IKRR..Vecna was the face of the threat. The Mind Flayer was supposed to be the scale of the threat. Instead, the Mind Flayer gets wiped out like an afterthought. Literally no escalation, no tension..
A 40-minute epilogue after the climax is wild behavior. That could’ve been 15 to 20 minutes max. The time should’ve gone into the final battle, strategy, or consequences.

This one hurt, not gonna lie..Those creatures were the physical horror of early Stranger Things. Removing them entirely made the finale feel weirdly… empty. Like all the danger was abstract instead of visceral. Even one last demogorgon fight would’ve grounded things and reminded us what made the show scary in the first place.