US EditionWhat Worked — and What Didn't — in the 'Stranger Things' Finale
The finale ends with Joyce killing Vecna and Eleven's uncertain fate after stopping the apocalypse, offering closure for many characters following five seasons of storytelling.
- On New Year's Eve, Stranger Things concluded with The Rightside Up, a two-plus-hour finale including a roughly 40-minute epilogue set 18 months later after five seasons and nearly 10 years.
- To stop Vecna from crashing the world, Eleven joined Kali, Jim Hopper, and Murray inside an Upside Down Hawkins Lab while others climbed the WSQK tower as the Abyss descended.
- Inside the Abyss, Eleven fought Vecna one-on-one while friends used flamethrowers, guns, flares and slingshots against the Mind Flayer, which transformed into a massive spider-like creature, and Dr. Kay's military goons disrupted their plan.
- Hawkins now shows a rebuilt downtown and a memorial while the finale vanquished main villains and opened new paths for core characters, with all five seasons streaming on Netflix.
- The Duffer Brothers left the ending deliberately ambiguous by not revealing Eleven's fate and the finale hints at more Stranger Things projects, including an animated series set between seasons two and three.
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The outcome of Netflix's star series compensates for its weaknesses with a two-hour emotional epilogue that collapsed the platform on New Year's Eve.
"Boglands – Die Tote im Moor", "The Copenhagen Tests", "Kaminer Inside", "Austria – The Whole Story", "Arlington Road", along with the annual report of the "State Artists" on Ö1
Nell Fisher Doesn’t Think ‘Stranger Things’ Could Have Ended Any Other Way
The 14-year-old newcomer to the Netflix mega-hit talks about Holly’s big final season arc and the “perfect” series finale: "When we finally read the script, everyone was in floods of tears."
It is tremendously ironic, but the beginning of 2026 has welcomed us with one of the most tearful farewells in the history of television fiction. Stranger Things has had an end to a series that has almost covered a decade. Although of course and as usual, the last episode has not satisfied all the viewers. And precisely, one of the main criticisms has to do with a relevant absence in the great final battle of our heroes against the gigantic Azom…
At the end of the fifth and final season of the Netflix series "Stranger Things" the creators pull all the stops. Read our spoiler-free review of chapter 8, "Back on the right page" here.
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