Goodbye, Upside Down

One last ride on the BMX through the misty streets of Hawkins, one final synth swell from Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein piercing the autumn chil.

Stranger Things is over.

As the credits rolled on “The Rightside Up” that New Year’s Eve, I sat there, remote in hand, not with the triumphant roar I’d imagined for a decade-long saga, but with a quiet ache, and maybe even anger.

Let’s be honest: the finale’s action sequences felt bloated and rushed. From Hopper’s crew storming Henry’s mind in a Broadway-adjacent fever dream to the Hawkins gang diving into The Abyss for a showdown with an oversized Mind Flayer, the show barrels through three major plots in the opening stretch. It’s loud, busy, and oddly hollow. The CGI looks expensive, sure. Eleven swoops in without her trademark Gatorade and saves the day. But the intimate terror that once defined Stranger Things—the slow dread, the silence before the scream—is mostly gone.

No gut-wrenching losses, no stakes that stuck—just a glossy escape on a party bus blasting Prince, leaving fans like me wondering if the show forgot that true horror hits hardest when it hurts.

Worse still, the emotional payoff fizzled under the weight of half-baked ideas, like Vecna’s muddled origin story that teased sympathy only to yank it away. We dive into flashbacks of young Henry getting scarred by some Upside Down rock in a cave, Will pleading that he’s “just like me, a vessel,” only for Vecna to shrug it off with a villainous “I chose it”—a revelation that feels tacked-on and pointless after seasons building him as the big bad. Why bother with the Broadway play tie-in or those endless Creel house echoes if it all boils down to Joyce chopping his head off in mild horror? The gang watches away, awkwardly, quietly.

And while the 18-month time jump gifts sweet glimpses of graduation and grown-up gigs—Dustin’s Hellfire valedictorian moment shines—it can’t mask how the season skimped on unforced character beats, reducing Murray to quips and sidelining the quiet hangs that made us fall for these kids.

So yes, all in all, the finale sucked.

But oh, the heart. The Duffers, those sibling architects of our ‘80s fever, saved the best for the souls they built. In the emotional arcs, they didn’t just end a story; they mended the fractures of growing up, handing us a mirror to our own lost childhoods.

We started this in 2016, didn’t we? A bunch of wide-eyed kids ourselves, huddled around laptops as four boys—Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will—argued over dice rolls in a basement lit by flickering fluorescents. I was 18 then, a freshman in college. 

Stranger Things wasn’t just escapism; it was a portal. Eleven, with her buzzcut defiance and telekinetic fury. We watched Millie Bobby Brown bloom from that fierce waif into a woman wielding powers effortlessly, her arc from lab rat to chosen saviour a slow-burn anthem for anyone who’s ever felt othered. And Hopper? David Harbour’s grizzled cop, nursing his Sara-shaped void, became the dad none of us had words for—the one who grunts “I love you” over pancakes.

Eddie Munson in Stranger Things Season 4 Netflix

Five seasons, ten years (that pandemic hiccup stretching), and we grew alongside them.

Dustin’s curls thinned into Matarazzo’s wry grin; Will’s quiet torment flowered into Schnapp’s brave coming-out.

We grew up too. Late nights turned to deadlines, arcade crushes to real ones that fizzled, and suddenly, the Upside Down felt less like fiction and more like the chaos we all clawed through.

Even the sidekicks stole our hearts: Steve Harrington, from king of the keg to babysitter extraordinaire, his bat-swinging heroism in the junkyard brawl. Harrington’s evolution remains one of television’s best glow-ups.

And don’t get me started on Eddie Munson—Joseph Quinn’s metalhead bard who crashed into our lives like a Hellfire van in Season 4, shredding “Master of Puppets” on a trailer rooftop as bats swarmed. Eddie was the misfit manifesto, his “I am no hero” sacrifice a gut-punch reminder that heroism isn’t capes—it’s choosing the riff over retreat. His ghost lingered in the finale’s party bus escape, Dustin’s faint “This one’s for you, Eds” as Prince’s “Purple Rain” blared, a nod to the friends we lose too soon, the ones who teach us to play on.

At the end, eighteen months later, Hawkins heals. Graduation caps sail like kites, Dustin’s valedictorian riff—“I just wanted a normal childhood… but there was so much good too”—rips the Hellfire shirt from under his robe, the crowd erupting in a wave of nostalgia. It’s pure joy: Lucas and Max’s spark reigniting, Steve coaching Derek’s Little League dreams, Jonathan chasing film reels at NYU while Nancy pens exposés. Robin’s radio quips still crackle with Hawke’s deadpan wit, a lifeline to the ice cream scoops and Starcourt confessions. Jopper’s caviar-fueled proposal? A toast to second chances.

Steve Harrington in Stranger Things Season 2Netflix

And the basement coda—the basement—where it all began and ends. The Party, older, scarred, finishes their D&D saga: the mage’s “death” an illusion, Eleven alive, trekking to those three waterfalls like a Shire-bound exile, her Eggo-scented freedom a promise of solo adventures beyond Hawkins’ pull. Mike’s voiceover warns of the untold tale, but we know: she’s out there, free, maybe flipping trucks in some sun-dappled nowhere. The new kids—Holly, Derek—storm in, dice clattering, as our heroes shelve the binder. Mike shuts the door. Campaign over.

Stranger Things was our goodbye to innocence, wasn’t it? The bikes gave way to cars, the gates sealed but the scars lingered—like that faint Upside Down vein on Hawkins’ earth, a reminder that wonder wounds. We laughed at Murray’s conspiracy rants over shawarma, wept to “Should I Stay or Should I Go” in the Byers’ shed, shredded air guitars to Eddie’s rooftop symphony.

Steve and NancyNetflix

It made misfits mighty, queerness a quiet superpower, friendship the real magic—those Eggo-fueled stakeouts, the van sing-alongs to “Whip It,” the hellish heat of the Russian sub. Disappoint the action all you want; the emotions lingered.

Thank you, Duffers, for the nightmare that dreamed us whole. The lights are out in Hawkins, but in our basements—in our hearts—they flicker on, synth humming eternal.