With everything happening this first week of 2026, one of the hotbed issues comes from the show that sold millions of Netflix subscriptions. As we say goodbye to this iteration of Stranger Things, the fandom feels halved by those who feel the Duffer Brothers delivered on their promise of a worthwhile ending and others have experienced a bit of a letdown with the way certain story arcs were put to bed. While we all can agree that this was not as divisive as the ending of Game of Thrones or Lost of the past decades, it is nowhere close to being as universally satisfying as M.A.S.H. or Little House on the Prairie, but more the way of an emotionally cathartic farewell like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural.
For those who felt the quality of the show has been on a steady decline each season, then this will come as no surprise, but I am one of the rare viewers who liked the 7th episode of season 2. So I come to the show as one who enjoyed the 80s nostalgia as someone who lived in that time period as well as someone who knows the tumult that I was too young to see what was really happening at the time. For those fans who have grown up with the characters and also the actors & actresses playing those characters it gives them hope that there is still magic in growing up that is still waiting to be found. No doubt there is a place for criticism since to understand the full weight of Season 5 Volume 3 Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up you would have had to have seen the stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, but at the end the day that is a can of worms with loose threads galore depending on the version seen. The more cynical viewers who feel betrayed by the ending not having enough deaths have a point since we are not sure if Jane aka 11 aka El is truly dead or if her death was just an illusion by Kali aka 8 before she died with the destruction of the Upside-down and thus entry to Dimension X aka the Abyss. The mix of Stephen King grounded horror and Steven Spielberg fantastical optimism has always been a winning formula with me and it is a series that has earned its place in pop culture history. It gave us spectacle with heart and even though it was not the heart with spectacle it began with, it supplied comfort watching which was safe if not somewhat predictable. We will see how certain relationships will be re-contextualized when the animated series Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 hits Netflix in the near future.
