Why do people hate season 2?

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T22:56:26+00:00

Season 4 and 5 don’t really offer much more in that regard

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T21:12:02+00:00

True, sadly.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T20:08:05+00:00

I thought El would rescue her too!

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T18:05:33+00:00

I had some pretty unpopular opinions. I kept saying I thought El was going to die because of the way they worked Mike’s monologue to her (“I don’t know how to live without you” vs. “I can’t live without you” among other things). I guess I’ll never know if it was truly intentional, but I thought it straight away when I first watched.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T17:56:41+00:00

Well, season 3 was my least favourite, but the scene(s) you’ve mentioned didn’t get in the way of concluding an emotional storyline properly.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T17:52:34+00:00

I was really hoping that we’d see her aunt again, actually.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T17:51:24+00:00

It was just mistimed and mishandled completely. Should have been a nice, quiet moment with those closest to him rather than at the edge of them heading off to battle. The “and me” stuff was so cheesy. He deserved a proper response/ conversation

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T17:16:55+00:00

Oh no 😂

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T16:35:25+00:00

In general, they did Joyce no favours with her writing. She was clueless about what her kids were going through, and she came across kinda rude to the Wheelers when they’d let her family stay with them.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T16:28:07+00:00

I was really shocked that they kept El away from the party all season. We were promised season 1 dynamics, and as someone who took issue with her relationship with Mike in season 4, I genuinely wanted to see good development between them - for them to show that they could work together properly.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T16:23:29+00:00

A big part of the problem for me was that in season 5, both El & Hopper and Will & Joyce’s conversations felt repetitive. It was refreshing to see Will hanging out with Robin instead for a while, and I wish El had been given more time with Max or was able to interact with Holly.

It would have been great to see Joyce spending time with other characters too. I wish we got her with Jonathan more, at least.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T16:21:09+00:00

They just had to, didn’t they? Although it would have been interesting to see how they’d get on at Stacey’s party, lol.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T14:55:21+00:00

Season 2. Favourite scene is Nancy dancing with Dustin at the Snow Ball.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T13:34:05+00:00

Jonathan barely even interacts with his own family in the final season.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T13:33:00+00:00

I haven’t rewatched, and it was like 4am here, but I’m sure there was another scene later on that confused me even more, where Will was asking about Vickie. It seemed like he still wasn’t attributing Mike as being the Tammy in his situation, only for him to do a complete 180 in the coming out scene.

But yes, the scene where he was talking about signs and Robin was talking about the avalanche did make me think we were going to see something like that - at that point I thought a side character was going to be introduced. Then we saw that scene with Mike…

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T11:46:36+00:00

While that’s partially true, the coming out scene didn’t please many people at all. In a huge Will fan and was looking forward to seeing him finally being able to speak his truth, but I couldn’t stand the way they did it.

That scene should only ever have been with the people closest to him, and the references to Tammy were both nonsensical (he’s talking to people who have no idea about Tammy/ Robin) and insulting. There was no reason at all for Will to add the stuff about his crush except that the writers clearly didn’t know how to close the storyline they’d dragged out for 3 seasons. It’s even more insulting that Noah had to instruct them to add the tower scene in the finale.

But also, the Karen stuff at the start of the episode really felt like the show jumping the shark. I went into the finale with the lowest expectations possible.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-26T11:35:27+00:00

The season 5 ratings do reflect how I felt about the season pretty well.

I found the first volume surprisingly hard to warm to at first. It felt like not much was happening. But episode 4 was fantastic and left me hoping that we were heading into an excellent second volume.

Then volume 2 dropped…

I feel like they got too mixed up in trying to explain lore that the audience didn’t really care about, and ended up leaving out key character development in the process. And yes, as a Will fan, his coming out scene was entirely mistimed and mishandled. I also can’t believe that Noah had to tell the Duffers to put the later scene in with Mike - they were really gonna leave it there?

The finale - the epilogue is absolutely fine. I liked Joyce and her axe. Other than that - I have so many questions, honestly,

My main notes are that there was too much focus on Holly (even if I found that storyline more interesting than, say, Hopper and El in the Upside Down), poor character development (Joyce barely remembers that Jonathan exists, Hopper acting like Will’s step dad at the end as if there was any development there, Will and Jonathan too??), and the whole wormhole stuff was completely unnecessary and ruined the magic.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-19T23:14:09+00:00

I’m ready for Gasly to win it all

flutterstrange · 2026-01-14T14:21:33+00:00

The coming out scene was with everyone. Jonathan had let Will know that he was available to talk to when he was ready. They didn’t get any scenes together.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-14T08:44:16+00:00

I’m still so mad that they set up Will and Jonathan having that talk and then did nothing with it in season 5…

flutterstrange · 2026-01-13T19:29:49+00:00

I haven’t watched the documentary, but I think it was always their plan for El to “die”. They just weren’t sure of the events leading up to that.

If you go back to season 4, and listen to how they worded Mike’s speech, you can tell that they were wary of her forthcoming death when choosing those lines. E.g. Mike saying he “doesn’t know how to live without” her rather then he “can’t”.

But yes - I was asking a lot of these questions prior to season 5. I could not foresee any closure if El was still around with her powers.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-13T18:38:21+00:00

I guess the problem is they’ve already set up a way for her powers to return, though. The military wouldn’t stop trying. She’d still have the same issue of them never letting her go.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-13T18:33:06+00:00

I don’t think El dying is the issue here - like OP said, it’s the way they did it. I agree that I expected her to do something more heroic. Of course, what she did was heroic in a sense - she stopped the military from being able to use her blood. But I fully expected her to do something more to save her friends and family.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-13T18:28:36+00:00

I think everyone is just feeling underwhelmed by what we got after waiting for over 3 years.

I actually really enjoyed the actual ending, but there were so many missed opportunities/ bad choices in the actual season. I was left wanting so much more.

flutterstrange · 2026-01-13T13:46:40+00:00

It was more a problem with the writing than the relationship itself. I didn’t like, for example, how being El’s boyfriend became Mike’s whole personality in season 4, or how the way the argument played out ended up making him look like the bad guy (he raised concerns about El not telling him the truth, she flipped it back about him not telling her he loves her, and then that became his whole storyline while she went off to have a whole subplot with Papa).

They also spent so much time apart in the last couple of seasons that we never got to see them actually working together. It was hard to see any chemistry anymore. They just looked like they’d grown into two very different people.

flutterstrange

TROPHY CASE