Stranger Things 5x08 Full Reaction!
Added 2026-01-23 19:50:18 +0000 UTCAt least you all can watch it.
Comments
The long epilogue, I can see working for the reasons you mentioned of it “got to be all about just saying goodbye to this world we’d gotten so attached to. And here again, the show just assumes that if you’ve gotten this far, you’re a super big fan of this world and these characters, and this is just more whipped cream on your sundae, so eat up.” Can understand the displeasure of not getting the Dustin scene. The principal turning into Norman Lloyd sounds fun. I know people do complain about plot armor, and there are times when yeah, it can be poorly done. All the same, just seeing the hard earned happy ending is a very wonderful catharsis. Like when Jess saw Rick and Michonne get to live happily at the end of their spinoff. Lovely to hear about the Will scene. Way Jess talked about it, I’m here for the Joyce and Hopper proposal scene at Enzo’s. With that, I have to temper expectations as my mind pictures Hopper saying, “But, I have nothing to give you. My hands are empty.” and Joyce will take his hand and say, “Not empty now.” God, the ‘94 adaptation’s my favorite adaptation of that book. And mind you, I’m sure the scene in this is very lovely. I hear it mentioned, and I just instantly think of that final scene with Jo and Professor Bhaer. Been hearing the differing thoughts on Eleven. I’ve mentioned being on the side of Barriss being alive after Lyn succeeded in getting her out of the cave, so I can support Eleven surviving. Can’t speak to the Kali of it all. No, yeah, I’ve heard some pissing and moaning about this last season, and it was just nice to see Jess was happy with it. Sounds like me with both The Rise of Skywalker and Dial of Destiny in that, like you say with some of the MCU films, I saw them before being told that I was supposed to hate them, and I’m stuck having the “wrong opinion.” Nice to see you had the good time with the last season as well. I do entertain the thoughts of am I being too nice with some stuff before saying that you love what you love. Hope you enjoy the spinoffs. And hope that Jess does too, though I imagine that’ll be in her own time as she’s closing the door on Netflix, like how Misty Knight filled in for Kay with the door closing on her. Speaking of that, you and others talked about how obscenely overt that reference was. Finally seeing it, I laughed, and said, “Jesus Christ, you guys weren’t kidding.” I expected that Sugar would have filled in for Neri rather than Clemenza, so that part was a mild surprise. What makes it worse is they already had the direct references to The Godfather with the “Luke Corleone” line and the “That’s why you went to see Mariah on that Hyman Roth shit” line. Apparently, they thought we were too stupid to understand the references, so they wanted to beat us over the head with the direct visual recreation. Funny too, is Mariah’s one line “You think too much of me, Kid.” was the reference to Sollozzo and Michael at the restaurant, and I even quoted “I’m not that clever.” out of instinct. One small saving grace is that I thought the one recreation was going to be the final shot, though it also started to look like they were going to recreate the final shot of Godfather Part II, and they didn’t. Ah, I’m rambling. Just again, good to see you and Jess had the good time with the final season of Stranger Things.
Thomas Corp
2026-01-25 18:07:40 +0000 UTCI’m picking up your sarcasm. Said sarcasm finally explains what everyone kept saying about #Conspiracygate. Couldn’t figure out what the fuck anyone was yelling about. Think that Paul Sheldon would have the sympathetic words about how they often do those sorts of things in chapter plays. First I’m hearing about the Duffers not knowing how this was going to wrap up beyond they already confirmed that the show wasn’t going to end up being an elaborate D&D campaign. Reminds me how Alan Alda and the other writers tackled writing Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen before the rest of the final season leading up to it, so they avoided that problem. Again, I was, (barring the two specific grievances,) overall fine with the last season of Game of Thrones. Maybe because I didn’t drink the Kool-aid in regard to certain characters? Which seems to be a repeat with House of the Messy; see if I avoid that with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. People also note House of Cards for bad series finales, and even without seeing the show, you get defensive of the writers and showrunners as they got screwed, and you can’t really blame them for that shit. Trying to say that Steve dies that early, and that ignominiously does sound like a pretty thick slice of bullshit. And yeah, he didn’t have the best go of it in Fargo, but that shit had it coming, pathetic little rabbit that he was. The complaint about the rear projection doesn’t sound too bad. Kind of like how we said about the complaint about Obi-Wan hiding Leia under the coat. Silly as shit though it looks, that it pulls you out of it, and Jess got a good laugh, you note the way that it works, and you only get pulled out of it further when Leia gets the one close up. Same here in that, sure, the rear projection may be obvious, but that’s the case in lots of other things, so as long as they don’t draw too much specific attention to it, I could work with that. Good to hear that the Mind Flayer looked good. Interesting to hear about Vecna being the henchman puffing himself up, sounds fun. Funny you should say that about the “hilarious fakeout that the heroes could convince him he’s actually not a bad person and they’ll all sing Kumbaya together, before the show says “Did you really think we’d be that stupid?” Best part of the finale for me.” as I heard the Duffers did entertain that before apparently saying “Wait, what the fuck are we thinking!?” If I ever do see this, I do look forward to Joyce chopping off Vecna’s head, like she should have done to Jim after he tried to kill Edward. Yeah, pretty much no one was saying anything about Dr. Kay. Almost thought there was some serious disrespect to Linda, which I would not stand for that. I did hear Linda mention how she can’t watch her own work. I get that. I’ve heard other actors mention sometimes that this is why they turn some roles down as it’s the types of films or shows that they’d love to watch and not be in, to have the kind of blind viewing that Jess often favors. I get that. Heard Simon Pegg mentioning something along the lines of it felt weird being behind the curtain with Star Wars, or Bryan Cranston turning down directing Better Call Saul, so he could keep being surprised by what was going to happen.
Thomas Corp
2026-01-25 17:43:21 +0000 UTCMy one big problem with Dany's ending, besides being generally rushed, was Tyrion's big lecture directly to the audience about how she's been killing people the whole time, but we cheered for it because they were evil. Yeah, fuck right off with that, a button almost as big for me as destroying someone's art is telling me I was wrong to want evil characters to get what's coming to them. It even damn near wrecked the otherwise brilliant Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood for me. I never watched Roseanne while it was on, and these days I feel about as motivated to start it as I do for The Cosby Show, but I very much remember the outrage over the final season wrecking everything about what its appeal was supposed to be. I had a bit of that experience with Babylon 5, though thankfully the very last episode pulled it out of the tailspin as I mentioned here. The final battle is kind of like the first Avengers, where if you put any logical thought into it, Thor is the only one doing something really substantial for most of it, but it's so neat to see everyone working together and doing what's become their big thing against an enemy who can take it so they're not in a world of cardboard, that you don't care at all and are rooting for them all equally.
Ryan
2026-01-25 16:52:02 +0000 UTCOn to the episode’s second half, and a lot of people grumbled about how long this epilogue was, but I’m again perfectly fine with it. My all-time favorite final episode is Babylon 5’s Sleeping in Light, because every bit of actual plot had been taken care of over the last few episodes, so the finale got to be all about just saying goodbye to this world we’d gotten so attached to. And here again, the show just assumes that if you’ve gotten this far, you’re a super big fan of this world and these characters, and this is just more whipped cream on your sundae, so eat up. My one minor issue is Dustin apparently cleared Eddie’s name and whupped the bullies totally offscreen given everyone’s support of his graduation stunt, and why couldn’t we get to see that? But the principal turning into Norman Lloyd and running around screaming “I say, this is most unorthodox, most unorthodox indeed!” is quite a fitting end to all the school stories. After that, it’s just more of these people getting the happy endings they so richly deserve, and why would you not want to just marinate in that for a while after everything we’ve been through with them? Especially nice that they had the guts to show Will picking someone up in a gay bar, having fully embraced himself, after I worried the finale would have to clear up so much stuff that there wouldn’t be any room to expand on his big scene in the last episode. And I’m definitely on the side of Eleven being alive. In fact, I’ll go even further and say Kali’s death was an illusion and she also lived. It makes a lot more sense than her being able to create such an elaborate vision seconds from death and so far away. It’s been a bit of a rocky road with this show, and I didn’t always agree with the choices it made, but as far as I’m concerned this final season completely pulled it together and went out on top. And it’s very gratifying to see you were the same way the whole time, after so many other people I know turned against it and made me wonder if I was being too nice. Bring on the spinoffs.
Ryan
2026-01-25 16:42:02 +0000 UTCWell, I had a couple minor issues with this ending, so it seems pretty clear the only right and sane thing to do is insist the entire two hours is just a vision Vecna put in their heads, and there’s a secret real ending being released two weeks later, especially screwing over all those fans who paid to see this in a theater. It makes sense to me, I don’t know what to tell you. And I’m sure Paul Sheldon would agree if I let him talk to you. Now, there was also that behind the scenes special that didn’t exactly paint the Duffers in the best light. They made most of this season without a solid idea of what the ending should be, and might have even used AI to write some of it judging by the tabs on a computer in the background. I did notice some weird bits of grammar that could easily be explained by that, though since they mostly came from Kali I just figured it was a deliberate character thing. But even if it did happen that way, I’m mostly satisfied with how it turned out. And after watching shows like Buffy, Alias, How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, Lost, Game of Thrones, and before any of that the fucking ‘90s Spider-Man cartoon, I know very well what a bad TV ending looks like, and this isn’t it. One criticism I especially have to refute is Holly not holding anything against her friends who beat her up last episode, where just like them being fooled by Vecna so easily, I just feel like telling these people “Let me explain something about children, because clearly you never were one.” It’s especially weird because at this same time they don’t seem to have much trouble with the fakeout of Steve’s death, which was my big issue. Show of hands, how many actually thought Steve would be killed this early in the finale, and by just randomly tripping and falling off the tower? And you thought his ending on Fargo was pathetic. Now we get to everyone entering the Abyss, and yeah, everything people are saying about the rear projection during this entire half hour is absolutely true. But I again can’t bring myself to care very much, since clearly the effects team was putting all their effort toward the true form of the Mind Flayer, which looks fantastic and more than anything else makes me wish I shelled out to see this on the big screen. Also much appreciated that after last season gave the impression that Vecna was the real villain the whole time and the Mind Flayer was just a puppet he was hiding behind, we get clarification here that he’s very much the henchman and was just puffing himself up to Eleven. And as a bonus, it comes with a hilarious fakeout that the heroes could convince him he’s actually not a bad person and they’ll all sing Kumbaya together, before the show says “Did you really think we’d be that stupid?” Best part of the finale for me. A close second is Joyce being the one to finally put down the bastard for good. We know what she can do to herself with a pair of scissors, now she has an ax and has someone else to direct all her rage at. But coming down off that high, we get the one big problem I have, the total lack of closure with Dr. Kay, which is the one place where the lack of forward planning really shows. Linda has talked about how she’s never been able to watch her own work, and she should have thought about how she’d be denying herself the chance to watch the ending of a show she loves, but the plus side is she now gets to imagine she got some fitting offscreen comeuppance that was mentioned somewhere.
Ryan
2026-01-25 16:41:48 +0000 UTCI am very sorry that the illness delayed your viewing of the series finale for this show. I hear ya on how frustrating it is that it looked like you were in the clear, all ready to watch this, and then your voice takes a powder. Good to see that you had a nice response to this finale. If you were happy, then I’m happy. In skipping ahead to the post episode thoughts, I did catch your expression at the closing moments of this show. The emotion in your eyes there, Jess, was most beautiful. Yes, one benefit of the longer finale is a better opportunity to focus on more characters. Maybe not perfect, but like you said, they did a good job of it here. This is a significant reason why Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen is the greatest series finale ever. Which does tie into the one downside of there are copious things to talk about, something strong in your case given the strong passion for character deep dives that you have. This also makes me think of what it would have been like if today’s technology and youtube reaction landscape was available to people back on that fateful night in February of 1983. I do absolutely hear you when you talk about this is your first viewing, and yeah, maybe you’re not going to catch every single tiny little detail. I’d have the same problem with the OCD if I had a channel. Not to mention how you talked about the fear of forgetting shit from previous seasons. Shared feelings there. Can’t talk too in depth about this finale myself. I know that there has been some discourse with this finale. Some friends of mine were pissed with this. Various headlines, which some, I imagine, are clickbait, likewise express displeasure with the finale. No particular idea as to why. I hear a few comparisons to the last two seasons of Game of Thrones. Of course, the comparison to the last two seasons of Game of Thrones never works much for me as the louder complaints and criticisms weren’t exactly shared. There WAS the issue of pacing and presentation being severely rushed in the last two seasons, the reduced episode count not helping. Leading to my acknowledging when certain things that made perfect fucking sense (Like Daenerys going mad queen with the cheese sliding off her cracker, they telegraphed that as early as season two. They just moved at the speed of the hare when they were in the home stretch.) were rushed, and the other complaints, I found I just didn’t share/they didn’t bother me much. The only two major grievances of the last season of Game of Thrones, and they are big ones, mind you, are problems that can be rectified if there ever is a follow up, slight wiggle room you would need for the one grievance, though still fixable. Now obviously, when we talk worst series finale/final season, as previously stated, the last season of Roseanne is probably forever the most egregiously offensive thing ever from every single narrative standpoint, (and that was the case before Roseanne derailed what was left of her career and reputation,) so barring a catastrophic shit storm, this was never going to reach that. And again, the way you talked about this finale, you had a lovely time, and that’s the important thing, Jess. Reiterate that I can’t talk too much about specifics. Heard some conflicting reports about Dr. Kay. Way I have it, there’s confusion about her fate, and it’s unclear, or so I hear. ...Sounds preferable to how she was written off the Beauty and the Beast show in such an ungodly offensive manner. I did know that Murray lives to see the ending. Good. Nice to hear he blew shit up. The adults being out of commission, leaving the kids to be the ones onstage for the finale. Has an It feel to it, so that’s fun. I have been spoiled about Joyce delivering the fatal blow to Vecna. Do rather hope that she channeled her ex by way of informing Vecna that it was Dostoyevsky who said, “Later fucker!” before lopping his head off. Now I know that you said that Eleven did a lot of the heavy lifting, and you don’t want us to yell at you for potentially giving all credit to Joyce. I fail to see why that would be a problem as Joyce is Winona, and the woman is a treasure. All the praise to her. But again, I was aware that Joyce, facing off against Vecna, she decapitated that bitch as you delightfully describe. She really got him, which is pretty fitting considering the Dracula of it all. Joyce and Hopper having a big proposal scene at Enzo’s, well, that sounds like a very lovely thing. Glad you really appreciated it. Nice that you liked Dustin honoring Eddie. Yes, that is what Eddie said what he was going to do with flying the bird. I know this because that also was an unavoidable spoiler. As you say, a sweet way to honor everyone’s beloved Eddie. What a guy. Makes ya cry. Und I did. As to Eleven. You wonder about the possibly different perspectives. I do feel the pain you described about how someone can feel a burden. The darker suicidal ideations pray on that, the thing of if you go, then you won’t be that burden to your loved one; it’s better that way. Felt that one on a very deep level a few times in years past. You spoke of your heart breaking for Eleven how she’s gone through so much pain, endured such trauma, and just when the light is at the end of the tunnel, the ending that you talked about happens, and it saddens you. Going back to Game of Thrones, my brother’s favorite was Theon, and he mentioned being pissed off with his death for similar reasons of he survived so much shit, and then dies before he could have had the happy ending. Now you note the flipside of people arguing Eleven committing the noble sacrifice to save loved ones, and how that can be the poetic ending. I note that about Theon as what they were likely going for. My brother gets that, doesn’t argue against it, he’s just pissed off it ended up the way it did. Hearing you talk about it with Eleven, I could see similar debates. I have no horse in the race, so I can’t contribute. Liked the words about Mike’s story, and how you had the response you had to it. The thing of it is a lovely story that’s perhaps not true, yet it helps someone with coping. Sounds about right. And it ties into a central tenet in life: Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. No matter if they’re true or not, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in. Guess that’s most of what I can say. Thus ending the Stranger Things era. And the Netflix era, as you said that’s it. You say, “It’s all over, Netflix, the whole marriage. We’re getting an annulment. I want you to pack up your things, tie them up in saran wrap, and get out of here! Actually, physically, immediately! If you can do it sooner, I’d appreciate it!” Yes, you did say Wednesday would likely continue, and since I heard Black Mirror is getting another season, I would imagine that too. Barring those, and any other currently ongoing Netflix shows that I could be forgetting, it’s done. Don’t blame you. And I too would respond to questions about a reaction being reuploaded because of copyright with responses like, “Uh, no, my doctor says I need to do it for my health. Besides which, my accountant says I need to do it to make more money for this fiscal quarter.” Still very sorry that I couldn’t really share this with you. But it does warm the heart to hear you say that this fandom is one that you weathered the copyright malevolence from Netflix, and how there’s not many fandoms that you’d do that for. Likewise, it is so sweet that you say, much like the Squid Game fandom, the Stranger Things fandom really gets you, and like when you said that with the final Squid Game reactions, I recognize that as the very high compliment that it is. Just very happy that you enjoyed this ending to Stranger Things as you did, Jess. Take care.
Thomas Corp
2026-01-23 21:22:45 +0000 UTC
