It was 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day when the Stranger Things finale dropped in my time zone. I was on my couch, phone face-down for once, weeks of fan-wiki rabbit holes and late-night theory calls finally cashing out. By the time the credits rolled, there was an immediate sense of completion and satisfaction, but that didn’t last very long. An aching realization crept in: How many things never came back up? How many characters were met with absence where I thought they deserved meaning? “Where is Vicki?” “Is Will anything beyond his sexuality?” “Did El really *have* to die?”
After the adrenaline rush of Season 5 Episode 8 wore off, it felt like realizing the writers had quietly left the room. For me, the Stranger Things finale didn’t fail because it was predictable or imperfect; I think it was allowed to be those things! It failed because it repeatedly used queer characters, abused women, and traumatized kids to carry emotional weight, then refused to give them futures, clarity, or care once that weight was spent.
In my eyes, Stranger Things ends by protecting its nostalgia and fan favs, but not its most vulnerable characters. The beauty of this fandom is that there’s a character for everyone who is bigger than their archetype. The audience can become extensions of the characters, and this finale left its marginalized audience just as neglected as its characters. This Tumblr post summed it up best: “I mean, what did you think, really? That a show about nerds and outcasts was gonna have a well-written queer romance? That, in the end, queer love could help save the world?” Well, yes… yes, I did.
I have a few things to set straight. I liked the moments. I was touched. I even shed tears. I never wanted Will and Mike together. Byler wouldn’t have worked in my opinion, and frankly, that was never the point. The problem is what the show chose to do with Will instead — which was mostly… nothing. Will starts this series as the emotional center. By the end, I can only see him as a narrative utility player. Will is there to react, absorb, and then step aside.
Will says he doesn’t think he’ll ever find love. And the show, boldly and confidently, says: yeah, probably not. Having a queer character fear a lonely future is raw and valid, but then confirming that fear isn’t realism. It’s lazy homophobia. The show literally hangs Will’s unspoken feelings on a wall and calls it resolution. At some point, it stops being subtle and starts being avoidant. And that avoidance isn’t limited to Will. Though, he’s just the most obvious casualty.
I can’t be mad at Mike. I’m mad at whoever wrote him like this. When having a one-on-one with Will, post coming out, Mike says, “Friends? No.” Then a beat… “Best friends.” Mike stares longingly at Will’s D&D folder. Mike can’t say “I love you” to Eleven even when she’s about to die. Those moments aren’t nothing. They’re baiting the significance that the show refuses to own up to. Every detail of the show has been significant. So, if the writers didn’t want us to look at Byler, I don’t think they should have highlighted it.
The term “queerbaiting” is a delicate term and one I hardly use. To me, queerbaiting is not when a male celebrity wears nail polish, when two friends are close, or when a character doesn’t come out. But I do think queerbaiting is when writers knowingly cultivate queer subtext, then market it, reference it, tease it, and then pretend they never did any of that. Queer audiences aren’t dumb and can see when a corporation is cashing in on ambiguity and then acting offended when people notice. And it wouldn’t sting as much if this weren’t part of a bigger pattern.
Robin grows in Season 5. Vickie shows some personality and matters to the plot. They have scenes. A relationship. Momentum. But the finale happens, and Vickie disappears. There’s not even a lazy excuse as to what she’s up to. Joyce and Hopper made it to Enzo’s, but did the lesbians? It’s just careless to me. And when it keeps happening to the same kinds of characters, it stops feeling accidental.
Eleven and Kali are abused by men in power for most of their lives. The consequences? Isolation, eternal emotional labor, and death. Trauma was the only thing that either of them got to keep. They carried it from their mothers and were teased with normality. Hopper tells El that he wants her to have a daughter and give her the life El never had. This even implies that El wouldn’t have more life to live besides motherhood. And then there’s the Brenner Throughline of women as vessels and pregnant women stripped of agency and autonomy. Media is never neutral, and in a post-Roe world, “that’s just the plot” stops being a defense for these crimes. Especially when the show refuses to interrogate what it’s showing us.
Will’s queer future was denied. His relationship with Mike became hollow. El never saw adulthood or a life beyond sacrifice. The same goes for Kali. Robin never got a moment of queer joy. The same goes for Vickie. The women who were abused by power never modeled liberation. Brenner’s legacy of systemic harm was never challenged. One missing arc is a mistake. To me, a pattern of marginalized erasure is a choice.
This finale comes as a disappointment to so many who have seen parts of their identity in the show, and also those who let the show influence their identity. I was let down by a program that wants credit for empathy without paying the cost of follow-through, and uses nostalgia as a shield protecting itself from having to reckon with the victims of what it built. For a show about found family, it’s striking how many people it left behind.