Warning: Spoilers ahead.
The fifth and final season of “Stranger Things” debuted its first four episodes on Thanksgiving. The entire fandom has waited three years for this masterclass in production. Season 1 and 2, were focused on the characters growing up and discovering an alternate dimension called the Upside Down; followed through season 3 that acted as a time piece on the mall scene in the 80s, and focused on nostalgia. Then, season 4 in 2022, was impeccable. Viewers were engulfed by each character fighting the monster “Vecna” of the Upside Down. The creators of the show, the Duffer brothers, have made each season perfect ever since season one. So why did season five flop so much?
“Stranger Things” is a show about a group of kids and adults in 1980s Hawkins, Indiana, who battle supernatural forces and monsters from the Upside Down, after a boy, Will Byers, is taken into this dimension. As his friends, family and police look for him, they discover this eerie world. As each season progresses, the characters battle different monsters from the Upside Down.
The emotional connection to characters starts with Eleven, a young girl with powers who meets Mike, Dustin and Lucas when they’re trying to find Will. After Eleven befriends the boys, it’s so entertaining to watch them interact and grow together through the seasons. In the final season, the characters fight Vecna, the main monster of the Upside Down, who has superpowers like Eleven.
In season one, the show was limited due to budget, so the Duffer Brothers had to do what they could to make the Upside Down look real and create the “eerie vibe” the show capitalizes on. To do this, there was an immense focus on characters and their relationships with one another. You learn how to love each character because the writing was emotional, real and, above all, meticulous.
Take Steve Harrington, a character who was a stereotypical bully in season one, but slowly becomes a soft-hearted sweetie and a fan favorite by season three. The reason this show was so entertaining is that the characters’ fun personalities make the audience feel connected to certain characters.
Season 5 is so disappointing because all the character development is thrown out the window. Steve Harrington is now fighting with Dustin, his best friend, and is in a pointless love triangle with Nancy and Jonathan, which is very out of character. It also feels like a lazy attempt at creating an interesting storyline, especially since they were in a love triangle in earlier seasons, but got over it and became friends. There are multiple emotional moments with characters that feel forced, uncomfortable and make no sense.
Moreover, the baseline of good TV always starts with good writing. The earlier seasons’ writing helped form an attachment to characters paired with engaging plot lines. But this season’s writing is so bad that the plot doesn’t make sense. The dialogue is quick and corny, so emotional moments fall flat. The whole last season feels like a scramble to finish the show.
Additionally, with bad writing comes bad acting. The actors can’t perform well when the writing is baseline horrendous. You know the dialogue is bad when characters have to reexplain what everyone talked about to summarize the plot. There is no audience action, because the plot is being explained to us, instead of letting viewers discover for themselves what is going on with context clues. It’s hard to watch and insanely cringeworthy. ChatGPT could write a better script.
Also, the special effects in this season are visibly bad. You can clearly tell that the characters are on a green screen when they are in the Upside Down, which has never been an issue in earlier seasons. It’s so obviously fake-looking that it’s extremely disappointing, especially considering the immense budget Netflix gave them for this season.
Apart from this, there was a giant cliffhanger in season four that was poorly and lazily addressed. Season four ended with the world splitting in half, and it was merely explained with a single line: “The military took care of it.” It was confusing for audiences and annoying that people waited three years to see what happened after the cliffhanger, just for the Duffer brothers to barely address it.
Continuing on poorly explained plot lines, the group goes on “crawls” to find Vecna in the Upside Down. This was supposed to be the main plot line of the show, but ended up being super unclear. Hopper and Eleven get stuck in the Upside Down during a crawl, and end up fighting the military for no reason. The plot is all over the place, and it made the show lose its charm and personality. It’s turned into a superhero show now. I don’t know why Eleven is training to be a Jedi and jumping over buses. As well as bringing back pointless characters from earlier seasons like Kali from season two, who really has no importance to the story whatsoever yet.
Ultimately, the show lost its charm and disappointed an enormous fan base that had been in love with the show since the first season was released in 2016. It is hard to have five seasons of a show that are all good, but “Breaking Bad” and “The Sopranos” did it. With the enormous budget Netflix gave to “Stranger Things”, it should have at least been on par with earlier seasons.
It’s also so disappointing to think that it doesn’t even matter if it’s bad because people will still watch it, and the Duffer brothers will make millions regardless. Because at the end of the day, why make good television when you could make slop that racks in the dollars?
By Sabine Crawford
