I’ll try not to have any spoilers in this, but to be fair…its not like you’re in for a grand finale. The producers and executives of the show simply built and wasted our anticipation on such a mid-bar ending to a fan favourite and beloved series by all peculiar-and-niche-loving, inclined people around the world.
Given the kind of rep this show garnered from premiering damn near 10 years ago, the series finale was gravely disappointing and can easily be likened to the feeling of a build up that’s cut short right before the climax, only to be replaced by fake moaning and enjoyment that misleads both you and Polo into thinking you finished, when in essence you actually jumped over and missed the whole point of the shenanigans, which is the pleasure and enjoyment. But hey, spilt milk, all we can do about it now is whinge, whine and moan about it (pun unintended).
The fan in me, late as ever, made the decision to restart the whole series from the genesis less than a month before season 5 came out. The way this girl went through season 2 and 3, almost felt like a blink. That’s probably some of the show’s best seasons which, partly explains my gross disappointment at the lack of climax given the build up I had curated for myself .
One of the most interesting things about the stranger things series finale, besides the irony of the strange moment in time it aired, is how you don’t have to be a writer in any sense to understand just how underwhelming the ending was. ‘Feeling’ being everyone’s first and primary language, it surely does say a lot when the overall feeling is that of disappointment due to getting the bare minimum.
For a series with multiple awards to its name, serving as the pioneer and ascension pillow for a lot of the actors and actresses who played the main characters in the show, it’s undoubtedly undeniable just how much little effort and thought was put into ending this series, serving the question…is this truly the end? Why’d you use your hand, if the intention was never to induce a climax with your fruit?
To some degree, a part of me would like to sympathise with the Duffer Brothers and argue that their implicit objective was to portray the mundanity of life, how everyday brings a small fraction of difference and change (so minuscule it’s almost unnoticeable to the naked eye) that only becomes apparent from a retrospective perspective.
Nothing lasts forever, we can all relate to that, and for a character like Lucas, he probably got the best deal out of everybody on the show. Lucas is the only one of the main characters who suffered the least, an interesting sight of a black character being portrayed on television as the character that needs the least development, that’s a first. Two points for the Duffer brothers. Or maybe he wasn’t important enough to focus on and they sidelined working just as hard on his character development in the writer’s room and not just on T.V? Whatever it is, we’ll take the w.
Lucas Sinclair arguably suffered the least loss in this series, except for that gruesome adolescent puberty phase in season 3, that was definitely an L on his character because boy was puberty doing a number on him! He wasn’t just going through it physically with the pimply forehead, what the hell was he trying to hide in that tall ass hair… Delilah?
His family went unscathed through the whole ordeal black people stay minding their business, quite endearing how the thriller/horror genre always manages to capture that right. He almost lost Max -but didn’t, she literally came back to life in his arms, mans was enthralled up in a love story during the fucking apocalypse…well what was supposed to be.
He lost Eddy but let’s be honest, that’s when he was out on the courts trying to be Michael Jordan beating them white kids when Eddy’s character became somewhat relevant to the plot, how much of a loss was it really? He fought an army of Demogorgons in the caves whilst playing hero and trying to save the kids from the villain the [Duffer] brothers killed softly. He even got a scar from that fight, maybe he could have died…but no, his white nerdy friend with wizard powers saved him, through the eyes of the very same thing that was fighting him, I’m no Sherlock, but there’s definitely some underlying metaphoric irony there.
For a character like Lucas, life got really interesting for like five whole complete goddamn seasons, and he lived to tell the stories to his mixed race colored children. Its like a soldier going through world war 2, and coming out with all his limbs, skin and hair in tact but just a few battle scars to show that he has really been through some shit. That and some crazy drunken stories to tell to an overly eager audience.
So even though nothing lasts forever, this man gets to have one hell of a story to tell. Him and Mike, appear to be contrasts of each other phenotypically represented by the color of their skin in the show one can suppose. Remember him? The boy who fell in love from the jump with the girl Eleven who had telekinetic abilities?
Only difference is, Mike was tried on all fronts by literally every antagonistic force and element in the show from the start directly and indirectly, and dude didn’t even get to keep his girl. Its important to note how representative of life this is, two people experience and live the same reality, encounter and develop different traumas, and live to tell two stories as different as day and night.
Its an interesting perspective and benefit of the doubt to give to the Duffer brothers because in wanting to somewhat simulate the mundanity of life after a blatant extra terrestrial roller-coaster, how does one even in the monochromatic nature of life carry on with their life after going through over FIVE GODDAMN SEASONS/YEARS of shit that looks like the shit that was cut out from an anthology of folklore tales? What am I saying?
Given the premise of the whole show, which basically revolves around navigating these two complex worlds, with one just being a whole lot more dangerous and otherworldly , the show is already operating on a different plane of common sense. I mean Joyce went for days before noticing Will, her less-than-10-years-old-son was missing, and when she did, who did she try to shift accountability to? Her bordering-on-18-year-old son Jonathan!
Things were already upside down, before that Demogorgon abducted Will in season 1. Things were definitely upside down when Karen Wheeler’s character played by Cara Buono and myself missed out on a night of hot, young and sexy fun by the name of Billy for absolutely no fucking reason just because Max had to feel a little hurt for a little character development. Lucas could have cheated on her for godssake, the plot could have went on perfectly without cutting Billy out of the picture, it was a very petty and inconsequential move and I’m utterly disgusted by it.
It genuinely feels like the Duffer brothers had an affinity for the villain from the start and just couldn’t decide how best to…kill him softly. Darn did Number One have the softest villain endings (doesn’t even qualify as murder, the least killing) of all time, given the heinous crimes he committed.
Its like that killer in Guruve who killed a bunch of women in their homes, being sentenced to a euthanistic death sentence when death by guillotine is an option. Its just absolutely baffling. They killed Henry’s character just half way into a 2 hour long episode…this is the guy we had to go through five fucking seasons to catch and see get killed? Did they not learn anything from the Vampire Diaries franchise, which went on to spin off into the Originals?
If this is the end, then I’d be mad. Because if Will, some sort of innate wizard whose powers only surface when necessary, went on to go to Uni, then for all I know, my roommate was fighting Demogorgon’s in her sleep and crushing on her best friend in the life before we met in our freshman year. And who knows what’s to happen if I hook up with her mans? Shit, for all I know, I might just be one of her Demogorgon’s’ army right now.
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