Crafting a memorable TV finale is no small feat. Loyal viewers have invested years in following these characters and have likely envisioned their own ideal conclusions. A successful finale must resolve key plot threads and reflect the series’ essence. At the same time, character resolutions should be both unexpected and fitting. So, where does the “Stranger Things” finale sit on the spectrum from worst to best? Well, that’s for each viewer to decide.

As “Stranger Things” concluded, a few significant characters met their end, although the finale wasn’t the bloodbath some might have anticipated. Most of the beloved characters seem finally poised to enjoy lives unburdened by demon-slaying and the menace of Vecna (played by Jamie Campbell Bower) invading their minds. Despite the series wrapping up, many questions linger for the audience.

Throughout its run, “Stranger Things” has had its share of plot holes and narrative leaps, and the final episode, “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up,” was no exception. While the series may have concluded, discussions about its unresolved storylines and inconsistencies are likely to persist in the online community.

In Season 5, Vecna emerges as the central villain, but he isn’t the only threat. Secondary antagonists, including Dr. Kay (played by Linda Hamilton) and the military, remain formidable obstacles. After sealing the rifts from the Upside Down at the end of Season 4, they linger in Hawkins, driven by a desire to capture Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and harness her abilities to create more psychically gifted children like her and Vecna. Their interference complicates the Hawkins crew’s mission to prevent Vecna and the Mind Flayer from merging the Abyss, or Dimension X, with Hawkins. Curiously, Dr. Kay seems oblivious to Vecna’s existence, which raises additional questions.

Vecna may be the big bad of Season 5, but Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) and the military function as secondary antagonists. They closed up the rifts from the Upside Down at the end of “Stranger Things” Season 4 and remain a presence within Hawkins, because they want to capture Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and use her blood to create more children with psychic powers, similar to her and Vecna. The military tends to get in the way a lot while the Hawkins crew is trying to prevent Vecna (and the Mind Flayer) from bringing the Abyss, aka Dimension X, directly to Hawkins. Dr. Kay seems completely unconcerned about this and appears unaware that Vecna’s even a thing — but that’s a whole other issue. 

To reach the Abyss, the team mows down plenty of military personnel. Nancy (Natalia Dyer) shoots a bunch of them while they’re still at the military base, and Hopper (David Harbour) blasts a ton more while in the Upside Down. Dr. Kay does see the team’s plans to enter Dimension X and stop Vecna from merging the two realities, which might be enough to overlook the numerous crimes they commit, including murdering all those soldiers.

It’s possible Dr. Kay overextends her authority and does some illegal things herself in her quest to capture Eleven, so she may just want to bury everything that happened in Hawkins, which also means overlooking Nancy and Hopper’s actions and just letting them go. 

We’ve learned previously that Demogorgons and all of their variants (Demodogs and Demobats) originate from the Abyss, and once this other dimension merges with the real world via the Upside Down as a wormhole bridge, they are then able to invade our reality. However, throughout Season 5, the Upside Down is pretty bereft of any creatures. People just kind of hang out in the Upside Down without worrying about monsters too much, so where did they all go?

Even when the crew travels into the Abyss, there aren’t any Demogorgons to be found. One possible explanation is that the military has already killed off a bunch of the creatures, making the Upside Down more hospitable. But that’s still a bit disappointing. Everything may have been leading to a final confrontation between Vecna and the Mind Flayer, but the Demogorgons are definitely poster children for the series as a whole. It would have been great to see them factor into the final battle. 

Another theory to explain the Demogorgons’ absence is that the Mind Flayer absorbs them to create a physical body. Previously, the Mind Flayer appeared as a collective of shadowy particles, but in the finale, it has a physical form that actually serves as Vecna’s lair. It’s probably the best explanation we’ll get for why there are no Demogorgons, but it only raises more questions.

Given that the “Stranger Things” series finale was over two hours long, fans might have naturally expected some kind of epic, extended final showdown between Eleven, Vecna, and the Mind Flayer. Instead, the fight’s over somewhat quickly, with nearly an hour left to go in the episode. Eleven battles Vecna inside the Mind Flayer while the rest of the crew tries to weaken the Mind Flayer from the outside, using guns and flamethrowers to damage it. That in turn hurts Vecna since the two are symbiotically linked. 

When all is said and done, both creatures — who have been built up as these Lovecraftian abominations that are extremely difficult to kill — are pretty easy to defeat. It’s true that Eleven gets an assist from Will (Noah Schnapp), who throws Vecna off balance with his psychic link, but it all seems too simple. The guns really shouldn’t do anything to the Mind Flayer. Assuming its body is comprised of Demogorgons, we’ve seen previously how they shrug off gunfire, although they are vulnerable to flames. In that case, it really would be better for the Mind Flayer to keep a Demogorgon army. Instead, the Mind Flayer gives the team a single target to focus on, as opposed to hundreds of monsters that could overwhelm the teens. 

Such an easy defeat raises the question of how much damage the Mind Flayer could have done on Earth. If it’s weak against flamethrowers, surely a nuke or two could take it out, right?

Hopper was presumed dead by the end of “Stranger Things” Season 3, but of course, audiences learned he was alive in Season 4 and had been captured by Russian forces. It took the main characters some time to realize he was alive, but most of the world, and surely the Hawkins community, probably assume he’s still dead since that was the official story. How did they explain his return to the residents of Hawkins when he came back?

Not only that, but despite being MIA for the past couple of years, Hopper is able to get his old job back as the chief of police during the series finale’s epilogue. Someone else definitely had to hold that position down during his absence. When he “came back to life,” did the other guy simply step down so that Hopper could resume his duties? If he started at the bottom and worked his way up again, there are only 18 months between the destruction of the Upside Down and the epilogue, so that would make for a quick turnaround. 

Additionally, Hopper must be good at what he does, because he receives a job offer in Montauk, New York, which just so happens to set the stage for a potential “Stranger Things” spinoff. Maybe this is all just commentary on how much easier it was to navigate the job market in the 1980s compared to now. 

Not wanting Dr. Kay to create another Vecna with her blood, Eleven chooses to stay behind in the Upside Down as it collapses. We assume she dies, but in the epilogue, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) provides an alternate ending for her. He posits that Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) didn’t actually die when she was shot, surviving her wound while creating the illusion of Eleven standing by the gate so that everyone would think they saw her die. In actuality, according to Mike, Eleven is able to slip away from the military and finally find peace in a place with several waterfalls. 

The main issue with this is that Kali would have been at the lab where the bomb initially went off to disrupt the exotic matter. If she didn’t die immediately from the gunshot wound, she surely would have died in this explosion well before the collapsing wormhole would have caught up with Eleven. She couldn’t have maintained the illusion that long. 

To be fair, instead of a plot hole, this may be a grieving boyfriend trying to hold onto some semblance of hope. If Eleven is actually dead, then it’s understandable that Mike’s story doesn’t make sense. He’s the dungeon master — the master storyteller. He’s invented a narrative he can live with so that he can accept Eleven is gone. With Dungeons and Dragons factoring so heavily into “Stranger Things,” it’s nice that the concept of inventing stories plays into the final scenes, even if it does give the audience false hope that Eleven could still be alive.