The final season of Stranger Things has come to an end. Or has it? The underwhelming ending to this beloved series led many fans to speculate that there was an alternative ending. However, the lackluster conclusion may just be the result of bad writing
Stranger Things was first released in 2016 to both critical and audience acclaim. This eight-episode series gained recognition for its 80s nostalgia and small-town horror/mystery aesthetic. The first season had a satisfying conclusion, with most of the plotlines being wrapped up in the final episode. While the series could have ended here, it left just enough suspense in its final minutes to make room for a future installment.
Extending the Stranger Things world
The success of the first season enabled the show writers, Matt and Ross Duffer, to write another season. Subsequent seasons were similarly received, but it seemed the spark was fading. As the show grew in popularity, the Duffer brothers began to lose sight of what made the show special.
While the series continued with its ’80s references, it expanded beyond the small town of Hawkins, which fans had already become invested in. Characters wandered out of their fictional Indiana town, across the country to California, and even across the globe to Russia. As the show grew bigger, the story ventured further from the original plot.
Fans were hopeful that the final season would return to what had intrigued viewers in the first season. While the characters all returned to Hawkins, the Duffers sacrificed character development for world-building. This left many viewers disappointed when the series concluded.
The rise of ‘Conformity Gate’
Once the credits rolled, fans began speculating that the finale was not, in fact, the final episode of the series. A theory dubbed ‘Conformity Gate‘ was born, as fans refused to believe the series would have such a lackluster ending.
It seemed that die-hard Stranger Things fans became the Swifties of television, scraping through the content in the final episode to find easter eggs that might support their theory. Viewers pointed to the most minuscule details, such as the way actors held their hands together during the graduation scene, as evidence that something was amiss in the final episode.
Viewers couldn’t accept that a show known for its subversion of popular culture would end in such a stereotypical way. Fans grasped onto the improbable theory of an alternate ending because they were in denial of the unsatisfactory ending. They hoped the “real” finale would be released on January 7. It would be revealed that the “fake” finale was an illusion by Vecna, the main villain of the later seasons.
A false theory
Conformity gate was a doomed theory from the beginning. While the small details that viewers uncovered to support this theory were impressive, it didn’t make logical sense for this to be the case.
Netflix released the final season of Stranger Things in three parts: the first four episodes the day before Thanksgiving, the next three on Christmas Day, and the finale on New Year’s Day. The final episode was also released to movie theaters, something the show had not done previously. To have a fake-out episode released in theaters, only to quietly add the real episode on Netflix less than a week later doesn’t make sense from a marketing perspective.
Furthermore, two days ahead of the alleged episode release date, the Duffer brothers confirmed that there were no further episodes. When asked by Capital Buzz, Matt Duffer responded, “I love when I hear people do that, but I’m like, ‘How do you have the time?’ Oh my God! The energy to A, write it, and then shoot it. Are you crazy? No. No.”
The seventh of January came and went with no final episode released, proving that Conformity Gate was just hopeful fan-fiction.
Stranger Things became too big
Speculation regarding the season finale wasn’t entirely off-base. It is true that the final season suffered from being too normative, but it was not done to intentionally mislead audiences. Instead, the finale, and the fifth season at large, struggled with its own self-awareness.
At its inception, Stranger Things was a complete unknown, giving the Duffer brothers control to tell as subversive a story as they wished. However, the bigger the fanbase and the bigger the budget got, the higher the pressure was to create a blockbuster rather than a heartfelt story. There is evidence of this as early as season three, but it is especially true of the final season.
The show writers became too aware of the cultural impact of the show, which paralyzed their writing. As they earned more funds toward later seasons, they focused on making a larger spectacle rather than telling an intriguing story. As they saw their audience growing, they became fearful of making a mistake. This led them to make less risky decisions, which in turn made the final season feel hollow compared to earlier seasons.
The real ‘Conformity Gate’ of Season 5
While many people point to the series finale as the point of conformity, the lack of risk-taking by the Duffer brothers is throughout the season as a whole. One major critique the show has received is its inability to kill off any of its main characters. At the start of the season, it seemed that no character was safe. However, as the season went on, even side characters like Karen and Ted Wheeler were safe, making it clear that the stakes weren’t as high as the audience previously believed. By the final episode, not a single major character died. Even in the final episode, Eleven’s death wasn’t fully committed to. This lack of commitment to killing characters took away significant tension from the show.
From a larger cultural aspect, the show also fails to divert expectations. The most disappointing example of this is Will Byers’ coming-out scene. Will’s being gay had been built up from season one. The idea of having the main character of one of the largest television shows come out as gay could have been the most impactful point of the series. Instead, Will’s story concluded in an unsatisfactory way. During his coming out scene, Will never even mentions the word gay. Instead, he says he “doesn’t like girls”. This “don’t say gay” trope is something that plagues mainstream media. The Duffers, rather than challenging this narrative, conformed to this standard.
The nail in the coffin
In the final episode, the writers attempted to tie the show in a neat bow rather than fully flesh out the emotions of the characters that they had been building for the past decade. The characters are sidelined into their predictable roles with no elaboration in order to allow them a happy ever after. Steve is a baseball coach, and Nancy is a writer. Nothing subversive about it.
While ‘Conformity Gate’ may not have been real, the conformity of the writers was. Viewers who felt disappointed by the penultimate season of this show had a valid reason. A series that began as a promising story from a small town became a standard, cookie-cutter blockbuster in its final hours.
