I thought the finale was okay, but overall the final season was a mess. That trailer of the first 5 minutes with young Will at the beginning of the season was a harbinger of the issues that would plague this season. Too much retconning, over reliance on poorly done CGI, terrible action sequences, unnecessary exposition, and sloppy writing.

Convoluted plan explanations which once occurred twice a season, were happening twice an episode. Where Robin's coming out scene flowed nicely with the story, Will's was sloppily shoehorned at the most inopportune time in the most untactful of ways. Flanderization of Nancy and Robin (Nancy, literally turning into Rambo, murdering US military and all and Robin becoming more and more annoying). And what was up with that Max run scene in Vecna's mind? You spend half a $billion on this season and this scene looks worse than a fan made video, and markedly worse than the scene they were alluding to from last season?

Some things I did actually enjoy were the design of the physical mindflayer, Enzo dinner proposal, and ending on a final D&D campaign, but I thought much of the epilogue was overly schmaltzy, and couldn't band-aid over the damage that had been done.

Overall I'd give this season a 5.6/10. I thought the epilogue will obviously keep this from being remembered the way GoT's is, as most of the characters had satisfactory conclusions, even if a lot of it felt very fan service-y.

Ultimately, I wish they had taken more risks in the story. I wish they didn't try to (over) explain all of the mysteries and wish they had kept things a bit more grounded. But I obviously didn't create a billion dollar franchise out of thin air, so I'm not sure my opinion matters much.

AJ02 said:

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Quad Dog said:

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Brock Sampson said:

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Not only that, but how is Derek's big self fitting through that tiny hole in the rocks? Max is small and she barely fit.

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Who said he did? You never see him try. We leave the kids group in the mine and they are woken by removing the tube from their mouth in the Abyss.

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I had a question about this exact scenario. In order for Max and Holly to wake up in their real bodies, they had to jump thru the portals first. So what would've happened if all the kids hadn't found their portals first before everyone rescued them from the mindflayer? Would they have been vegetables?

And if not, what was the point of even having to exit thru the portals in the first place if simply waking them up was enough to reconnect their mind and body?

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Pure guess:
Holly and Max were trapped in Vecna's memories and went to unconscious physical bodies by going through a portal. Holly's hooked up to Vecna via tubes and Max in Hospital. Max was a unique case because she was about to be killed by Vecna, saved by Eleven, and trapped in Vecna's mind.

The rest of the kids were trapped in a dying Vecna's memories and went to their physical bodies when that body was disconnected from Vecna in the real world. (Or they went through a portal we didn't see)

So your mind can return to your body by traveling through a portal or by your physical body being disconnected from tubes???

We do know that Will in season 1 was unconscious connected to a tube when rescued by Hopper and Joyce. He awoke too without going through a portal.

Ryan the Temp said:

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fig96 said:

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Ryan the Temp said:

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RightWingConspirator said:

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a time period where these things would be considered taboo.

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Which is exactly the point of the show runners. It demonstrates how the process of coming out carried substantially more weight during that period of time than it would today. That was also why Will's secret was a big thing for Vecna to latch onto.

That being said, I didn't really like the way they did it, but the meaning behind it stands.

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Had we seen Vecna use other people's fears against them? I can't recall but could be wrong.

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Very directly against Hop in the finale.

I feel like he also did some with El related to her family and friends in other eps but can't recall specifically.

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He was using El's secret about not coming back to manipulate Hopper.

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So after Will came out, which makes Will's coming out at that time unnecessary.

kubiak03 said:

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It was all a big meh this season. Last 10 minutes excluded.

Nancy kept looking more and more like a man as the season progressed, she used to be pretty.

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She has the most aggressive jawline I've probably ever seen on a woman.

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Ryan the Temp said:

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fig96 said:

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Ryan the Temp said:

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RightWingConspirator said:

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a time period where these things would be considered taboo.

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Which is exactly the point of the show runners. It demonstrates how the process of coming out carried substantially more weight during that period of time than it would today. That was also why Will's secret was a big thing for Vecna to latch onto.

That being said, I didn't really like the way they did it, but the meaning behind it stands.

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Had we seen Vecna use other people's fears against them? I can't recall but could be wrong.

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Very directly against Hop in the finale.

I feel like he also did some with El related to her family and friends in other eps but can't recall specifically.

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He was using El's secret about not coming back to manipulate Hopper.

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So after Will came out, which makes Will's coming out at that time unnecessary.

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I think the real failure of the showrunners was not showing how Vecna was using that secret against him. Instead, they only alluded to Vecna using Will's secrets as a weapon against him, and then turned into the big, awkward coming out scene. The lack of material showing Vecna using that secret against Will definitely challenges the necessity of the coming out scene.

I liked the final season and the finale.

I didn't love the Will coming out party but that and the Max/Lucas thing seems to fit into the good vs evil and evil tries to exploit your weaknesses/greatest fears. All in all, everything in this ballpark throughout season 5 was more innuendo than in your face and I'm fine with that, even though a lot of it seemed forced and could have been done better.

Things that I liked:
1. Even though I had read it ~40yrs ago, I had to revisit Wrinkle in Time to recall the gist of that story.
2. Even though Tiffany makes me gag with a spoon, I got to listen to Iron Maiden in the finale. And although Bowie is not my wheelhouse, We Can Be Heroes is a great song.
3. I loved the D&D ending, even though I've never played that game. Mike's hope for El's fate was good, although unless Eight was a Jedi working from the afterlife, the idea that she saved her didn't work. This seemed sloppy to me as they could have left Eight mortally wounded and suffering a lingering death and made this whole concept work a lot better.
4. I wasn't sure if S5.E6 ending was more like The Shining or Jurrassic Park (with 3 velociraptors instead of just two) and how Mrs. Wheeler knew that fire (O2 canister + heat) was the best physical weapon against demagorgons, but I choose to go with it and I loved it.
5. Valevictorian speech was greatness.
6. They did not allow Mike to fall for Will.
7. The Wheeler girls were more bad ass than Sarah Conner.
8. $20 concession credit for watching in the theater.


Things that I had to get past:
1. Tiffany
2. Kate Bush
3. Will coming out scene
4. Jonathan's impact really faded. The dumbass anti-capitalism crap at the end sealed his fate.
5. The over-done "my high school science teacher was really a genius". After Breaking Bad, did we really need a rehash?


I'm missing a lot in my bullet points above. I'm sure that I'll agree with most of what others might add to my list.