By Dan Skip Allen

I’ve discussed my thoughts on “Stranger Things” Season 5 episodes 1-7 around Thanksgiving and on Christmas evening. Why not wait any longer so Netflix and the Duffer Brothers have released the Series Finale on New Years evening. Where else but in theaters? That’s where I saw the finale of this amazing show. It was 2 hours and 8 minutes long, and it picked up right where the last episode left off. Our heroes, I like to call them “The Hawkins Heroes” for obvious reasons have made a plan to take on Vecna/Henry (Jamie Campbell Bowers) and the mindflayer and try and get the kids back as well as destroy the upside down and restore the world back the way it was before all of the craziness started happening in this small sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana. As you might imagine, it’s as epic a series finale as I or you would come to expect.

I’ve been watching “Stranger Things” for ten years now, and I’ve had a blast watching this show for many reasons. The first is the nostalgia factor. As anybody who knows me can attest to, I am a huge sucker for the 80s and the 70s. When I see movies or television/streaming shows like “Stranger Things” they play right into my love of those decades. I grew up in these decades, and I love looking back to them in films and television/streaming shows. “Stranger Things” is one of the best series I’ve ever seen regarding its nostalgia factor. Starting with kids on bikes. These kinds of films/shows are right up my alley. The kids in this show, now young adults, are fantastic. This is one of the best casts I’ve seen in recent years. Carmen Cuba deserves a lot of credit for finding all of these kids. I hope coming up in future awards shows they are rewarded as such. Also, the cars, clothes, makeup, and hairstyling are all fantastic in this series and have progressed as the show has progressed from season to season. The production design is also spot on. From the DND Game to all the music and toys, Nintendo for instance, and other gadgets that pop up from time to time, the Duffer Brothers have littered the series with all the things that were around during this time.

The second reason I love “Stranger Things” is the cast as I just alluded to. The kids from Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin,Sadie Sink, and last but not least, are Gaten Matarazzo These guys and girls are phenomenal in this series. They have all brought their A-game to each season, and the last is no exception. Each one of these children, at the start, all had their ups and downs in regards to their characters and also their moments to shine throughout the show. This finale was no different. The audience I was with watching the episode cheered quite a bit at various moments in the 2 hour and 8 minute episode. Nobody is left out if you’re wondering what may have happened with all of these guys and girls. Including the older kids Natalia Dyer, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, and Charlie Heaton. I have embraced these guys and girls and will always love them as long as I live.That’s how much they mean to me. They are on a level all their own in the annals of television/streaming. It’ll take a lot to top these guys and gals for me in the future.

The adult characters are pretty good as well, but I’ll focus on two of them specifically. Joyce Byers and Jim Harper. I have loved where these characters have gone in the context of the show. Their relationship has been one of the highlights of the series. They get their moment in the series Finale, by the way. Winona Ryder was a household name coming into this show, but she proved to me she could do more than what she has done in her career up until this moment. David Harbour, on the other hand, was a relative nobody before this show and now has blossomed into a star character actor. He’s done a bunch of roles since the series launched nine years ago. He could have been a throw-away character, but the relationship he has with the Bobby Brown character and the Ryder character shows he has genuine acting chops. The father daughter dynamic isn’t an easy one for an actor like him to capture, but he does a great job with it. You can’t help but come away with great respect for him as an actor and love for his character. I sure did. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next, whether it’s in the MCU or elsewhere. Even his Santa Claus was a complete bad ass. 

With any show like this one, a villain is an important part of the series. Vecna/Henry and the mindflayer are fantastic villains. They have been fleshed out very well up until this moment and are as bad as villains come. Bowers does a great job in both his incarnations of the character. He’s able to create a sinister persona so well as this tormented character. The makeup helps with that. The visual effects bring the mindflayer to life in a more gruesome way than ever before in the series finale. If you’re afraid of spiders, beware of this visually stunning depiction of the mindflayer. These two villains have multiple encounters with “The Hawkins Heroes” creating many fights. The action sequences were epic and made for a great theatrical experience. I hope fans will be satisfied by the final battle and where this took the series. I felt it was very satisfying. There was a reason why this Finale episode was put into theaters. It made complete sense to me while I was watching it.

The Duffer Brothers have a great understanding of what they want to do with this show. They even said that they had the conclusion already written, and they knew where the series was going to end before they got to the middle seasons of the show. That being said, they nailed the conclusion of this series. They had a specific idea that was first touched on in the first season and the very first episode of the show. Dungeons & Dragons was a theme they alluded to from the beginning with the kids playing a game, but I had no idea how important it would become in future seasons. Season four has a side character, Eddie (Joseph Quinn), who rana game once the main kids got to high school and the group was part of “The Hellfire Club”. I never knew how much this would play into the overall finale of the series. The Duffer Brothers were basically playing their own campaign, and we, the audience, were watching it unfold before our very eyes. How incredible is that? It is mindblowing to be specific. Their plan worked to perfection.

“Stranger Things” Season 5, episode 8 The Rightside Up is everything I could have ever wanted from the conclusion of this show I’ve invested so much of my time in. It’s epic! It’s heartfelt! It’s sad! I was literally talking to myself while watching the episode/finale because I wanted certain things to happen, and they did. Other things happened that I didn’t see coming. The writing was perfect, though. The execution of the story was perfect in my mind. I couldn’t have come up with a better ending if I tried. The direction by The Duffer Brothers was incredible. They used all the money they got from Netflix and put it to good use with incredible visual effects and amazing action sequences. I mentioned other shows like Game of Thrones that didn’t nail the ending of their series, but that’s not the case here. People will be talking about the conclusion to this series for years. It’s that epic, and I was completely floored by what I watched in this finale. The sky is the limit for The Duffer Brothers. They can do what they want now because of what they achieved with this show. A Nancy Wheel spin-off would be cool, but how about superhero films.They would be a great choice to take over the MCU after the Russo Brothers finish with their two Avengers films coming out over the next two years. Especially with the nostalgia factor they possess in them. Hopefully, viewers will enjoy this series finale as much as I did. I may watch it again on New Year’s Day! That’s how much I truly loved these two hours of television/ streaming on the big screen.

5 stars