So this might be our last Stranger Things post…at least the last one about the actual writing of the show.
Get this…we still haven’t watched the documentary on Netflix, and honestly we’re not even sure we will. Between clips circulating online and commentary from people who already watched it, we feel like we’ve seen enough to know that maybe we don’t want to sit through it.
One of the most poignant parts of the documentary seems to be a discussion about the ending sequence…and that’s the part that bothers a lot of people, including us. There’s this notion being floated that fans would experience “demo fatigue”…that there are too many Demogorgons, that viewers would somehow be tired of them by the final episode. Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer apparently point out that there are six Demogorgons attacking the kids simultaneously and maybe that’s enough.
But someone else…an astute writer involved with the show…correctly points out that it would be crazy not to have Demobats or Demogorgons in the abyss, because that’s their native environment. The response? A simple “hmm.” And then it went away.
Somehow this idea of demo fatigue took hold, despite the fact that no one actually had it. By episode 8, a lot of us weren’t fatigued by Demogorgons at all. We were fatigued by what we were being put through in season 5.
Listen…it’s easy to do 20/20 hindsight, Monday-morning quarterbacking, all of those familiar terms. But there’s real criticism worth sticking here.
One of the greatest cinematic finales ever is Return of the Jedi. That movie had multiple battles happening all at once across the galaxy…and guess what? Viewers weren’t fatigued. They were on the edge of their seats. You had Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker facing off, the Ewoks taking down stormtroopers with sticks and stones, massive space battles unfolding, and the Emperor overseeing it all. It worked.
Stranger Things season 5 episode 8 could have been that.
There could have been military battles on Earth…simultaneous battles in the abyss…chaos in the Upside Down…all happening at once. And we would have eaten it up, because that’s what we were waiting for.
If the Duffers still wanted the graduation scene and the nostalgic ending with Dungeons & Dragons, nothing would have stopped that. Those moments could still exist. What’s troubling is the documentary’s implication that episode 8 was still being written while episode 8 was already being filmed.
That’s not a minor detail.
It feels like they didn’t fully watch their own show, or weren’t mindful of its most basic promises…like Hopper spending years promising Joyce Chianti at Enzo’s, not Chardonnay. Basic things, Duffer Brothers. Basic things.
At this point it’s done. We’ll probably debate season 5 for a long time, and some people will choose to treat season 4 as their personal finale. But if there’s one last thought worth leaving here, it’s this…hubris.
The idea that success, praise, and constant fanfare can make people feel invincible. And when you’re making a show for fans, even if you don’t want to admit it, maybe you talk to them. Maybe you listen. Yes, it’s your show…but it was also ours.
Collectively, Stranger Things belonged to all of us.
And it feels like, in the end, the Duffers took that away.