Debuting in July 2016 and closing on December 31, 2025, world renowned Netflix series Stranger Things has released the final episode to their series, and fans have made their mixed feelings clear.

Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things focuses on the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, and the unexplainable, strange things encountered by a small group of young boys who play Dungeons and Dragons religiously and the government. The first episode is kicked off by “the vanishing of Will Byers” as young Will was abducted on his way home by a gruelling, ghastly creature called “the demogorgon” and taken back to its dimension (called the Upside Down) as prisoner. The friend group gradually encounters clues towards the finding of Will Byers, labeling each event, property, and villain after characteristics and events from the D&D game.

The entire first season of the series is focused around Will’s friends Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, as they find a young girl escaped from a government lab called Eleven (as the iconic tattoo on her wrist titles) who claims that she can find Will with her superpower of telekinesis and remote viewing through a person’s mind.

The show centers multiple points of view, given they also show that the government, too, is trying to infiltrate this dimension through a sealed portal mysteriously formed in their lab. Will’s worried, frantic, and grieving mother Joyce joins forces with Chief of Police Jim Hopper in hopes to bust into this lab to attempt to find her son. While they had their suspicions of this eerie government in Hawkins, it was far more complicated than imagined.

In the end of season one, they miraculously find the sought-after Will, saving his life from the forces of the Upside Down. Alas, this was only the beginning, as Will brings a small, but growing piece of the Upside Down back home with him, signaling that there would be a season two.

The show was approved for a season two, and the Duffer Brothers came prepared to create a universe. So they did.

After five raunchy, intense seasons packed to the brim with details and hardly a wasted minute of storyline, the brothers created the world(s) and a fanbase that stretches across the real world.

Before watching Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve, people watched the long awaited two-hour season finale of Stranger Things. MSN says season five of the show alone accumulated a whopping record of 59.6 million viewers. This is the most gathering of viewers compared to the rest of the seasons, even though they, too, collected millions of viewers worldwide.

While this is all jaw-dropping publicity, what truly matters was whether these millions of viewers even enjoyed the ending. Many long-duration fans have settled to say that the show had a brilliant ending, while other fans, new or old, have made some criticisms that make the media question whether the ending was actually good, or if it was more of a last-minute solution.

Aside from the many good things viewers found in the show, some of these scenarios from the ending are up for interpretation and debate across the internet: Will’s coming out scene, the death of Vecna, graduation details, and unnecessary characters, to name a few. The most important revolving around whether Eleven actually dies or not.

First, Will’s exiting of the queer closet. It was predicted that this scene was coming, as fans picked up on LGBTQ queues starting in season three, when Will was constantly pleading with Mike to forget about fussing about hanging out with his girlfriend instead of him to play D&D. We saw it coming more prominently in season five, when fellow queer character Robin (introduced in season three) shares a bit of her coming out story and current relationship status with Will, sparking some sort of realization in him. As this was heavily predicted, many fans are still tearing it apart and calling it unnecessary, considering his coming-out scene lasting approximately five to six minutes, all while the world was in dire need for saving around them.

While on the topic of season three, my personal favorite season, I had to include the dope poster made to promote it. (Netflix)

Second, the death of the primary villainous threat, Vecna. Vecna had been given two full seasons of attention and story buildup just for him to be vanquished in a 20-30 minute scene in one of the most predictable ways possible. While this isn’t as huge of a deal as Will’s issue for fans, it still had some viewers fuming because it felt “too rushed” and “unimaginative”.

Now for the smaller details like the graduation and the death of Kali/ 008, Eleven/Jane’s sister. The beloved, unproblematic character Max, introduced in season two, had been recorded to be in a coma for 18 months, and still managed to graduate high school alongside her friends with flying colors. This may be a minor slipup, but hardcore fans who noticed it immediately find it a foolish mistake. Similarly, the detail of adding the character Kali, who has the power of controlling one’s imagination, was found to be pointless to some. Many fans surprisingly found her to be a “useless” character that they tore to shreds out of their hatred for her character and their speculation of her getting in the way of saving the world. In fact, many people were hoping for her to die in the finale, of all people.

Tying the character Kali to Eleven’s death, one might think that Kali had some if not extreme importance regarding Eleven and her character’s fate. In the last half of the finale episode, Eleven was shown to be swept away into the Upside Down as it exploded, killing her and ending the vicious cycle that the Upside Down brings, as well as the cycle of the relentlessness of the government that would stop at nothing to recapture Eleven and others with similar powers. Later, in the final scene where Mike, Max, Lucas, Dustin, and Will play D&D, Mike as the Dungeon Master tells an analogical story of the mage (Eleven), who appeared to die, but was actually rescued with the powerful help of her alliance (Kali). This mage was said to have successfully escaped and moved far away, in a land with three waterfalls, which is what Eleven and Mike had been talking about for future plans once they saved the world.

Mike finishes this story, and Max asks where the mage went—to which he replied, “No one knows. But she’s safe; safe from the danger of the black hand. It’s peace. But I choose to believe that it is.” The others joined in on the statement by adding an “I believe” as a way to insert their faith in their friend.

This ending was a way to leave viewers in full debate mode, as either ending would’ve worked and made perfect sense without holes in the storyline. But, many fans found this potentially alternate ending hasty and ill-written considering it didn’t seem much like the Duffer Brothers to be so vague in this series.

Regardless of the multiple endings, fans have seemingly been satisfied with the ending. The show had been running for almost ten years, and the actors were growing up too fast to keep the show what it was. It was an ending long awaited, long anticipated and predicted, and even including some minor slipups, it was widely beloved.