By Elisabeth Palacios 

Over winter break, the Duffer Brother’s hit-show Stranger Things on Netflix aired its season and show-finale on December 31st, right before 2026. The preceding episodes of season 5, its final season, was released in two volumes: episodes 1-4 on November 26th, and episodes 5-7 on December 25th. 

Stranger Things is Netflix’s most-viewed show ever, accumulating over 1.2 billion views across the five seasons. The finale alone received 31.5 million views in the first five days it aired. It’s safe to say that this show is popular among many, and for students at McCaskey, it has become a staple in their lives. First coming out in 2016, fans our age feel like they have grown up with the show and the characters in it. 

It makes sense that it finally ending after nine years would make everyone emotional–and it definitely did… 

Fans online burst in rages of confusion, anger, and denial on January 1st. The way the show ended sparked a controversy that was not expected by the Duffer Brothers, and even a few fans themselves. The loudest and most common reactions are criticisms of lackluster writing, multiple plot holes, unanswered questions, and blatant disregard for many characters’ storylines. 

At first glance, it’s just an unfortunate case of disconnect between fans and writers. However, this criticism quickly turned into a rabbit hole of theories, and viewers were in such disbelief of the quality of the finale that they coined it a ‘fake ending.’

The Duffer Brothers have consistently said in interviews to pay close attention to the clues and facts as they watch the show, and that’s exactly what they did. Fan theory “Conformity Gate” quickly took over the internet; the show’s main villain, Vecna, has powers to make the characters hallucinate events that aren’t real. Fans went back throughout the entire series and gathered a plethora of coincidences to prove that the second half of Season 5 was this villain tricking the viewers in a fourth-wall-break. 

There were so many coincidences with the number 7, and with January 7th being exactly a week after the ending was released, people awaited a secret episode 9 on that Wednesday evening. That secret episode never came–and all hope of fans was lost. 

Even though uproars continue online, the Stranger Things finale marks the end of an era and is especially heartfelt for this year’s senior class since the main characters of the show graduated in the finale as well. Senior Lydia Corvino stated that she thinks “it’s so sentimental that they’re graduating with us. It feels so much like an ending but it’s comforting to have something that can grow with you.” She can remember at what point she was in her own life looking back at each season, and now it’s come full circle.  

Though it was sad, Lydia thinks that the ending does not deserve nearly as much hate as it’s getting. She says the backlash has much to do with the fact that audiences today are not used to happy endings, and they mistake them for lazy writing.   

“I did believe the theories, but I also didn’t. I loved watching them, but I was satisfied either way. I really liked the finale, and I think the disbelief over it being a happy, simple ending is what triggered these theories in the first place.”

Senior Andrea Vasquez-Colon, however, feels like the criticisms are valid of not just the finale, but the entire season. She remarks it wouldn’t have been so disappointing if the writers didn’t “hype it up” so much, because it set the expectations way too high.

Furthermore, one of the main issues she spoke on was the treatment of one of the two queer main characters, Will Byers. Along with the majority of fans, she says that his coming out scene felt very forced and inauthentic. The show takes place in the 1980s, which is why the subject is even more sensitive. However, Will came out in front of every single one of the characters in the show, including ones that he had rarely interacted with, and his 5th grade science teacher. 

“He was going to tell his mom, and I thought ‘great!’ Then Mike (his best friend and one-sided love interest) walked into the room, and it was even better. But then he said he wanted to tell everyone, and that ruined the potential… half of the characters didn’t need to be there, it was just so awkward.” 

On the topic of Will and Mike, many fans felt disappointed that they did not end up together because there was a lot of build-up in their relationship for nothing to happen between them. They feel that the writers took advantage of their queer fans’ enthusiasm to make them believe that there was a chance for this couple, but ultimately appealed to their general audience. 

Now that the documentary of the making of season 5 is out, fans were confirmed in their suspicions of rushed writing since the Duffer Brothers were writing the final scripts as they were filming (with alleged use of ChatGPT). At first, fan reactions were much more split, but now most of the audience can agree the ending was not the best possible product.