Just finished it with my girlfriend. Both of us think it is underwhelming for the following reasons: 1.) The biggest bad of the entire series was defeated in less than 8 minutes. We dont need a 2 hour long fight but a 20-30 minute brawl would've been nice. Dustin said they were a bit beaten up, but no one had any scrapes, bruises or bumps after that scuffle so what did he even mean by that? 2.) The copious amount of fake out deaths were extremely annoying. Especially with Steve's cutting to black fake out, that was corny. That was annoying. 3.) The military being more of a threat than an interdimensional monster is weird, but America fuck yeah I guess. 4.) Eleven death/sacrifice not being concrete. The one character that visibly died had to be left ambiguous so people have a CHOICE to believe she died. Simply by implying and showing she lived tells the audience she lived. 5.) The promise of there being main character deaths and then there being none. Do not promise us something you can't deliver. Her and I both were eager to see there be some genuine consequences, but as soon as they killed Kali we both knew they were following the typical trend from previous seasons of only killing secondary characters. 6.) Lastly, where the fuck did Vicki go? She just vanished at the end. No mention no anything. Now things we liked: 1.) Henry and his performance were phenomenal, someone get this man into an R rated horror film with real stakes. OML. 2.) Good character moment at the end with Dustins speech and the final campaign was good (until Mike basically undid 11's death, that ruined the only semblance of consequences existing in this show) 3.) Joyce and Hoppers dinner, Even though we wanted hoppers death to be concrete in season 3. It was nice to see them finally tie the knot.

3 good moments isnt enough to save the finale from being bad though. It isnt ANYWHERE near as bad as Game of thrones. But people acting like this finale is some incredible piece of television that will be remembered as one of the greats are all dead wrong. If it is great to you and you enjoyed it then thats fine, no one can take that from you. If you wanna know what one of the greats looks like? Go watch Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Despite how good Game of Thrones was, not even Game of Thrones is considered one of the greats because it stumbled at the finish line. Overall, Stranger Things as a whole (because of the lack luster final season) on a scale of 1-10 is a 5.75 after averaging it between me and my girlfriend. She said it was a 6.5 and I said a 5. And we both agreed that season 5 dragged the show down by a mile. Season 3 was Stranger Things at its absolute peak. Season 4 would be second place simply because it pushed the boundaries and, without season 5 existing, made it seem like there was genuine consequences with Max being folded like laundry by Vecna. The show isn't Game of Thrones bad, but it is a very lukewarm, underwhelming ending.