Stranger Things series finale gets by with the most obvious character deaths possible

This article contains spoilers for “Stranger Things” season 5, episode 8 – “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up”.

After almost a decade, “Stranger Things” ends with an oversized Season 5 finale that more or less conclusively ties up most of the things the show can possibly fix. Regardless of how “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up” ends up measuring up the best TV series finales of all timeone thing already seems pretty certain: the episode played out in a very different way than expected when it came to character deaths.

‘Stranger Things’ contained tons of characters who seemed likely to dieAnd season 5, volume 2 seemed to specifically set up two characters perish: Kali Prasad (Linnea Berthelsen) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who agreed to die to stop the cycle of more psychokinetic children potentially exploiting the Abyss. In the end, however, Eleven is indeed confirmed to have survived her apparent death (otherwise the “Stranger Things” gang is lying to themselves to get by), leaving the series finale with only two major character deaths, both extremely predictable. The first is Kali, who was always a minor enough character that she was essentially doomed the second she returned for Season 5, and the second is the series’ big bad Vecna ​​(Jamie Campbell Bower), who never had a chance of surviving the finale.

While the latter deserves his gruesome demise, the optics of bringing back Season 2 character Kali – one of the few characters bringing racial diversity to the show – after a long absence just to serve as a sacrificial lamb really isn’t the best.

Of course, I’m not saying the show should have mercilessly killed off half the main cast for shock value. However, “Stranger Things” is a victim of its own brand here. From Barb Holland (Shannon Purser) and Bob Newby (Sean Astin) to Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery) and Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), every season of the show has been marked by a truly pivotal death that either surprised viewers or was impactful enough to haunt us. That’s more than enough to condition fans to expect similar things from the series’ finale, even more so when you consider the massive number of characters Season 5 is juggling.

While touching, Kali’s death is far too telegraphed to fill this particular role. Likewise, the half-hearted attempts to humanize Vecna ​​in the cave don’t take away from the countless atrocities he committed, which the series takes pains to remind us of during the villain’s bloody final moments at the hands of Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder). As such, the real stakes rest on the shoulders of Eleven, who suffers no fewer than two fake deaths before her “happy” ending – that is, a self-imposed exile of everyone she has ever loved – is revealed. But hey, at least she got to see those waterfalls, right?

Season 5 of “Stranger Things” is streaming on Netflix.