Stranger Things, a completely botched finale

From the very beginning of the final season, we suspected it (see our review of Stranger Things Season 5 Vol. 1), and the Duffer brothers, creators of the series and directors of this finale, have delivered. The 42nd and final episode of Stranger Things is a two-hour block of action where all the series' flaws converge in an uncommon dramatic escalation. A pale, last-ditch attempt to breathe some semblance of "realistic life" into characters now reduced to mere functions, the finale fails both emotionally and spectacularly. Even the self-indulgent emphasis on the "apotheosis of the villain," metaphorical and, once again, highly questionable, falls flat. Nothing helps: nothing works.

Final Stranger Things: the magic of the first season has evaporated

The umpteenth homage to Spielberg or Carpenter films, brandished like a shield, is no longer enough to mask the abysmal emptiness of the script, the posturing of its characters, and this persistent feeling of having been duped for ten years. Ten years during which the Duffer brothers capitalized on a first season that, while paying homage to 80s Hollywood cinema, offered endearing characters in an undeniably seductive form: music, retro direction, efficiency.

Season after season, as the cast grew, the magic evaporated. As for the young actors who grew up, their talent did not live up to expectations: for most, it faded, or never surpassed what it was. What remains is a headlong rush: an overabundance of special effects, an intoxicating intoxication with unbearably long and pretentious dialogue, and—worse—a constantly sabotaged rhythm. In numerous scenes, everything abruptly stops: the ambient sound fades, the tension dissipates, and two shifty-eyed teenagers launch into long, poorly written diatribes, supposedly meant to "explain" their unease, before the action finally resumes, mechanically. This recurring device in this final season eventually becomes tiresome, then frankly unbearable to watch. The colossal budget of this final season does nothing to demonstrate this: everything seems fake, poorly made, badly integrated into a repetitive universe, formally exhausted and exploited ad nauseam. The red, the neon lights, the corridors, the automatic "it works"... it quickly becomes saturated.

A laborious, interminable finale

Symptomatic of a work that has become a machine, the series can no longer stop. It ends with a mumbled, laborious, interminable finale, which leaves an impression not of incompleteness, but of bloat: an inappropriate excess, without nuance or purpose. Nothing. Emptiness. We find ourselves thinking that nothingness has triumphed. We thought it would be difficult, even impossible, to do worse than the end of Game of Thrones for several decades. Not so: the Duffer brothers have managed it with the end of Stranger Things.

Stranger Things is over; in a week we will have forgotten everything.