This article was originally published on SFFGazette.com.
After five seasons, 42 episodes, and nearly a decade since it first premiered on Netflix, Stranger Things is over. The series finale, titled "The Rightside Up," has proven a little divisive, but ended the show on a definitive note (despite some big plot holes and unanswered questions).
Our heroes devise a plan that will enable Eleven, Kali, and Max to enter Vecna's mind and kill him. Dustin, Steve, and the rest of the gang decide to venture into The Abyss to save Holly and the other kids, while Hopper plans to destroy the Upside Down—which links The Abyss to our world—with C-4.
When Henry finally ventures into the cave that's long terrified him, it appears be truly unstoppable. Kali, meanwhile, is gunned down by Lt. Akers, and the Mind Flayer, which houses Vecna and his hive mind, reawakens.
A fight ensues inside and out, Eleven and Will manage to defeat and impale Vecna before Joyce finishes the villain off by cutting his head off with an axe. With that, the Mind Flayer's physical body is also destroyed.
Still, there's an hour or so left in the feature-length episode at this point, and trouble ensues when Dr. Kay and the military show up to take Eleven into custody. She enters Mike's mind and explains that she's decided to end her life, as it's the only way to put an end to all of this. They express their love for each other and have an emotional farewell; back in the real world, El stands at the portal to the Upside Down and is wiped away, along with the Upside Down itself, when Hopper's C-4 goes off.
Stranger Things then takes us 18 months into the future, and it's Graduation Day. Hopper encourages Mike to live his life, and at his graduation, he hears some strange feedback from the speakers that makes him think of Eleven.
Nancy works at a newspaper, Jonathan is studying to be a filmmaker at NYU, and Steve teaches sex ed and coaches baseball in the suburbs. Joyce accepts Hopper's proposal (they're moving to Montauk, which is famous for the "Montauk Project," the supposed location of secret U.S. government research into psychological warfare and time travel), and Will, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Max meet for one final game of Dungeons & Dragons.
Mike theorises that when Eleven died, the military had been using the machines meant to cripple her. Instead, she was standing tall, leading him to believe that moments before her "dying," Kali conjured the illusion of Eleven so the real El could escape. We then see a shot of her hiking through the mountains and reaching the waterfalls she once dreamed about.
However, whether that's what really happens is left for the viewer to decide, as Mike says it's the version of the story he's choosing to believe. As they head up for dinner, Mike watches as Holly and her friends race downstairs for their first Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
So, a fairly definitive ending, albeit one not everyone loves. That's inevitable when it's a series as big as this, of course, and with a Stranger Things spin-off on the way from The Duffer Brothers, there may yet still be more to this story.
Stranger Things Season 5 is now streaming on Netflix in its entirety.