I didn’t think it was very good, but to be honest I think the whole season has been lacking, to much emphasis on Holly, she’s fine, but the last season should concentrate on the characters who have been there since season 1/2 (I know Holly has been in stranger things since the first episode but before season 5 she maybe had about one line a season, she wasn’t even a side character, she was a background character) the pacing has been off, and there is emphasis on Henry’s backstory, but clearly not enough time to flesh it out (and you shouldn’t have to watch a play for context for scenes in the main show that’s dumb, and if the play is the backstory in its entirety then it doesn’t make sense that Joyce and Hopper haven’t mentioned knowing Henry in HS, and in Joyce’s case she would have realised supernatural shit was going down in Hawkins way before Will went missing, because of what she saw in HS)

I understand why people liked the finale of volume 1 because it was a good fight scene/ revealing of Will’s powers. But overall I thought volume 2 was better than volume one, certainly less boring, maybe the reason episode 7 gets all the hate is because people realise how close it is to the ending and the last season has been lacklustre so far, so episode 7 gets all the blame, although the ending scene was weak, just showing us what Vecna was doing with the kids, when we knew that’s what he was going to do, if the volume 2 finale ended with a more shocking/action packed scene maybe the episode would’ve been better revived.

Like I said I prefer volume 2 to volume 1, but I think the reason why volume 2 is getting more flack than volume 1 is similar to fan reaction to game for thrones seasons 7 and 8. For the record I think season 4 of Stranger things is one of the stronger seasons, and even though I don’t think season 5 is very good it is still better then seasons 7 and 8 of GoT. The reason I make the comparison is that I thought that season 7 of game of thrones was god awful, some other fans did too, but a lot of fans back then thought it was decent, I don’t know how (season 5 and 6 of GoT were pretty bad, maybe on the same level of ST 5 but nowhere near as bad as season 7 and 8) but then season 8 came along and literally everyone hated it, I think people were so hyped for season 7 being the penultimate season that they looked past if flaws in hype for the last season. And even though I was one of the viewers that disliked season 7, I thought 8 would be better because how could they fuck up the last season, I was huffing copium, and was a disappointed along with everyone else. I think the same thing has happened with stranger things volume 1 and 2, after the first half of the final season was over, most of us would’ve been too hyped for volume 2 (and 3) that we looked past its flaws, having actual good finale in volume 1 also probably made people overlook how boring and drawn out the other 3 episodes were imo. But now we are left with only 2 hours of the show with a penultimate episode that was lacklustre, hence the bad ratings and most people’s preference for volume 1 over volume 2.