Stranger Things season 5 finale review: all bark, no bite

This review contains full spoilers for the Stranger Things Season 5 finale.

The Duffer Brothers end Stranger Things Season 5 the only way they know how: by promising everything and delivering nothing.

In this two-hour finale, the show abandons tension in favour of a safe, Marvel-tier resolution where friendship saves the day and everyone gets exactly what they want. It’s loud, busy and completely toothless.

The setup was strong. Vecna plans a dimensional merge that will collapse the barrier between worlds. He has the children he needs. The stakes, we’re told, have never been higher.

But when you know none of the main cast are going to die, what’s the point?

I expected the merge to matter. I wanted to see Hawkins break. The Abyss bleeding into the real world. Demogorgons roaming freely. Buildings collapsing as inter-dimensional matter tears the town apart. Finally, The Military™ might have had something meaningful to do.

Instead, none of it happens.

The gang enter the Abyss and face almost no resistance. The creatures that terrorised the cast for five seasons are mysteriously absent.

What we get instead is mild disequilibrium: Hopper hallucinates, Eleven gets shot out of a tank and Eight dies later on; the only death in the finale and the safest possible one. A character nobody was invested in anyway.

We finally get more backstory for Vecna. Jamie Campbell Bower continues to be the best thing in the show. But this comes far too late. Henry turns out to have a human side. He’s not even the real villain after all. The Mind Flayer is still the big bad. Twist achieved, impact nullified.

Why should we care?

The final confrontation is over in minutes. Eleven faces Vecna. The Mind Flayer is weakened by guns and a bit of fire. Everyone survives. Everyone escapes. Not a scratch between them.

Plot armour and the absence of sacrifice

The real villain of Stranger Things has always been its plot armour. Throughout Season 5, characters “almost” die again and again, only to be rescued at the last second.

Demogorgons that slaughter strangers at the speed of sound attack the main cast in slow motion, giving them plenty of time to figure out a way out.

These kids are absurdly protected. Aside from expendable side characters, they never learn what sacrifice actually means. It makes this finale so unbelievable and predictable.

After five seasons of buildup, reducing this threat to a brief combat encounter feels insulting, especially given how strong the world-building used to be.

Then there’s the baffling sidelining of Winona Ryder. Marginalised for an entire season, she’s wheeled out at the end to deliver the final word to Vecna. It’s meant to feel earned. It doesn’t. It's an edgy one liner for fans to screen share on TikTok.

As for The Military™: Eleven “dies”, Dr Kay effectively shrugs and they all just leave. No fallout. No reckoning. Equilibrium restored. Lesson unlearned.

It’s clear the Duffers wanted this finale to be about “what happens after”.

I wanted it to be about sacrifice. I wanted the kids to learn that fighting for what you believe in comes with a cost.

I wanted to see what Vecna’s plan would do to people, places and the world they’ve spent five seasons asking us to care about.

But instead, the Duffer Brothers handed a victory to everyone free of charge. A safe landing that was predictable, bloodless and disappointing.

It was probably always going to end this way. It was clear after Season 3 that the show was suffering from scope creep and had lost sight of its humble beginnings.

That doesn’t make it any less of a letdown.

For most fans, those who like their blockbusters reassuring and consequence-free, this finale will tick all the right boxes. Nobody has to feel uncomfortable. Nobody has to grieve a favourite character.

It's the fairy-tale ending we were always going to get.

But we deserved so much more.

4/10