Growing Up Shouldn’t Mean Conforming and Forgetting

It was hard not to shed a tear or two when Stranger Things came to a close this winter. I was in college when the first season aired—not exactly a kid in a way that might have made the story’s characters relatable. But at 19, I was on the cusp of a symbolic split, straddling youth and adulthood with great expectations for adventures ahead and a good dose of melancholy for what I thought I was leaving behind. Perhaps Stranger Things found me at the right time. Like millions of others, in 2016 I was on the edge of my seat when Will Byers sent signals through the string lights in his living room. Over the years, the story grew with me, and I came to cherish its introspective portrayal of community and imagination.

As is usually the case with television, when oversight intensifies and budgets increase, writing tends to worsen. Previous seasons were already showing signs of decline, so I suspected going into season five that the ending would suffer from the same formulaic-slop-syndrome that now plagues most streaming platforms. Unfortunately, I was not far off. What started out 10 years ago as an insightful, character-driven story about friendship, trauma, and nostalgia devolved into an action-packed wann...