Stranger Things Season 5: Are the Duffer Brothers Playing it Safe? [SPOILERS]

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SPOILERS AHEAD!! (final warning)

With Stranger Things' nine-year reign set to come to a close in the early hours of New Year's Day (make that New Year's Eve if you're in the states), you might expect the culmination of the season's previous episodes to be… well… shocking. Cliffhangers that have us dribbling in anticipation of the finale, tragic losses that set up an epic battle, or at the very least some upset on twitter. Instead, despite a general pre-emptive air of excited buzz, the series so far has left a taste of indifference.

We'll start on a positive. Season 5 retains the beloved sense of nostalgia and community present previously in the show, the teamwork is exemplified to compliment the stakes of the season, which have never been higher, and the hilarious character dynamics continue to supplement all aspects of the story. Whilst the main cast splitting up into sub-groups makes the overall flow a little disjointed, it also creates a pace that benefits from each strand's individual sub-missions, with the audience never lingering too long with one group.

However, rather than investing more screen time into the core four's ventures, the narrative this season instead chooses to favour Holly. This would be a perfectly reasonable choice if Holly was previously established as a main character, but it feels difficult for an audience to associate strong feelings with someone who has no prior development from the writers. The whole storyline's emotional impact is only rescued by Max's appearance in what would otherwise be relatively disengaging.

The main event dealt with ambiguously has got to be Will's coming out scene. I could dive into how strange the entire setup was (regardless of Vecna's blackmail, why do you need to tell so many people at once), but instead I want to focus on the non-committal aspects. Choosing to come to a compromise and appease audiences on both sides of the spectrum has only engineered dis-satisfaction and an outcome lacking logical motivation. Why has the entire Byler dynamic had a last-minute gear shift? Why has multiple years of pining been whittled down to nothing? Why does Mike not pull Will aside to ask him what the hell just happened? Writing intended to veer away from any audience upset has served to do the exact opposite.

Another example of the writing room's apparent fear of upsetting the audience is present in the refusal to kill anyone off before the finale. Near-death experiences are frequent (the Wheelers, Jonathan and Nancy) yet committing to a kill seems to be an impossible feat. This lack of death paves the way for a plot designed to shock and upset, yet the writers have also chosen to do neither so far. Events play out in a periodic fashion, yes with a few important revelations, but overall lacking substance. Yes, they defeat some monsters in the nick of time, Eleven has an existential crisis and creature-killing preparations are accompanied by a weapon-gathering montage, nothing short of entirely predictable (they do know we've seen the previous seasons, right?).

Here's to hoping that the final battle leaves us all stunned into silence, ends are messily tied up, and we see logical emotional consequences. Optimism is important in these trying times.