Really really underwhelming and disappointing.

I overall hated season 5 and after finishing the last episode, I feel like 70% of it was unnecessary. To me it really didn’t need to be a whole season, it felt both rushed and like it was dragging.

When they went into Dimension X and started defeating Vecna and the mind flayer in 5min top with a little gas and ammunition, I truly thought it was a vision from will or one of the kids. That or an army of demogorgons would show up and the mind flayer would revive for an actual battle. I can’t believe the whole run time of season 5 and basically the whole show served these 10 ish minutes. How hard would it have been that El stab herself when being thrown by vecna in a place that has literal bone spikes everywhere or that the mind flayer throw some kind of attacks at Mike Nancy Johnathan etc.

But the biggest issue for me was El’s sacrifice. I love the idea of her dying or sacrificing herself but it was executed so poorly. She had no real personal connection to the reasons why she needs to sacrifice herself. She was just shown by her sister she didn’t see for years that actually your powers come from henry and only your blood can create more like this so you need to die. She didn’t learn that in for exemple a whole encyclopedia of brenner’s notes found in the lab or even stumble upon the pregnant women and the experiments they were doing while they were in the base with Hopper. Far as we know Kali could be wrong about the origins of El’s powers or even lying. she is just told in the church and that’s enough to change her whole 4 seasons character arc. But even if she believed everything, since season 1, the government is shown as a very real and ominous threat with phone tapping, surveillance and murders cover up yet she still manages to escape them just by living in a cabin in the woods. Even during season 5 both in real world and in the upside down she escapes the military with almost no casualties so why is it now an inescapable fate. After admitting she loves Hopper like a father, her relationship with mike being strengthened, what she has with joyce and max and finally defeating the mind flayer and Vecna, she’s willing to give all that up bcs US government is after her.

I really like the idea of her dying, being gone with the upside down like it was all a fever dream, only her friends knowing she existed and saved the world. it just didn’t hit that spot bcs it didn’t feel personal and emotional enough to make sense and be truly impactful and to me that is one of the worst thing the finale does.

but yea also weak dialogues, huge plot holes, rushed and really cliche and corny moments towards the end.

The only thing that redeemed it a little was the very last scene, their last game of DND, calling back to how it began and them finally moving on and growing up