After nearly 10 years of airing, Stranger Things came to a close on Dec. 31, 2025. Many watchers of the show felt that this ending was right and fitting. Stranger Things has impacted a lot of lives in the real world, something that very few shows have done.
With the actors of the show growing older in age and beginning to look less and less like the high school students of Hawkins that we knew and loved, it’s understandable that the season was rushed before the actors looked like college students instead of teens. The creators of the show, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, definitely left openings in the story for if they wanted to return to the world they created later, but also had a closure to let the actors move on to bigger and better shows. Before the final episode was released, many fans had believed that a total of five main characters would be killed, so thankfully that didn’t happen and our beloved kids made it to graduation. Also, the parallel of how Eddie, a character that sadly died in the previous season, said he was going to graduate was accomplished by Dustin. Dustin’s speech was perfect, and such a good recall to Eddie. Many fans believe that this was the perfect end to a show that felt like a never ending story.
//
After nearly 10 years of airing, Stranger Things came to a close on Dec. 31, 2025. Many watchers of the show felt that this ending was upside down and inside out. Despite having an impact on so many people, the ending was a big let down for people who enjoyed watching the show.
The final season felt very rushed as if they felt too much pressure to release it on time, leaving a ton of plot holes and mistakes in the show. They disregarded the events that happened in their own world that they created such as the main villain’s plan to bring the upside down, the evil world that reflects the main town, Hawkins, to the real Hawkins, also known as the rightside up. They also changed many of the relationships between characters with no context to why. Such as why Dustin and Steve were fighting in the beginning of the season and what happened to Dustin and Suzie, a love interest from the third season. Matt and Ross Duffer, also known just as the Duffer Brothers, had the story build up to this big fight in an unknown realm, just for the scene to last less than eight minutes, making the scene feel short and underwhelming, compared to this horrible monstrosity that was hyped up. Despite them being beloved characters, for not a single character to have a confirmed death, it felt like too much of a happy ending like you would see in a kids show. Many fans believe that this ending was weak and overhyped for a show that had such an interesting and unique idea.
