Stranger Things in Stranger Times

In July of 2016, Netflix debuted Stranger Things, and it quickly became a cultural phenomenon. That series mixed elements of horror, science fiction, and fantasy with the influence of the kids and young adult adventure films of the eighties period it was set. Over ten years and five seasons, the creative engine behind the series, the Duffer Brothers, took viewers through the adventures of a group of Dungeons and Dragons obsessed, nerdy, misfit kids, and a cast of others who intertwined with them in the town of Hawkins, Indiana.

In many ways, its timing was perfect. Social media like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook had yet to fragment so completely in their attempts to become everything to everyone. The general public was in the beginning of the process of being confronted with the worst of aspects social media was going to produce, but hadn't quite so thoroughly soured on it yet. As a result, Stranger Things, like Game of Thrones and a few others before it, benefitted from the new media environment that was the digital revolution, and their fandoms got to experience what it's like when some piece of storytelling becomes a force, a kind of wave in culture. We're not likely to see it so often going forward.

On New Years Eve of 2025, the final episode of Stranger Things was released, wrapping up the story of Eleven, the Byers, the Wheelers, the Sinclairs, Steve Harrington, Hopper, and the assorted characters they added to their party over those five seasons. The digital environment of 2025/2026 is markedly different from that of 2016, and a whole slew of factors are filtering into the reactions and criticism of Stranger Things.

Netflix throwing its economic weight around the film industry, while having the least amount of tolerance possible for the theatrical experience, has taken its toll. The proliferation of streaming services, that all of them are now producing their own shows, instead of being repositories for films and television created and introduced through other channels, and the effect that's having on the economic landscape of the television industry hasn't been warmly received either. A good portion of the audience who began watching Stranger Things ten years ago has aged into new and different stages of life, changing their expectations of the media they consume. Hyperbole has always been the language of digital realm, but the way social media has impacted the drive for attention, cultured its participants, and the degree to which provocation is so successful a strategy in that attention economy also means shit posting about anything that's trending or getting attention is rewarded. Add to all of this the world into which the final season of Stranger Things was released is now fully and irrevocably aware that its institutions and cultures are being undermined or subsumed by a fascist movement, and the general sense of dis-ease and imbalance of chaotic, constantly shifting ground. That the executive class of these social media companies and major media conglomerates have been willing to attempt to curry favor with that fascist authoritarian movement, has also contributed to a kind of pulsing background noise in the culture of social media itself, that sometimes crests as seething resentment, but is always a buzzing disappointment.

In a fittingly ironic way, this show about a bunch of oddball, geek culture obsessed kids who are themselves targeted because of that affinity in the course of the show, because of their Outsiderness, reached a level of popularity it's become an easy target for the variety of critic, media consumer and social media participant whose feeling of Otherness and Outsiderness demands opposition to anything too popular or seemingly too mainstream. This particular variety of criticism is, to my mind, a valuable and necessary vein because of how often it does produce considered, interesting perspectives. One of the most annoying things about the attention seeking provocateurs who post hyperbolic, thoughtless takes is they make it harder to find the often sincere, thoughtful criticism of the people whose perspective is from an authentically Outsider sensibility.

Personally, I thought this final season of Stranger Things did what it needed to do. It gave closure to the story and characters it began with. It was more successful in this final season, and concluding its story than say, Game of Thrones. There's also Penny Dreadful, which steeped itself in horror and gothic literature, but left a whole lot to be desired in its final season, as compared to it's first two. Hannibal was one of the most interesting television shows of its time, but ended up having to rush its ending when its cancellation was announced, and though it handled this admirably, it never quite lived up to the highs of the earlier seasons. Stranger Things stuck the landing, as far as I'm concerned. Did it reach the highs of some of the earlier seasons? I think that depends on which highs you were looking for. In terms of giving its characters moments to shine or to give the audience one last interaction in the important character relationships, I do think it succeeds. I don't know it succeeds in reaching the highs of tension or suspense, in terms of horror fantasy that some of the previous seasons did, and I can live with that.

Was it as satisfying as its own separate season of television? I can't actually say. It was less it's own arc than any of the other seasons before it, I think, but I don't think that's an automatic demerit against it either. Coming into the final season of something that's been so long running, such a behemoth in the cultural conversation, with so much hype and so much to accomplish, the necessity for finality kind of overwhelms everything else.

I don't write much about television because it often requires writing about a story before it's ended, and maybe more than ever now, with the way streaming services do business, it's hard to know whether we're ever going to get an end to a story. If I'm completely honest, I find it difficult to separate pieces of a larger story from their place in that larger story, especially if I don't know how it ends and how each piece may contribute to making or detracting from a satisfying ending. There are other people who write about television well, to all of our benefit, because they are able to articulate what makes a particular season or episode successful, on its own or in the larger story.

My question, any time I'm looking at any completed piece of story is, "Does it work?" This is, of course, what makes any criticism subjective. Stories always work for some people and not for others. It's part of why criticism exists, and part of why people like me, who love storytelling, love to talk about it and write about and think about it.

Maybe I'll feel differently in the future. There's a less than zero chance that later this year, when the dust settles, I'll rewatch the whole series, get under the hood and take a good hard look at what Stranger Things has to say. It seems like a good text to do that with, for a variety of reasons.

Right now though, what I've been thinking about, that I haven't seen anyone else say, is that I'm glad Stranger Things came around in the decade it did. Maybe The Duffer Brothers could have foreseen what was coming when they were developing and shooting the first season, but I doubt it. They were pretty busy, and the only people who seemed to have forecast what was coming, were people who spent an unhealthy amount of time watching what the far right was up to, and how they were being responded to (or not) by the rest of the nation and its institutions. I haven't made it a point to follow The Duffer Brothers, read or listen to interviews. I've been pretty content to watch the show, as its available, and enjoy that there has been hub-bub around this genre mashup that didn't short change the horror, science fiction or fantasy influences it drew from.

I'm glad it's been there, especially during this period. There's no chance it hasn't been a gateway into horror and fantasy for new generation. Could it have been darker and more willing to traverse the territory of the difficult storytelling those genres can? Possibly. But, it began as and always was, a YA series too. The storytelling for kids and young adults that influenced it, often peeked into that darkness, maybe even stuck their whole heads through the door, but rarely did they run headlong into it. It's part of how we define what media is for kids and what media is strictly for adults. There's a high likelihood that in another ten years, there will be people working in horror and fantasy, reaching high profile status and citing Stranger Things as part of what made them want to be part of the lovely group of weirdos and freaks that is the Horror Crowd, as Phil Nobile rightly labeled it. It will combine with whatever other influences they pick up along the way, and insure there are still people who want to either peak into or run headlong into the darkness, depending on what they're making and who they see as the audience for it.

There's another reason I'm glad Stranger Things has been around for this particular decade too. If any one thing has characterized the last decade, it's been the reaffirmation of the ugliness of disdain for our shared humanity, celebrated and displayed with pride. At this point, the shotgun blasts of powerful people othering entire groups of us have been so regular and so varied, it's almost more efficient to ask, "Who isn't being targeted as an Other?" During all that, Stranger Things would come back around every few years and tell a story about a bunch of characters fighting seemingly impossible odds, powers that should have easily overwhelmed them. Their most powerful asset wasn't the super powered among them, but that they stuck together, welcomed new characters into their midst both in spite of and because of their oddities and quirks, and kept fighting to be there for each other. They allowed each other their peaks and valleys, their struggles and victories, and because of this, they kept moving toward being the best versions of themselves, individually and as a group. Along the way, a few of them made terrible sacrifices, and those among them with the most power understood the responsibility of power is always to leave a better future than the present you were given. I'm also glad it understood that those who have power and don't understand that responsibility, don't need to be redeemed either.

There will be time to get into the minutia of how much each different piece, theme, subplot, character decision or beat, worked or made sense in the overall story or progression of events. As I said, there's a good chance I'll do that at some point in the future. Right now though, as it has come to an end and we've said goodbye to El, Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Max, Nancy, Erica, Robin, Steve, Jonathan, Hopper, Joyce, Murray, and the rest of Hawkins... I'm going to be glad they kept coming back to remind us of these things, to call out to the best parts of who we are, in the midst of people with an incredible amount of power working so hard to call forth the worst of what we can be. I'm glad this was one of the stories to be so immense in this time.