Warning: Includes MASSIVE SPOILERS for the Stranger Things finale!
The Stranger Things finale has been met with a wide range of feelings. There’s the general despair of another beloved show entering the history books, the sadness surrounding Eleven’s fate, and the joy of seeing characters like Lucas, Max, and Steve, and so many others, receive happy endings, even if they’re bittersweet. Then, there are the angry reactions that have led 300,000 people to sign a petition demanding more scenes, believing they should have a say in how the Duffer Brothers tell their story.
Expectation and reality can often be an issue when it comes to a drastically over-hyped final TV season or movie sequel. The primary discourse, in the case of Stranger Things Season 5, was the matter of character deaths. The series introduced the possibility of character deaths early on, with Barb being abducted and killed almost immediately. Given that this was released during the peak of Game of Thrones hysteria, it’s no wonder that audiences expected more, but the show consistently avoided killing off its long-standing cast, leading many to think that the final run would finally bring beloved characters to the chopping block.
Steve, Hopper, Joyce… The list goes on for the number of characters who could have ended their arcs with fulfilling death scenes. Instead, we had Kali, who was only in the show for a few episodes, and Eleven, whose fate was left ambiguous by the show’s ending. With all of that being said, the question we should be asking isn’t, “Why didn’t Stranger Things Season 5 have more deaths?”; it’s “Why do we want Stranger Things Season 5 to have so many deaths in the first place?”
‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Wasn’t Supposed To Be About Character Deaths
As is often the case with mass criticism surrounding a TV show, I feel that audiences have misdiagnosed the problem with Stranger Things Season 5. Again, this show began at the height of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, and shortly after Breaking Bad. This was the Golden Age of television, but also a period when shows were driven by earned shock value and plot twists. I say “earned” because shock value is often judged as a negative trait, but can be one of television’s most viable agents when utilized properly. It rarely is.
Stranger Things is a series that runs on an engine of twist-focused, suspenseful storytelling. It began as a lightning-in-a-bottle series where a child was abducted, and his friends and family had to search for him, establishing very authentic, emotional stakes that audiences could relate to. This was a coming-of-age story. A story about parenthood. A story about friendship and love. The difficulty, as we’ve seen, is maintaining that resonance when the stakes continuously increase, and the story becomes more epic.
Stranger Things went from the familiarity of Hawkins to alternate dimensions populated by horrifying fantasy creatures to… in the finale, another planet. The scope of this story went from E.T. to Aliens in the matter of five seasons, and that came with an expectation that an increased volume of characters should perish. The stakes go up, and so should the consequences. One could argue that Eleven’s death is the consequence, but when you’re watching a group of teenagers and young adults fight a giant alien spider, and not a single one of them is harmed, suspending disbelief and relating to the characters becomes much more difficult.
On the matter of character deaths in the finale, Ross Duffer explained, “I think at the end of the day, for us, the show is an adventure story. It’s a coming-of-age story,” revealing that they explored the possibilities of death, but that this series was always about the growth of these characters. This isn’t a problem with deaths; it’s a problem of scope. When you tease an epic, modern audiences expect Avengers: Endgame; they expect the Battle of the Bastards. They want to see a fatal climax and a fatal resolution. Stranger Things grew too big for its own shoes, and de-escalating an epic to return to those core, internal character stories is no easy task.
‘Stranger Things’ Consistently Used Fake Out Deaths as a Cheap Cliché
Beyond just the shift in the show’s scale, much of Season 5’s story and external marketing was centered around death. “If you die, I die,” was the central takeaway from the finale’s teaser. The Duffer Brothers teased Steve’s death on Jimmy Fallon. Even within the series, audiences endured numerous fake-outs. Karen Wheeler was left nearly dead on the floor after a 1v1 with a demogorgon, but made a full recovery by the finale. The camera cut to black as Steve fell to his death before returning, and revealing that Jonathan had caught him. Hopper “shot” Eleven before it was revealed that it was just a vision. Several characters came face-to-face with giant beasts who simply stopped to stare at them. And don’t even get me started on Max.
Even Eleven, whose death was the primary catharsis of the finale, was teased to possibly be alive. Though the Duffer Brothers have suggested that Mike’s story was just a fantasy, which is a rather lovely way of depicting grief, it still leaves the series with an open-ended possibility. Maybe Eleven is out there. You never know! When death is constantly teased, it begins to lack meaning. When characters are constantly inches from their doom, to the point where they can joke about how they’re getting used to almost dying, death is just a gag; a plot device used to make you think there’s a possibility the villain can win.
What’s striking about this is that the Duffer Brothers evidently did want to explore themes of death and grief in the finale. There’s Hopper’s narrative arc, which essentially passes down to Mike, forcing everyone to reckon with Eleven’s absence. In an eight-episode season that featured several military shootouts, monster chases, and a final battle with a giant alien on its home planet, this was by far the most beautiful, impactful part.
I don’t believe this is a problem for just Stranger Things. Hollywood has realized that, in a cultural landscape where the Red Wedding is the most iconic TV scene of the century and Iron Man’s sacrifice brought $2.8 billion in box office revenue, death is the most powerful tool. Death can be dangled just above our heads like bait; it’s the easiest form of stakes, and one that’s bound to evoke an emotional response even in the least relatable situations. Unfortunately, when the story plays with it so much, it ceases to mean anything.
- Release Date
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2016 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Netflix
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
