Stream It Or Skip It?

Within a few hours of the Stranger Things series finale’s debut on Netflix, social media was exploding with speculation about what actually happened in the 2-hour episode’s last 45 minutes. We speculate below, but one thing we know for certain is that the Duffer Brothers did a good job of wrapping up a series that has been in everyone’s lives for almost a decade.

STRANGER THINGS SERIES FINALE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

It goes without saying that there are SPOILERS about the Stranger Things series finale from this point forward.

The Gist:  If you’re here, you’ve watched the Stranger Things series finale, you know what happened. The gang enter the Upside Down, trying to execute the plan Steve (Joe Keery) came up with to climb the WSQK transmitter as Vecna/Henry (Jamie Campbell Bower) brings the planets together. Meanwhile, at the lab, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) try to go into the mind of Max (Sadie Sink) so they can help release the kids Vecna is holding captive and destroy him.

As with the Volume 2 episodes, there are a lot of emotions going around, with El telling Hopper (David Barbour) to have faith in her when she says she can jump into the Abyss to help out her friends. Will (Noah Schnapp), conquering the fears that Henry took advantage of, tries to get Henry to separate himself from the Mind Flayer as Henry faces his fears in the cave. The gang, realizing that Henry and the Mind Flayer are one, spread out to combat the massive beast, with El on the inside battling Henry and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) volunteering to be bait.

After defeating Vecna, with Joyce (Wynona Rider) getting in the last whacks, everyone exits the Upside Down, with Purple Rain playing as a timer to let them get out before everything blows up. But when they’re caught by Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton), El makes the ultimate sacrifice… or does she?

What Series Will It Remind You Of? The Duffer Brothers continue to lean on Easter eggs of ’80s horror and sci fi, even in the finale of Stranger Things, and there seem to be nods to some rumored spinoffs.

Performance Worth Watching: Millie Bobby Brown has gotten a lot of flak from the show’s fans this season for a somewhat stiff performance. We’re not sure where that comes from, because El has never been an emotive sort, having grown up in a lab and everything. But in her final scene with Mike (Finn Wolfhard), where she gets into his mind as she decides to sacrifice herself (more on this in a bit), she does a hell of a job communicating to him why she’s making her choice.

Sex And Skin: None, except for El and Mike kissing as El sacrifices herself.

Our Take: Did the series finale of Stranger Things need to be over two hours long? Probably not. The postscript, taking place in a monster-free, sunny Hawkins as the “core four” and Max graduate high school in 1989, could have been summarized in less than a half an hour and had the same effect. There were still too many instances where people paused to have emotional conversations, despite, you know, a planet full of monsters was being drawn towards Earth. And while we appreciated seeing Holly (Nell Fisher) leading the kids out of Camazotz on her own, that part of the story went nowhere, as the gang released them from Vecna’s control only after he was defeated. Oh, and Steve, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Robin (Maya Hawke) and Nancy agreeing to meet up every month to reminisce, despite their varied lives, seemed unrealistic.

But none of that will matter much, because the concentration on the final D&D game, with Mike as the dungeon master and Max, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Will and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) playing in Mike’s basement, like they did at the beginning of the series. Mike has realized that there’s a very good chance that El, with the help of a supposedly-dead Kali, might still be alive, given that she got into his head without the tank and while the military’s Kryptonite disruptors were operating.

We tend to think that El is still alive, given the logic of what Mike lays out to his friends. But we also get why the Duffers have made it a theory instead of something definitive. It gives the people who want El to be still alive hope, but it also illustrates that the person from the main group who needed to make the sacrifice was El, bringing her story full-circle.

While Mike gives his theory in terms of a D&D character, the tears streaming down everyone’s faces told us they all knew whom he was talking about. They all tell him that they believe, and then put their campaign books away, while Holly and her friends start a next generation of D&D players. It’s a really powerful and poignant way to end the series, and the end-credits view of a Stranger Things RPG was a good way to illustrate what Mike likely did for a career — even though there’s also speculation out there that this whole thing was one big role-playing game.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite our complaints, the series finale of Stranger Things was a satisfying way to end Netflix’s signature series, and we’re ready to see what else the Duffers come up with

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.