omit the word gay while ostensibly talking about being gay. Nor is it empowering if the only reason Will feels compelled to come out is because his abuser, Vecna, is forcing him to do so–and for what reason? Saving the world?
One of few saving graces this season was production designer Chris Trujillo and the visual effect supervisors. The camera shots alone were an other-wordly level of cinematic but when placed in tandem to the grotesque, intestinal, apocalyptic wasteland these visionaries brought to the screen, it elevated shoddy writing to an admissible degree of bearable.
Similar to my review of Part One, there were good performances that shined through a bad script. Joe Keery as our beloved mother Steve Harrington and Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson continued to captivate viewers as a wholesome comedic duo. This season they were really pulling on the heart strings with Matarazzo particularly pulling off an authentic representation of adolescent grief.
Sadie Sink and Nell Fisher also created a compelling pair as Max Mayfield and Holly Wheeler. Fisher easily carried Holly’s rambunctious spunk, and Sink–despite cosplaying as a homeless Bilbo Baggins until the end of episode six–showed off her acting chops with a compassionate monologue. The scene where Fisher and Sink go their separate ways held similar intensity to that of previous seasons and was one of the most poignant moments of Season Five.
And then there’s the end. The finale leaves us with, brace yourself, every character still alive, excluding Eleven. While her death is undeniably sad, I could have done with a few more casualties. I’m not even counting her sister, who was so peripheral I don’t even know her name or care enough to look it up. This cast has thicker plot armour than the final battle has substance.
When Vecna was unceremoniously decapitated, I didn’t even register that the battle was over. That’s it? “Purple Rain” can’t save an uninspired plot. After five seasons and nearly fifty hours of television, my first thought was, ‘Oh, it’s over? I still have another 45 minutes left!’ Even the Duffers know that we care far more about the resolution of character arcs than their last-ditch attempt at manufacturing an entertaining conflict.
The show ends exactly when the main kids graduate, thanks to two conveniently timed 18-month jumps. The writers should help me out with my college supplementals because the finale felt like it was written solely to fill word limits. Dustin’s impassioned Valedictorian speech only muddied the show’s point further. Had I known the entire show was about nonconformity and high school clique-busting, I could have just watched “Mean Girls” and saved myself a lot of time.
Everything just seemed a little too perfect. Maybe I am one of the Conformity Gate conspiracy theorists. Imagine writing a show so clumsily that your devoted fan base is convinced a secret episode must still be coming. Did the show improve? Yes. Would I have made it this far without a journalist’s tenacity paired with deep-seated FOMO? No. In the end, “Stranger Things” Season Five completed the saga but didn’t quite stick the landing.
