What Happened in the Series Finale? Montauk project vibes
Published by RawNews1st
After five seasons ā spread across nearly 10 years ā the āStranger Thingsā creatorsĀ Matt and Ross DufferĀ concluded their enormously popular Netflix show on Wednesday much the way they began it. Although the brothersā budgets have gotten bigger, their aims have remained mostly the same: to tap intoĀ their core influencesĀ (Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, teen comedies and āDungeons & Dragonsā) and tell the story of a handful of brave young people in the 1980s, protecting their small town of Hawkins, Ind., from monsters.
The problem is thatĀ “Stranger”Ā possibly can’t end with any sort of satisfaction. It’s become far bigger than its humble origins. At one point, this was a small sci-fi show that paid homage to 1980s movies like “ET.” Now it’s a money-making machine that’s more CGI than human, that keeps flashing to a kid wearing an “ET” shirt.
Subtlety, surprise and nuance are gone, replaced with beheaded villains and bad metaphors. But while disappointing and somewhat limp, the finale, at least, wasn’t a disaster. Better to be remembered as a small disappointment than a massive failure.
Whatever “Stranger” was, it is finally over and done with. And maybe we can stop pretending Millie Bobby Brown and friends are still teenagers now.
The episode picks up right where the second part of the season left off on Christmas Day, with the majority of the gang in the Upside Down on a Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) hunt while he tries to end the world. His seance of doom is … well, creepy.
But it appears to be slowly moving Vecna’s planet towards the Upside Down and then our very own planet, which just can’t be good for anyone.
In the real world, the plan is not going very well. The military found Erica (Priah Ferguson) and Mr. Clarke’s (Randy Havens) hideout and a van with the Squawk’s logo. The radio station just happens to be where Vickie (Amybeth McNulty) and Max (Sadie Sink) are camped out, radioing the team in the Upside Down for nervous updates.
They’ve split up down there: Half of the team starts climbing the radio tower for Steve’s (Joe Keery) wackadoo plan, and it’s just like Steve and Jonathan did in the first episode of the season. Symmetry is fun, guys!
The other half of the team, which includes Hopper (David Harbour), El (Brown), Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) and, of all people, Murray (Brett Gelman), is bound for Hawkins Lab and the sensory deprivation chamber. El and Hopper both make sweeping promises to each other to focus on killing Vecna over everything else, including destroying Dr. Kay’s (Linda Hamilton) lab.
