Stranger Things Season 5 Spoilers!

[Loopytiles]

So excited about this! Can’t bear to watch without spoilers first.

Perhaps I'm wrong.

I haven’t rewatched yet but I’m pretty sure they were in Dr Kay’s lab.

Well, am going to be the voice of gloom here as I really disliked the final season and was incredibly frustrated by the plot holes, pointless characters (Linda Hamilton just seemed like stunt casting with no substance to me) and the endless heart to hearts that seemed to be making up for the fact that there only seemed to be enough actual plot to fill a single feature length film.

Is it just me?! I've been huge fan of the series since it started and something just seemed incredibly off with the writing and the entire vibe. If you read the scripts for the first four seasons you could have identified the characters by their lines with their names redacted; this season felt like a bunch of lines had been thrown in the air and assigned at random with a few catch phrases thrown in!

Going to see the stage show is beyond our budget, and from reading the synopsis on line I'm really cross about how much of it was necessary to really understand what was going on with Henry / Vecna in the cave, although I do agree that he was the best actor in it by far. They should have released a filmed version of the stage play in advance on Netflix if they were going to do that, it honestly feels vaguely immoral and disrespectful of their audience.

What happened to the army after El disappeared? What happened to Susie and Enzo? (Who surely couldn't have gone back to live with his son is Russia after helping Hopper escape?) Was Eddie's name ever cleared? Why did they spend eighteen months sneaking into the Upside Down on miliary transports when El could've just popped a bit of sheet metal with her magic powers all along?! Would a teenage boy in the 80s come out to a group of about thirty people with a big group hug at the end when they had five minutes to pack before going off to save the world?!

Aaarghhh.

They should have released a filmed version of the stage play in advance on Netflix if they were going to do that, it honestly feels vaguely immoral and disrespectful of their audience

I agree with this so much.

I agree about the show too, I can’t imagine it’ll run for too long as interest will start to wane, maybe they’ll do it then when it’s coming off stage. But agree they should have done ahead of season 5.

@wanderingtopographer

Agree re. the stageshow. Season 5 (and 4 for that matter) was, on the whole, poor. I did think the finale was enjoyable though.

@wanderingtopographer totally agree about the stage show. It makes me a bit cross that they expected everyone to fork out and see the stage show before season 5 to understand Henry's past. Henry is a major character and it's a very poor way to treat a loyal audience so some of us had to watch it totally in the dark with regards to Henry and the cave. It comes across as quite manipulative and greedy.

Thank you to those of you that explained my questions regarding the cave and the man with the suitcase.

I'm with you on everything. I was really disappointed and thought it felt cobbled together and rushed -just like they thought fuck it; it will get the viewers whatever we make. Some of the acting was shocking, but to be fair they didn't have much to work with.
Genuinely glad others enjoyed it, but it wasn't great for me.

So I saw a good theory as to where the demo creatures went which was that as the mind flayer didn't have an actual form - it was always the black mist that Henry moulded to a spidery form. The creatures all got broken down and melded together like the townsfolk in S3. I thought that made sense but the DBs (apparently) have said that Vecna/MF just didn't expect the gang to enter dimension X so they weren't protected. They also said that Henry needing 12 kids/his interest in clocks and 12 subjects in the lab were just coincidence and not part of a bigger picture.

I think most of the fan theories have been better than what we actually got tbh 😆

Surely the military would have been after Will, too, and the younger DC in case they had any powers? DH thinks the military were not aware of Will’s powers, and that the powers would disappear when the mind flayer and vecna were destroyed.

That’s a fun theory about the demogorgons @Invisablepanic ! I also like the idea that the main villains, especially Henry, were losing control, so the demogorgons just buggered off to wherever they fancied!

Sad, new talk on social media from Millie BB about public criticism of her face and body by journalists and the public.
https://youtube.com/shorts/DV1ahpiUeQ0?si=zkYNDLY5SOLZzeov

I’m part of the problem she describes, I made a negative comment about her face on this thread. That her (apparent) choice to use cosmetic procedures on her face, eg filler, botox, impeded her performance and was jarring during the show, not because she looks different/older but because it looks unnatural.

Agree with some of what she’s said, but there are issues with use of cosmetic procedures and surgery in Hollywood and beyond (recognising that choices are not made in a vacuum)

Dr Kay had gone rogue (hence why her lab was in the upside down) we saw the soldiers beginning to rally against her and then with the mass fatalities and volume of children going missing I think she was over ruled.

I think cosmetic surgery in acting is an issue, because the full range of facial movements is important for the job.

Were there ever demos in that ‘realm’?

I think so, when we hear Henry's story and we see him walking through the upside down we see demos on a barren planet. Plus they don't appear to live in the upside down.

I think the question, where were they? Is valid.

I was worried @Screenagerby the lack of sleeping/eating. Also, El needed more clothes to wear when she came out of the water. I felt cold on her behalf.

Aah, fair point I’d forgotten that

Absolutely!… she didn’t seem phased at all by entering upsidedown water either… it’d have taken me a while to acclimatise 😆

Or have any concern about Legionnaires disease.

I absolutely loved it! Totally disagree with others that the finale didn't have enough action, it had loads - did we watch the same thing?? The friendship and camaraderie throughout was the best I've ever seen in any film or tv series ever, and I think that's what people love about it. That and the spot on 80s nostalgia which is just brilliant.

There were a couple of things that puzzled me - firstly why they didn't all end up in jail, especially Hopper, having shot and killed loads of soldiers and broken into a military facility on multiple occasions - how did they get away with that, why were they all allowed to return to their normal lives? The only thing I can think is that they were witness to so much in that military facility and could have told the world, but they probably wouldn't have been believed anyway. And where did all the pregnant women with their scientifically altered unborn babies go? Why wasn't Erica arrested for drugging her friend's family - in fact what happened to Derek's family, did they just wake up in the barn and go home without notifying the authorities that they had been drugged and kidnapped?

Those things are loose ends - however, it doesn't detract at all from the enjoyment and sheer amazingness of the whole story, which was totally epic.

And as to people saying Kali wouldn't have been able to help El escape because she would have died in the explosion - actually I think there was a gap, between when the soldiers discovered everyone in the lorry and when they realised El was standing inside the gateway to the upside down - maybe about a minute, actually I think slightly longer before the explosion began, so there would have been time for her to befuddle everybody with a vision of El while the real El slipped away. So Mike's theory could be right - although I don't know if she would have left her friends in that situation to save herself. But, knowing that she would be used by the military and the cycle start again maybe she would have felt that stopping that scenario was more important. Anyhoo, that'a my theory about that.

Amazing. Stranger Things will be remembered as THE tv programme of the decade. Hats off to the writers - I hope they come up with something equally as amazing in the future.

I assume Derrecks parents got let out the barn.

Quite liked the ending! Knew be no major deaths as there was too little time for it to mean anything. The fight did seem over quite quick but the ending felt so lovely and the end of a era!

Mean if El is alive then thats quite sad she'll never see them again and is probably all alone so still not a happy ending for her really.

DS pointed out that there hadn't really been water in the upside down - the lake for example from S4 - so he thought it was odd it was still full. Also the machines came in just because they switched the lab in the right side up on...I feel like it didn't really work like that before but I'm happy to let some things go.

Re MBB looks, I think she looks great and isn't doing anything to her face that a lot of other women her age do. She does also front her own cosmetics company. On the flip side I do think her work is noticeable in terms of character and didn't help the last season overall but maybe they should have got their arses in gear and filmed sooner - MBB was never going to pause her life. There was always going to be a S5, it's not like they needed to see if it would get renewed for ratings because there was already a huge fan base. Loved 20 years ago when a series was 24 episodes long and there was only a 3/4 month break from a season ending to the next. Supernatural, sopranos, the wire, Buffy.

I like MBB but I do worry that young, attractive women feel the need to alter their appearance, it’s just sad really.

I agree ST will be remembered as the show that everyone loved, my dd has grown up watching it from age 12-19 ish.

The pregnant women were definitely in the upside down so they died imo. I’m not sure if I believe El survived, I think not, she was never going to be able to lead a normal life was she 🤷‍♀️

I think they were awake since at least when vecna appeared at the military base, and probably before then? The story was continous from then on and didn't have any time breaks? It was completely unrealistic. Maybe that's why robin looked so haggard by the end?

Has anyone seen anything about conformity gate? There's loads of people posting on Instagram about the last episode being a Vecna mind spell and there's going to be another episode on Jan 7th. The videos are compelling but I (unfortunately) am 99% sure it's wishful thinking.

I'm not on Insta but could you explain a bit more?

It does sound far fetched.

Fandoms really are out of control. To think we used to laugh at the Flat Earthers, now it turns out people can convince themselves of anything in a big enough group.