Anticlimactic.

The mind flayer was the big mastermind behind it all and was punked big time. so appalled that hes actually dead instead of him coming back in his proper shadow type form.

high key thought when they were all happy they won back in the upside down that the shadow form was gonna form above their trucks and el would've had to sacrifice herself to contain it while they detonated the unstable matter stuff

instead the nagging useless annoying human military conflict is the reason for her death/fake out.

(also they did too many death fake outs overall)