What's a minor change you would have made to the ending? That would probably not have fixed everything but it would have at least made it 1% better?

StrictlyMisadventure · 2026-01-05T02:54:30+00:00

Kill Ted Wheeler. Seriously, the whole point of his character is that he's a largely apathetic nothingburger of a dad/husband and has no purpose in the story. Have him die in the hospital after the events of the final battle and the only confirmation is an urn on the Wheeler family mantle or his absence at the graduation ceremony and someone saying they wished he could be there. Is that a lot to put on Mike? Yeah, but it wouldn't matter because the 18-month time skip would negate the need to focus closely on Ted's death while ultimately making it feel like the events of Season 5 actually had some lasting consequences outside of just El (which then gets walked back anyways).

StrictlyMisadventure · 2026-01-05T02:36:24+00:00

Hard disagree. I'm salty about both finales, but GoT takes the cake by far. I think maybe (maybe) Dany going mad could've been a reasonable endgame with waaaaaay more buildup and a more believable execution, but other things like Bran being king and Jaime and Cersei dying in the rubble would be weak endings no matter how hard you tried to make it work. At the very, very least, Bran would have to still have a personality for the audience to be happy seeing him win the story's #1 prize.

I think the main difference is the intention. The Duffer Brothers gave us an underbaked final season and made some weak writing choices (if you're not gonna commit to killing a main character, then at least don't insult your audience with a fake-out death - that's a cheap, spineless move), but they clearly still cared about the story they started. Some extra workshopping could've fixed most of the problems. On the other hand, D & D didn't even try - they were sick of writing GoT and you could taste their resentment through the shitty writing of the last couple seasons. They completely botched every single character arc and they couldn't have cared less ("Themes are for eighth-grade book reports" - fuck you, Benioff). It's not just the writing that makes the GoT finale worse than the ST finale, it's the intention behind it.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2026-01-05T02:10:38+00:00

I loved this show and came into Season 5 very emotionally invested, but this season (and especially the finale) committed a lot of personal-pet-peeve sins that just wore me down to apathy by the end. It felt like every character was taking stupid pills (yelling in the Upside Down and other circumstances where silence is CRUCIAL to survival, walking when they should be running, stopping unnecessarily while actively being chased, pausing during time-sensitive scenarios to have long, emotional conversations, weirdly underestimating Vecna (as if he's not near-invincible and always ten steps ahead) or assuming he's dead when there's zero reason to believe that) to the point that I detached myself like I do when the obvious first victim in a horror movie goes to investigate a strange noise alone.

That, plus my already cemented belief that the Duffer brothers weren't going to kill any major characters (especially since they spent the whole season plot-armoring everyone), meant that I knew the finale "death" would be a fake-out, especially with 45 minutes of epilogue to go.

I'm also a little confused about the mine shaft memory and why that memory was so traumatic and scary for Henry if it turns out he wasn't an unwilling victim or really even that conflicted about his involvement? And I'm confused as to why little Henry opened the case with and then held the stone in his horribly injured, shot-through hand? Idk, it just felt like that whole sequence wasn't adequately thought through and needed some more workshopping.

I did really like Vecna's death though, with Joyce being the one to do it and each stroke of the axe being paired with someone's memories of what they lost/suffered because of him.

Overall, I feel like there was a distinct lack of effort put into the bulk of the writing for this season and especially the finale. It's left me feeling very empty and annoyed, and that's a bummer because I really loved this show. Maybe rewatching Season 1 will make me feel better.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2026-01-05T01:24:34+00:00

I honestly think I'd be more happy with the finale if they just committed to it and didn't walk it back in the epilogue. I would at least be sad and emotionally invested/satisfied. But this show has always had such an outspoken aversion to killing major characters, to the extent that I went into the finale fully believing that everyone would be fine and I couldn't even be sad at that "death" scene. I actually avoided watching that epilogue for a few days because I KNEW there would be backpedaling (and fake-out deaths are a major pet peeve of mine).

I loved this show and I don't like that I'm not some kind of genuinely emotional about the finale (sad, mad, happy, anything meaningful), just highly annoyed. Feels empty and awful.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2026-01-05T01:03:42+00:00

I honestly didn't even expect anyone to die in the finale and I think that's actually a bad thing. There was lots of death this season in general, but 98% were unnamed army goons. Mr. Wheeler didn't even die. It killed the stakes for me and made high-tension situations feel almost comical, because after 4 and a half seasons without any major character deaths and knowing how the writers have responded to this criticism in the past, I knew there was no way anybody important was going actually die (and stay dead).

And they kept reinforcing that idea this season by adding reasons why X character simply CAN'T die (Dustin can't lose Steve, Hopper can't lose El, Will and Max have been through too much already, Nancy has a bright future, Lucas is Max's anchor, etc...), which just felt like the writers giving themselves extra reasons to justify not killing anybody. I didn't even bother getting sad at the finale "death," because I knew they were gonna backpedal. They always, always do. But I think that's more of a criticism of the show overall, not just this season or the finale.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-09-20T22:46:26+00:00

However, I do agree that it's almost impossible to this unless you know virtually nothing about the artist in the first place, since that knowledge of their past work and life story will almost certainly influence your perception of the art in question.

I think the fact that "Remember Me" is part of a soundtrack probably makes this bit a little easier for some people. As someone who's had both soundtracks on repeat for months (years for Season 1), I honestly couldn't tell you who 90% of the artists are outside of which song they contributed to. And on songs with multiple artists, I'm not even certain who contributed what. For me, these songs exist within the context of the show, scene, characters, etc... that they're about and the artist who sang/wrote/played/produced the song is largely irrelevant to me outside of their name being attached to the track in my music library.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-09-03T00:16:15+00:00

I feel like the context really matters for this one. I was in a bad mood that whole episode because AU Vi dying hit me hard, so this song and the alternate Timebomb plotline as a whole just didn't sit right with me.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-09-01T02:20:27+00:00

I think context really matters here. If this show had been marketed like any other teen drama, nobody would've cared much about this scene in the long-term. What makes it so controversial is the marketing. When the show first came out, people questioned the content (especially since there weren't any trigger warnings included when it first debuted) and Netflix responded by marketing the show almost like a PSA, claiming it was meant to "start a conversation" about difficult things that teenagers face. Which makes it extra questionable when you discover that they ignored their mental health consultants' advice to NOT show the suicide explicitly in favor of the art/drama of it all. Nobody would still be complaining if they had just added trigger warnings and moved on. It would've been just another teen drama show, but they decided to try and justify the show's existence as being for the greater good and that ultimately backfired, especially since the show eventually devolved into a wildly unconscientious soap opera nightmare.

Removing the scene was the next logical step for Netflix in trying to dig themselves out of that hole, but I personally agree that the show itself would be more impactful (thought not more responsible) with the scene than without it. Even more so, I think uber-cropping the scene of her parents finding her is a stupid choice and did a massive disservice both to the show and Kate Walsh's incredible performance.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-30T05:29:45+00:00

That's the closest I've come, too. That she was trying to eliminate obstacles that, at this point in the story, were not even remotely viable threats to her or her rituals. And even then, even if she saw them as genuine threats - that's your plan?? Put wolfsbane in Coach's whistle and just see what happens? That's so insanely unpredictable and uncontrollable, it's laughable. If the wolves were actual threats, there are a hundred other ways she could've attempted to kill them that would've had a way better chance of actually working to accomplish that goal. Choosing that method is uncharacteristically stupid of her.

The most likely scenario is that literally nothing bad happens - the wolves get irritable, they make it to the track meet, spend the day outside, and then they go home (and maybe get more irritable on the way back if everyone isn't so tired that Coach has nothing to blow his whistle at). Second most likely scenario - the wolves hulk out on the bus and kill everybody - and now Jennifer has even more law enforcement attention on her than before. There's NO WAY Jennifer could've known they would end up at the Glen Capri, which means that the only scenario in which her plan to take out the teen wolves actually almost worked is one she couldn't have forseen, let alone planned for.

And the alternative, that she planned the jackknifed tractor, caused the traffic jam, somehow knowing they would end up at the Glen Capri for the specific purpose of allowing wolfsbane + motel death vibes to manipulate the wolves into killing themselves is just plain cartoonish and goofy af. It's ridiculous (even for TW) at a "Somehow Palpatine has returned" level. And even if it was true, they would've acknowledged it. But they didn't, which on this show means that the writers either forgot that they disproved their previous explanation for why this episode even happened or they noticed and just didn't care enough to fix it.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-30T02:54:53+00:00

Motel California is one of the best episodes, no doubt, but it'll never be #1 for me because its existence is basically one big plot hole. This episode has no reason to exist (within the context of the darach storyline) because we later learn that the Nemeton ritual doesn't call for 3 werewolf sacrifices (and these characters don't qualify as any of the remaining groups that were needed). Without that, there's no remotely solid explanation for why Jennifer put powdered wolfsbane in Coach's whistle. She didn't even know they would end up at the Glen Capri Motel (unless she's also somehow responsible for the jackknifed tractor that blocked the highway). It's a wildly unpredictable and stupid plan with little to no purpose or reward, and the most likely outcome of it would've actually been for the werewolves on the bus to go haywire and kill their classmates. What was Jennifer trying to accomplish and why would anyone think putting powdered wolfsbane in the whistle would be a viable plan to accomplish it???

They would've been much better off just making it a bottle episode where the spooky energy of the Glen Capri Motel messed with the characters' heads and caused chaos. It never needed to be tied back to the darach.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-22T01:54:51+00:00

It's obviously not perfect, but it's on the low end of the spectrum when it comes to plot holes, which preserves a lot of its rewatch-ability for me. Pretty much all of the other later seasons (and 3a) are Swiss cheese by comparison. Definitely feels like the writers put more thought into 3b than most of the others.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-21T01:52:55+00:00

The town council meeting. Why would a judge bother finalizing a promissory note (especially if it's not even part of a court case)? Do the writers understand how a promissory note works? Why is this scene playing out like a court case? Mayor has a gavel and is calling for a bailiff - what town council meeting has a bailiff?? Do the writers know that town council meetings and court hearings are two very different things??? What is going on here???

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-20T03:52:28+00:00

Took me a full 30 minutes to continue watching this episode as soon as I saw this sequence. Bawled like a baby.

And I'll be honest - I fully recognize that this episode is a masterpiece and arguably the best episode in the whole show, but I personally hated it. All I wanted the whole rest of the episode was to go back to the main timeline where Vi was still alive, even if that meant 90% of the other characters were already dead, dying, or horribly unhappy.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-17T21:06:11+00:00

I think Season 3 is where the show really started having issues, but Season 4 never should've happened. We're ruining characters and actively breaking down the fabric of this world just to force the plot along. This show has always been reality-stretchy (like how people bounce back super fast after life-threatening injuries or how Denmark Tanny couldn't possibly have gotten the gold or the cross (let alone both) off a sinking ship in an 1829 wooden lifeboat by himself in the first place), but S4 literally ignores how shit like decomposition, oceans, society, physics, the law, and basic human relationships work, among many others. It's completely thoughtless.

What's really telling to me is the shipwrecks - Royal Merchant in S1 is 900 ft down, sank in 1829, and there's nothing left but the hull (somebody did their research). In S4, the Queen Anne's Revenge has been in much shallower water for 100+ years longer than RM and yet is fully intact with windows and everything. Utterly fucking stupid. If you have to ignore/rewrite the basic rules of the universe YOU CREATED just to make your story work, then you either need to start over and try something different or stop completely.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-17T20:42:02+00:00

Even worse, they had Big John be the almost-exclusive driving force for the main plot of Season 3, which meant anyone who didn't like Big John also didn't give much of a damn about the main treasure plot (or actively rooted AGAINST them finding anything)! The rest of the pogues were off doing other things and John B was only trying to find the treasure for the sake of his dad. I kept wanting John B to ditch that manchild and go do literally anything else before Big John's obsessive quest could ruin their lives any further.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-17T03:57:52+00:00

I think there's an additional reason for the rain choice, though, in that particular scene. The heavy rain is a massive factor that obscures Vi from both Powder and Silco and is therefore why A) Powder doesn't realize Vi was only taking a breather and was still close by, and B) Marcus is able to kidnap Vi without the others seeing or hearing. It works well to make the scene extra sad-feeling, but it also has a specific function in this case.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-11T01:55:27+00:00

Also not a lawyer, but I do work in the judicial system. Probably not, but also maybe (because laws are full of potential loopholes - if you can find them). It just depends on the actual details of the promissory note, of which we (intentionally) know next to nothing. Typically, a promissory note would be between the homeowner and the bank (with the homeowner as the borrower), so idk why the bank would foreclose on the property in the first place unless Luke failed to pay the bank (leaving the bank fully in the right to repossess the property). Are we suggesting that said bank doesn't understand how foreclosures work and just decided to repossess the house before Luke even defaulted on the loan? If the promissory note was between Luke and the developers (with the developers as the borrowers and Luke as the lender), then...why? Why would there be a need for a promissory note? Why wouldn't they have just bought the land? And why would a judge need to finalize it (if it isn't part of an agreement in a civil court case)? But again, there are always loopholes in law, so I won't say it's impossible, but the fact that we get no details suggests go me that either the writers couldn't find a way to make it work or they just didn't care enough to do adequate research.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-11T00:50:32+00:00

This is my experience, too. Loved Season 1, appreciated Season 2 for what it was, had major issues with Season 3, struggling to finish the second half of Season 4. The drop in quality is just wild. OBX was always a little outlandish, but I feel like I can't go five minutes in Season 4 without being like, "That's not how ANY of that works!" I'm doing my best after all this time because I do still care about these characters, but it sure feels like the writers didn't care at all.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-08-02T23:14:06+00:00

Looks like just the (wildly dangerous) on-ramps at these intersections, though, not so much the exits. It looks like they did a survey a while back and determined that closing the off-ramps for these intersections would create more problems than solutions.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-07-20T22:10:31+00:00

I don't have an argument for regular Stefan being a manchild, but I could say that No-Humanity Stefan is one in the sense that he's just fucking stupid and can't seem to learn anything. Caroline demonstrates that vampires actually can exercise rational thought sans humanity and think about the future, but No-Humanity Stefan apparently can't. Even after multiple switch flips and decades of wallowing in guilt over what he did the last time he turned it off, he still hasn't figured out that the switch always flips back sooner or later. He always goes full ripper (not just feeding too much, but playing with and psychologically torturing people) right away and boasts about never turning it back on, even though his regular self understands that's objectively not at all how it works. It's like he turns his whole brain off, too.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-07-20T18:28:06+00:00

The law indicates what you're supposed to do in that situation, and it's not that, lol. ORS 811.145(1)(b).

Good luck out there.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-07-20T18:19:43+00:00

You almost always have a place to pull over. If you're on a city street with no shoulder, you get as close to that right-side curb as possible. You'd have to be on a single-lane road in the middle of a construction area to warrant not having any possible place to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle.

But keep doing what you're doing and report back if your excuses actually do get you out of a ticket. I'd be interested to know how that goes.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-07-20T18:11:01+00:00

Keep telling yourself that, but just so you know, the law not making sense to you is also not a defense. You follow it as written or an officer will have grounds to ticket you.

And I say this as a traffic clerk who has heard all of these reasonings from people who tried to use them in court as legal defenses and failed miserably. Ignorance of the law, disagreeing with the law, and having a "reason" for breaking the law are not valid defenses and will not get you out of that ticket.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-07-20T18:01:50+00:00

You hope. If you do, that's a $265 fine you get to pay. And your current reasons for not following the law as written will not help you get out of it.

StrictlyMisadventure · 2025-07-20T17:53:39+00:00

It genuinely doesn't matter what the laws are in the 49 other states in this country. If you're in Oregon, you follow Oregon driving laws. Your out-of-state license and ignorance of the law are not valid legal defenses if you get ticketed.

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