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.

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.

Here is a reason to think she didn't die:

She's is briefly shown in the truck after they leave the upside down and hit the tire strip. Without her sisters help from outside the suppression speakers, there is no way she could have made it back through the portal. When they open the truck, she's not there (or at least not visible).

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DS9UOHKjPI3/?igsh=czV1dmx0bzA2ZWY3

I had no clue I was being recorded

FL_Ag1998 said:

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See guys, that's what I'm talking about. You're focusing waaaaaaay too hard on specifics which, I hate to break it to you, don't matter. You're walking around examing imperfections on every single tree instead of simply enjoying the forest.

That's why Seasons 4 and 5 declined in quality from Season 1-3, the writers got too wrapped up in writing a Sci-Fy show and forgot they were supposed to be writing a show about friendship and growing up.

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Yep. For me, the rule of cool applies. I thought the final fight scene was cool as hell, plot holes aside.


That said, it was the writers' own damn fault for introducing so many stories running alongside each other. Of course there are going to be a large group of people analyzing everything and pointing out all of the plot holes.

I wonder if Directors appreciate all these things that are left hanging but decide they can't address everything so well just gloss over it.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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See guys, that's what I'm talking about. You're focusing waaaaaaay too hard on specifics which, I hate to break it to you, don't matter. You're walking around examing imperfections on every single tree instead of simply enjoying the forest.

That's why Seasons 4 and 5 declined in quality from Season 1-3, the writers got too wrapped up in writing a Sci-Fy show and forgot they were supposed to be writing a show about friendship and growing up.

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That's not fair, though.

The Duffurs famously told us to, quote, "Pay attention to the details" in season 2 and then again in 3.

Man this feels like a full write it in for $$$. They teased who would die in interviews forever.

No one I guess. Not even El for sure.

This board hasn't even discussed the play and the finale.

bjork said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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See guys, that's what I'm talking about. You're focusing waaaaaaay too hard on specifics which, I hate to break it to you, don't matter. You're walking around examing imperfections on every single tree instead of simply enjoying the forest.

That's why Seasons 4 and 5 declined in quality from Season 1-3, the writers got too wrapped up in writing a Sci-Fy show and forgot they were supposed to be writing a show about friendship and growing up.

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That's not fair, though.

The Duffurs famously told us to, quote, "Pay attention to the details" in season 2 and then again in 3.

Man this feels like a full write it in for $$$. They teased who would die in interviews forever.

No one I guess. Not even El for sure.

This board hasn't even discussed the play and the finale.

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The play is absurd now.

He went to the Abyss and come back with powers in the play.

Now it's the rock in a hole.

Actual insane incongruity.

But they plugged Joyce in the high school finale flashback to back the play. What the actual **** are they doing?

Agreed. I don't care if Will is gay or if he comes out, just make it a reasonable part of the show. Robin's coming out was perfect and it actually added to the show because it changed the relationship between her and Steve and it was more interesting. Will's was just bs.

G.I.Bro said:

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Just finished, overall I enjoyed my time with the series. My biggest complaint was how they retconned vecna into everything. I get that once the mystery behind the upside down and everything are known you gotta go bigger, and wanting a humanoid, speaking villain after 3 seasons of a voiceless one was probably a smart move, but I feel like they could have introduced him to the world better. I liked the lore behind the first few seasons, the govt doing shady experiments trying to enhance the mind is grounded enough in reality to be interesting. The experiments succeed and your metahuman crosses a different dimension when she sends her mind out, caught the attention of some monster that lives in said dimension, and it follows her back and starts doing monster stuff. Simple but interesting. Making the drug experiments fake and come to find out it was some other dudes blood, we were never really actually after the Soviets and found the upside down, people knew it was there and we were looking for patient zero the whole time. There was way too much "such and such wasn't what we thought it was". I just think they went too overboard with the retconning, it feels like they didn't have the vecna origin story set up when they made the first three seasons and tried too hard to convince everyone it was that way all along

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I can't say for certain that they knew he was Vecna properly, but in 2016, Gaten said on some talk show that there were other numbers, one was #1, he was banished to the upside down and had started transforming into a monster. I don't remember what talk show it was, but I've seen the clip and you can hear young MBB gasping when he says it.

Totally agree. The sci-fi part of the plot was fine until they went overboard with all of the stuff you mentioned. Once they started down that overly complicated rabbit hole they lost their bearings and the show suffered.

Will have more thoughts later, but I thought the upside down being a worm hole felt a little weak sauce. The whole being stuck in time thing ended up being irrelevant, and all the clues pointing towards time travel ended up being red herrings.

Did not understand the white goop.

And the exotic matter just existing without explanation bothered me.

But the finale itself was emotionally satisfying for the most part.

I give the season a 7.5 overall. The weakest season imo, but still pretty enjoyable and a solid sendoff for our characters.

RightWingConspirator said:

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Aside from the gay agenda which we can all just agree to disagree, the worst part of this show is that god-awful Kate Bush song. That song makes men want to kick the television off the wall. Am I the only one?

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That song was God awful when it came out in the 80s. Still God awful today.

Placebo did a really nice cover of that song that's better IMO.

I don't feel like reading through this entire thread, so will just post my thoughts on Season 5.

Finished the series. Season 5 was clunky and definitely not perfect. Some of these "emotional" scenes they tried to hamfist into the final episodes just seemed weird. Overall, there were things I liked and things I didn't. It was entertaining enough for me to be more positive than negative.

The gay thing is what it is. I agree with the above poster that I would have been perfectly fine with it if it had been something Vecna more blatantly used to control him, thereby making it an actual important plot point. Anyone expecting to watch a Netflix show and not get a queer character is just looking to get upset. Netflix will not greenlight any new show or movie unless it has some form of alphabet mafia representation. There was literally a Catholic group trying to make a movie about a biblical story and the Netflix execs told them they didn't want it unless they put a queer character in it.

I'm not a fan of it all, but I opt to just deal with it if the quality of the show/movie overshadows my annoyance. Now, if this policy by Netflix ends up being a pre-requisite for every other studio, thereby shutting down anyone who isn't interested in including that into their movie/show, then I will have a problem with it.

CharleyKerfeld said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Did not understand the white goop.

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When a man and a woman love each other very much ...

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They really thought it was a good idea to film a scene where Jonathan is lying on the floor and wakes up to white liquid dripping onto his face. I mean, really?

I don't have a problem with gay/trans characters in a show as long as it doesn't feel forced. One of my favorite characters in a Netflix show was the trans character in Squid Games. Because they wrote the character themselves to be a great character who just happened to be trans. It felt more organic versus trying to force an agenda of some kind.

Oh yeah… They never talked about Max's letters?!!

I get that she didn't die, but, what in the world did she say? I guess nothing of substance since she was just a random kid and had no relevance to past history or story.