Enh. 6.5/10
I didn’t really connect with the final season, and that bummed me out more than I expected.
Somewhere along the way the Upside Down stopped feeling like an eerie parallel world and started feeling like a generic sci-fi battleground, complete with an unclear villain problem--is it Vecna, the Mind Flayer/ the spider thing, are they aliens , or all of the above? And why should I care anymore?
The late-game flood of new characters didn’t help either; suddenly there's twenty Naomi Wildmans I'm supposed to find the bandwidth for and care about, and if you don’t know who Naomi Wildman is, be glad.
Add to that the barrage of endless close-up shots that started to grate me. Anytime there was an emotional moment, dramatic moment, a comedy moment, etc., they did a close-up of every actor's reaction.
What really disappointed me, though, was the storytelling drift: Seasons 1 and 2 were tight and grounded--kids on bikes facing impossible odds--and then it’s Russians, hyper-militarized government nonsense, and saving the universe, which feels less like escalation and more like the storytelling fell off a cliff.
That said, there were bright spots: Steve and Dustin’s arc landed beautifully, and the final scene in Mike’s basement was genuinely outstanding. I still like all the main cast a lot, and most of the additions that were picked up throughout the seasons added tremendously to the show. I'm glad they got rid of Suzie from Utah, and the nurse didn't add much. The pizza guy was the worst part of season 4, didn't miss him even a little bit. Why the hell was Linda Hamilton there? It feels like they completely wasted her.
But Max and Billy, Robin, Murray and Alexi, Eddie--all added so much to the show, and drove the narrative forward.
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