As we’ve all got that one friend who just can’t let the letdown of Game Of Thrones finale go, it’s common knowledge that ending a show that makes everyone happy is virtually impossible. I’m not talking about cancellations, mind you – that’s a different thing altogether – but be it the mid-scene halt of The Sopranos, the rage inducing final title card of Quantum Leap, or even the weirdness of Seinfeld, you can best believe someone out there’s going to be left irredeemably pissed.
So what are the Duffer Brothers to do? Do they play it safe, or do they go scorched earth and deliver a body count of supporting characters that would make the Red Wedding look like a boozy brunch in comparison? Well, seemingly realising that they’re going to put noses out of joint no matter what they do, the people behind streaming’s biggest show (since the last one) choose to go big and go home. Simply put, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cheer – but chances are you won’t be surprised in the least.
The final plan is underway and an amusingly swollen cast get moving to cross entire universes in order to put a climactic beatdown on big bad Vecna, expose all of his secrets and detonate the Upside-Down on the way back from rescuing the twelve children he’s spirited away to the neighbouring dimension known as the Abyss. With a multi-pronged attack which sees Hopper, Kali and Murray help Eleven launch a mental attack on the villain formally known as Henry Creel, the rest of the gang manage to worm their way into the Abyss to take the fight directly to the viney one.
As per usual, parts of the plan go well, while others go tits up almost immediately, but while Dr. Kay keeps sticking her militaristic nose in wherever she can and Vecna proves to be even slipperier to pin down than they could have imagined, soon the final endgame approaches. But there’s still some noticeable question marks floating around with the main one being whether or not Eleven and Kali still are looking to sacrifice themselves once Vecna is dead. Of course, Vecna’s not going to take the attack lying down and once his origin in the caves is finally laid bare, he’s got one, last twist left to play. Remember all those past theories that suggested that the Mind Flayer was either pulling Henry’s strings, or that Henry was the Mind Flayer? Well, neither of those turn out to be true when everyone discovers that neither entity has been controlling the other and they are, in fact, in cahoots to destroy the earth. Now realising that they have a Kaiju-sized, alien rock spider to vanquish as well as a telekinetic vine-wizard, the Hawkins contingent dig in and throw themselves into the final conflict. But who will survive for us to say on last, fond farewell when the misadventures of Hawkins finally wraps up?
To put things bluntly, if you are expecting Stranger Things’ final hurrah to flip the script and offer up massive, heart-breaking casualties in order to really beat you over the head with mounting stakes, then I’m afraid that the Duffer Brothers have chosen to play things way too safe for you to really get the all-or-nothing chills you were hoping to receive. The body count is virtually non-existent as the powers that be have opted to round things up as positively as they humanly can – shit, even Linda Hamilton’s villainous Dr. Kay weirdly survives as Stranger Things keeps it’s closing battle between good and evil incredibly simple. There’s almost no soul searing sacrifices (none that stick, anyway), no stunning shock deaths that come out of nowhere and no real culling of a cast that been taking on sizable numbers since it started ten years ago. The Duffers love these characters way too much to let any of them go and they’re banking on you being the same as three quarters of the two hour long finale is dedicated to having all of the cast pull together to eradicate the horrors of the Upside-Down for good.
Thing is, if you’re down for a huge, epic, effects laden finale, then The Rightside Up could be worse. Actually, it could be a lot worse as it takes the same inroads as the 80s blockbusters it’s derived from and dedicates itself purely to thrills and spills of a gargantuan nature. Yes, the sting of a major death does take away some of the threat, but by giving Vecna and The Mind Flayer a last minute retcon which sees the latter reimagined as a humongous beast that’s rampage right out of Starship Troopers, what we lose in edge, we almost regain in sheer scale.
While I wouldn’t hardly accuse the Duffers of box ticking, they do try and give everyone their moment with Nancy going full Sarah Connor with an M16, Eleven going head to head with Vecna and a more self confident Will lending help with his powers (while still crying, of course). Even the most forgotten Joyce gets her last minute licks in, getting vengeance for anyone who did managed to die (Bob, Barb, Eddie) while dropping an F-bomb for good measure. Also, the show wisely chooses not to give Henry Creel a last-second heroic out, and has him double down when sticking to being a misanthropic apocalypse baiter by throwing his lot in with the Mind Flayer to the bitter end. However, I would argue that his final demise isn’t quite as cathartic at the climactic kicking he got at the end of season 4, primarily because it actually felt that come of the cast was actually in real danger.
However, the huge, blockbuster stuff isn’t actually where the true emotion of the finale lies and it’s actually with the final round up where you actually find your bottom lip starting to quiver. Stranger Things has always been pretty good with goodbyes (just cast your mind back to the school dance that closed out season 2), and with the survivors (wink, wink) attending their graduation, we see them teetering on the edge of maturity while the older cast start planning the rest of their lives. To be fair, it does prove to be way more poignant than any tragic death would have been and while I’m hesitant to think that killing off Kali and suggesting that Eleven may or may not be dead (definitely not), did you really want Steve and his hair or Dustin lying in a pool of blood when we could be “awww”ing at them becoming a school coach or the valedictorian? I don’t know, maybe we could have lost Murray, or Jonathan maybe, but that’s simply not the tone the Duffers want to go out on. Yes, it feels like they’ve settled on good or great when they could’ve shot for amazing, but you can’t deny that the emotion of saying goodbye to Hawkins proves to be more than enough to get by.
Some will grumble at the Duffers’ low stakes, high reward story choices, but you can’t deny that the required feels are definitely in attendance and it’s definitely more focused than the terminally crowded previous episode. But while the scale may feel a tad simplistic when you stop to think about it for a second (where are all the Demogorgons?), I’m amused that the creators didn’t feel the need to flip the script in order to turn the Upside-Down into the Rightside Up. Goodbye Hawkins, here’s hoping that Netflix doesn’t try to squeeze too much blood out of you in the future…
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