Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the finale of Stranger Things.
Stranger Things has ended in a two-hour action-packed finale that may or may not have delivered a closure that satisfies the majority of fans? How is it hard to tell? Simply because you just cannot believe the reviews anymore – both the good ones and the bad ones. While the previous episodes were review bombed with many negative reviews, it seems that the finale has an even more complex problem – after IMDb filled with hundreds of very long, very generic reviews just minutes after the final episode dropped on 
Netflix.
In the finale of Stranger Things, the Duffers did exactly what many expected of them and allowed almost the entire case of main characters to survive the final battle with Venca and the Mind Flayer, a creature that was finally revealed in all its glory in one of the series’ most spectacular scenes and one that partly redeemed the episode’s flaws. While Eleven sacrificed herself to save the world from history repeating itself in the future, every other character received a Lord of the Rings-style epilogue and mostly happy endings.
After several cop-out moments, like Steve’s near-death experience on the tower, and Dustin and Nancy almost being killed by the Mind Flayer if not for last-minute saves, it became clear that the Duffers were not about to deliver an abundance of death that some had hoped. And this is where it becomes quite easy to see where many reviews that have been left for the finale were written by people who asked a chatbot to do it for them or by people who clearly just had not seen how things panned out.
Why ‘Stranger Things’ Reviews Are So Misleading
IMDb lists the score on “Episode 8: The Right-Side Up” at around 8.6 at the time of writing, which is probably a fair assessment of the finale given its moments that make you go wow and the ones that just make you feel a little “what’s the point?”
As one review, from khobaizmohamad, pointed out though, when hundreds of reviews, many several paragraphs long, start flooding in within 10 minutes of the episode’s debut, it is clear that these are not from people who have actually watched the episode – and possibly not even the ones that came before it. Their comment reads:
“All of you giving this a rating literally 6 minutes after it dropped are so corny, GET A JOB. Not only that but the fact yall typed paragraphs about it that mean nothing just to meet the minimum characters all while trying to rate it as good or bad to see if you’d be able to predict an accurate review.”
It is not hard to see where they are coming from, along with bullet-pointed reviews that vaguely review all the plot points of the previous episode and add comments like “was resolved satisfactorily” or “was given room to breathe.” One review even notes that the Duffers really pulled out all the emotional stops with “multiple characters” not making it out, leading to “many devastating moments as the cost is felt by those left behind.” Outside the death of Kali and Eleven (even though the final scene does a great job giving a “what if” scenario if you want to believe something different) there are no major deaths among the rest of the core characters.
In the end, the only way to make up your mind about whether Stranger Things sticks its landing is to actually sit down and watch it yourself. Even with its cop-outs, somewhat pointless characters (Linda Hamilton is massively underused), and lack of true jeopardy, it is hard to deny that the Duffers have ended the show in the best way they probably could.
- Release Date
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2016 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Netflix
