After a decade, the highly anticipated Stranger Things finale aired on December 31st, 2025. While some fans enjoyed the ending, most agree that it was lackluster, and it didn’t live up to expectations. (Spoilers ahead)

Summary

In the finale, “The Rightside Up”, almost everyone heads to the Upside Down, where Eleven, Hopper, and Kali go to the lab so that Eleven can enter the isolation tank. From there, she links her mind with Max and Kali, enters Venca’s mind, and rescues the kids; distracting Venca, and delaying the Abyss from crashing into Earth. Murray is also at the lab – he plants the bomb that will eventually destroy the Upside Down. 

Meanwhile, Joyce, Steve, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will head to radio tower in the Upside down so they can enter the Abyss. There is an obvious fake-out death when Steve is thrown off of the tower – he is saved by Jonathan.

Back in Hawkins, Vickie is with Max, who is bound in a wheelchair after waking up from her coma. Erica and Mr. Clarke have a brief scene in a church tower before the military and Dr. Kay drag them away. It’s never shown what happens to them, but they both make appearances in the epilogue. 

The final battle in the Abyss lasts around 7 minutes, and shows Nancy distracting the Mind Flayer while everyone else either shoots it or throws molotov cocktails. Eleven then enters the Abyss, and both WIll and her use their powers to impale Venca, and finally, Joyce beheads Venca using an axe. This kills both the mind flayer and Venca, and allows the kids to be freed. 

When the crew exits the Upside Down, the military is waiting, hoping to capture Eleven, who has slipped away to sacrifice herself. She has a heart-to-heart moment with Mike before her ‘death’ – later in the epilogue, Mike explains to Will, Lucas, Max, and Lucas that he believes Eleven managed to slip away, and is living somewhere peaceful. 

The epilogue is 18 months later and shows the kids’ graduation, the teenagers on the roof discussing life at college, Hopper proposing to Joyce at their Enzo date, and finally, the kids have one last D&D game. 

Public Opinion

The finale received a 7.6/10 on IMDb, and many people say that even though they enjoyed the ending, they believed it was a very safe ending, and it didn’t meet the expectations they had. People were also upset about the number of plot holes. Some of the big questions left unanswered in the finale were: where are the demogorgons?, why didn’t Will die if he was connected to the hive mind?, what happened to the military?, and why didn’t Joyce and Hopper mention they went to school with Henry?

The Duffer Brothers responded to these questions in interviews that went up soon after the finale aired, but their answers are hated by nearly everyone. For instance, in their response to ‘where are the demogorgons’, they responded that Venca was not expecting a sneak attack, even though Venca went into Eleven’s mind and could have seen their plan to attack him. 

The finale was so disliked that fans came up with a theory known as “conformitygate“. The theory states the finale was fake, and that a secret episode 9 would air on January 7th, as it took 7 days to find Will when he went missing. The rumors were proved to be false, as no new episodes have come up, but they instead show the number of continuity errors and plot holes within Stranger Things. 

Another complaint fans had was they felt the writers mishandled some of the series’ beloved characters. For example, many fans were upset that in the latter half of season five, Mike became essentially a blank wall, as he genuinely did nothing. Fans were also upset that Eleven was reduced to just being Mike’s girlfriend, ignoring her friendship with Max and Will. Robin and Vickie’s relationship ends with an implied breakup, frustrating many fans, especially since they are the only queer relationship confirmed in the show.

Following the release of the finale, a documentary was released about the making of season 5. In the documentary they admitted that had started working on the season 5 script before they had a clear idea on how they wanted the series to end. There is also evidence that the writers used ChatGPT, but nothing had been confirmed. If this rumor is true, it explains why some of the dialogue felt out of place, and the overuse of the word “goddamn”. Naturally, fans are upset and disappointed, with many of them believing the finale could have been so much more.