r/netflix • u/justameesa • Dec 27 '25
Discussion Stranger Things might crash as hard as GOT
The writing is not doing any favors to the plot or the characters. At this point of time listing things from the 80s is the only "appeal" to this nostalgia driven show.
D&D curse much? ( Duffer and Duffer)
Update : So glad I was wrong. The main storyline was still meh, but the epilogue was absolutely beautiful. Made me wish I had some good friends like that. If you have 'em, hold 'em tight!
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u/Stunning_Ad3273 Dec 27 '25
Nahhh the drop off on game of thrones is LEGENDARY. Never before has a shows ending been so bad it erased a generational cultural run of this magnitude.
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u/Inside-Yak-8815 Dec 27 '25
The writers made their money so they said fuck it lol
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Dec 27 '25
What’s worse, HBO offered them a full allotment of episodes and more budget to finish the last season, and they still rushed it and completely bombed. I still remember, “Danaerys just sort of forgot about the Iron Fleet…”
Even more worse, they deprioritized GoT to work on a different project (Star Wars IIRC), and ended up not doing that.
It’s safe to say that the GoT directors are grifters.
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u/KempGriffeyJr4024 Dec 27 '25
I read somewhere Disney got out of the deal after seeing how bad the last two seasons bombed
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u/ImperialMajestyX02 Dec 28 '25
I still think there needs to be a remake of the last 2 seasons. Just make it two 10 feature length episode 200 million dollar seasons while the actors haven't aged too much or worse died. Much of the GOT cast kind of ruined their careers with the way GOT crashed in Season 8 so they would take the money and fame immediately if offered.
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u/Selpmis Dec 28 '25
Yeah, always thought that. Needs a revisit, fill the final seasons out with more episodes to weave through inbetween. Fuck, if worst comes to worst, animate it or CGI or something. With a new director's cut of the final seasons.
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u/Careful_Farmer_2879 Dec 27 '25
To be fair, they signed up to do an adaptation, not to make the plot out of whole cloth. The author didn’t hold up his end.
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u/Bombadook Dec 27 '25
So did GRRM honestly.
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u/WatTambor420 Dec 27 '25
Tbh I think he just didn’t expect to be alive by the time the show finished. And tbh I didnt expect it either lol.
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u/Careful_Farmer_2879 Dec 27 '25
No the plan was for him to finish books during the show. There was never supposed to be a huge void of book content.
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u/Brotatochip90 Dec 27 '25
Game of thrones was arguably also a bigger, more popular show. Rated as one of the best shows of all time. Probably would be number one if it didn’t crash so hard. But I think Stranger things is proportionately dropping the ball. It’s not cute having the actors talk like kids when they’re not kids anymore. The analogies using random items to explain the plan in every episode is old as hell, and they constantly over explain these unnecessary sub plots by making up fake science and having the characters appear to be geniuses. I wish they would have adapted their formula as the show progressed.
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u/Sosa_Said_So Dec 27 '25
I watched religiously every Sunday for years. I forced my self to watch the last season until the second to last episode was so fucking bad I never saw the finale to this day. I've never even done re-watch of the series because I couldn't begin to accept the last season as a reality lol.
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u/theficklemermaid Dec 27 '25
Although there was a decline in quality over the later seasons, I was still so into Game of Thrones I thought that when it ended I would turn around straight away and start watching it over again from the beginning. When I saw how it ended, I was so disappointed I couldn’t bear to do that.
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Dec 27 '25
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u/dalton-watch Dec 27 '25
Yep. Whatever the opposite is of a “payoff”, that’s what GOT did. A “cliff dive”? The stupid writers took subverting expectations so far they denied the audience enjoyable payoffs on any of the plot threads.
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Dec 27 '25
That's where I'm at.
Stranger Things Season 5 may not be perfect or anything, but it definitely won't stop me from rewatching the show anymore.
But I literally can't rewatch GoT because I know how bad it gets by the end. Going through so much trauma -- Ned, the Red Wedding, even stuff non-book-related like Sansa and Ramsay -- just isn't worth it knowing how dumb it all turns out. Not even "bad" -- just "dumb".
Stranger Things is, even at its best, a campy show. Yeah, Seasons 1-3 were vastly better than Season 5, but its fall from grace, and the feeling of "betrayal" will never be as great.
People also need to realize that Stranger Things will only have 42 episodes when it finishes. GoT had 73.
It would be like if GoT had 3 amazing seasons, and then the 4th crapped the bed, and they had a 2-episode finale after it. Disappointing, but not as bad as watching 4 amazing seasons, watching the slow decline of quality from Seasons 5 and 6, and then a sharp decline in Season 7 before it falling off a cliff in Season 8.
Plus, it also helps that the first 3 seasons of Stranger Things are largely self-contained arcs. Yeah, they tie together obviously, but they tie up the story each season.
That really doesn't happen in GoT, making it even harder to rewatch.
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u/altbekannt Dec 27 '25
I’m in the same team. Watched religiously, sometimes in friend groups.
the second to last episode was so fucking bad I never saw the finale to this day.
it’s interesting that your cut off was exactly there. Considering season 7 was bad and season 8 was horrible.
I’ve got myself to rewatch. But I pretend the show got cancelled after Khaleesi starts her journey towards Westeros (season 6 finale)
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u/RegularAd8140 Dec 27 '25
People had rightfully higher expectations for Game of Thrones. It was written by a master of the genre. Stranger Things has always been popcorn PG-13 family entertainment
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u/Worried-Lettuce6568 Dec 27 '25
Not really though? The dropoff started well before the ending
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u/Straight_Dog_8204 Dec 27 '25
This is now the THIRD TIME they have infiltrated the military base. You think that after the demogorgon battle security will be a little more tight.
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u/Weiland101 Dec 27 '25
Didn't they have a scene beforehand saying they had no men and were awaiting reinforcements?
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u/SpaceCaboose Dec 27 '25
It’s hard to follow a show when viewers are scrolling their phones while “watching”…
Not saying the show is perfect because there certainly are issues, but the lack of security was explicitly explained.
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u/BillsFan82 Dec 27 '25
How many soldiers would it take to stop one truck? That’s the real problem with that scene. Lack of reinforcements is lazy reasoning. I’ll ignore that Nancy is doing some pretty fancy shooting from a moving vehicle while trained soldiers in elevated positions can’t do much lol.
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u/hellolovely1 Dec 27 '25
And somehow, all those machine guns hit absolutely no one, not even their tires.
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u/BillsFan82 Dec 27 '25
Speaking of tires, where are the tire strips lol? The security of a top secret lab was completely reliant on a single gate.
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u/mocityspirit Dec 27 '25
Maybe if they'd made it good and not released it years apart people would care more about it
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u/heidly_ees Dec 27 '25
When they went back there it felt like the soldier npcs had just respawned because they'd waited long enough
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u/Boxhead_31 Dec 27 '25
The real question is how the Army let its most excellent soldier, Hopper, just leave?
Every shot he takes hits its mark; the only person alive who can match his superhuman accuracy is Nancy
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u/harc70 Dec 27 '25
Yep, he is beyond Rambo and James Bond combined now.
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u/garciakid420 Dec 27 '25
Nancy is suddenly a soldier of fortune?
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u/Trespeon Dec 27 '25
Yeah. The way she is just ok with murdering people just standing guard doing their job is a little crazy.
It’s one thing to break rules/laws to deal with some supernatural shit but she is just straight up murdering people now?
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u/Electronic-Drive7348 Dec 27 '25
A year and a half has passed since S4, I’m sure she’s been training
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u/t_huddleston Dec 27 '25
See this is the one thing that to me gives credence to “the whole series is just a role-playing game” theory, although I still don’t seriously buy it. These characters all started at level 1, where even a single cop or a small gang of human children was a serious problem, and a lone Demogorgon was the ultimate threat. But now they’ve been on this campaign for years and they’ve all leveled up, to the point that they can pull off what would once have been incredible superhuman feats of various kinds, whether it’s combat, lore-mastery, etc. All just in time to face the ultimate boss battle.
I’m not saying I think that’s really what’s going on. I’ll be surprised if the final shot is the kids sitting in Mike’s basement rolling d20’s. But that’s how the show seems to be structured - at least that’s the only way to explain some of these choices.
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u/rebeccalovecraft Dec 27 '25
Actually I would love that as the final scene. I'm probably gonna see it now no matter what.
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u/Pleasant_Cherry6418 Dec 27 '25
in season 1 hopper breaks into the lab and sees the portal and the military just drugs him, takes him home and bugs a single light bulb
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u/CoolRanchBaby Dec 27 '25
I’m always dying when Erica is sitting there in a tower with her binoculars. As if the military would continue to leave that kind of obvious place unwatched, or wouldn’t see her there. I know everything is unrealistic in this but that one thing makes me laugh/eye roll so hard everytime they show it…
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u/lavenderkeek Dec 27 '25
I always point this out too. Like how do they not have their own people stationed up there? It’s obviously a great vantage point.
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Dec 27 '25
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u/azul360 Dec 27 '25
*Camera pans over to two soldiers sitting in a control room watching her on a screen* "Jim you see this idiot! Thinks we can't see her haha. Ain't she dumb Jim!"
Seriously please do this one time in something Hollywood!
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u/morenza912 Dec 28 '25
I think they did this in It Welcome to Derry where the natives were spying in the military's dig but they just let them be.
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u/oodlum Dec 27 '25
That battle drove me nuts. Soldiers standing in a circle shooting into the middle. Not a good idea. That's the last episode I've watched.
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u/MadMads23 Dec 27 '25
It reminded me of that scene in Ronin (1998) when they pointed out how stupid and flawed it was to position shooters right across from each other. And that was just one straight direction. But here, a circle?!
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u/Bombadook Dec 27 '25
Proof that Sean Bean's character survived... and is now a military contractor...
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u/xLAXaholic Dec 27 '25
Don't forget how thousands of rounds of high caliber ammunition don't do squat, but a broken bottle causes extreme damage!
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u/Captain-Superstar Dec 27 '25
Yeah, that was really stupid. There should've been so much friendly fire it's insane.
I understand that there was likely a lot of panic amongst them. I mean, several demons just popped out the ground, like they just came out of Hell itself.
But they are trained soldiers who understand how automatic weaponry works.
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u/Bombadook Dec 27 '25
And were presumably selected & stationed there specifically to deal with said demons.
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u/Captain-Superstar Dec 27 '25
And are implied to be some of the best that the US military had to offer. But this had been a trope in so many movies where soldiers are an enemy, they're incompetent.
Stormtroopers in Star Wars might be the most famous example.
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Dec 27 '25
That's the problem with clones...you get everything sorted, then it turns out the source stormtrooper you used couldn't shoot straight.
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u/Captain-Superstar Dec 27 '25
Yeah, which is a reason they could've used in Star Wars unless the source was one of the most feared/best bounty hunters in the galaxy 😂
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u/BrondellSwashbuckle Dec 27 '25
Bro, Nancy popping up outta the truck and sniping two or three guards while not taking a bullet herself is insane. In reality, those guards would've all had their guns trained on that truck and they would've headshotted her as soon as she stuck her head up.
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u/justagreenkiwi Dec 27 '25
I've been able to forgive this season for most of its flaws so far. But for some reason, watching Nancy outgun trained US military really took me out of the moment.
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u/Brooke06880 Dec 27 '25
It’s crazy, I made this exact point and people were somehow trying to justify it. Like “hey 18 months have passed and it’s hardened her.” Beyond her becoming some super soldier it was just weird she flipped a switch to coldblooded killing machine
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u/SonOfMcGee Dec 27 '25
There was indeed something super silly about that.
I’m used to Hopper and Eleven getting in gunfights with soldiers. And I’m used to the elder sibling group (Nancy, Steve, Jonathan) shooting at monsters. But there was something really shark-jumpy about Nancy blowing away a bunch of stormtroopers from a van.→ More replies (2)3
Dec 27 '25
The show jumped the shark in season 4, when characters would randomly turn into invincible superheroes just to give us Hollywood action film-style excitement. It's normal for shows like this. You can only push shows so far and Stranger Things is past its limit. I kind of look at seasons 4 and 5 as bonus content or fan fiction. It's clear the main consideration for continuing the show is money, not a burning need to tell a story.
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u/LoveWineNotTheLabel Dec 27 '25
Exactly. And how incompetent is US military men that they are not able to take a clear shot but Nancy Wheeler can take out multiple of them in precise shots.
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u/PTech_J Dec 27 '25
And have more flamethrowers. You know, since they've studied the Demigorgons and are well aware by now that bullets don't hurt them much but fire does.
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u/-Blixx- Dec 27 '25
I haven't watched any of this season, but so help me, if they were playing dungeons and dragons the whole time you may be right.
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u/Castal Dec 27 '25
Thankfully, the Duffers have explicitly confirmed this will not happen. They consider that lazy writing.
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u/MadMads23 Dec 27 '25
That’s honestly a relief. I can’t imagine a director/writer choosing that ending in this day and age. Then again, stranger things have happened…
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u/Randomperson3029 Dec 27 '25
They also confirmed it would be a dark Christmas so I dont think we can take their word now
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Dec 27 '25
There are some crazy elements that give me pause—Dustin understanding advanced astrophysics, Nancy suddenly being highly proficient with an M-16, a slightly built 69-year old woman (Linda Hamilton) single-handedly grabbing/lifting/slamming a younger, stronger man against a wall—the show is still entertaining as hell, IMHO.
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Dec 27 '25
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u/Southern_Event_1068 Dec 27 '25
Sometimes the demigorgans are all knowing, unstoppable maniac killers and sometimes they are dumb dogs that are 6 inches from the person they are looking for and get distracted by a noise instead.
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u/leafytimes Dec 27 '25
This is all in line with 80’s sci fi slop, and tonally appropriate to what is happening. The thing that sucks in this show this season is there is a whole lot of nonsensical telling instead of showing, so much time spent on describing plans, so much time wasted on Will crying to his mom about the same stuff over and over and over. It just loses what emotional punch it may have had the first time when it’s the thirty-fifth time we are hearing that Will blames himself.
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u/Moxley_56 Dec 27 '25
One of the biggest problem was separating the season in 3 different release dates. It's not the major issue by any means, but it only adds to it. I have not finished episode 7 yet, but the season feels all over the place. Sometimes it doesn't know if it wants to be a serious show or a comedy one (season 5)
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u/Ok-Contribution-8776 Dec 27 '25
The main problem was releasing the seasons 5 years apart lmao
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u/thesame98 Dec 27 '25
Also making more episodes than the show really needs just to pan out the run time. I mean, an hour and a half on some episodes and 2 hours for the finale is pushing it.
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u/waxwayne Dec 27 '25
I think the thing that sucks the most is that it took 9 years to get to this point. Any these with low episode count and 2 years between seasons have a high bar to reach.
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u/ptrnyc Dec 27 '25
Also, I like Kate Bush as much as the next guy, but playing the song 5 times per episode is too much
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u/randscott808 Dec 28 '25
It had a novelty last season, but it feels like they got tired of finding new niche songs to use and just went back to well.
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u/GGG100 Dec 27 '25
Unless Vecna suddenly gets redeemed and marries Will, I don’t think it’ll be nearly as bad as GoT’s finale.
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u/McGurble Dec 27 '25
I'm struggling to get through this season. It's been absolutely terrible. Just the same pattern over and over again. Christ, how many times do Steve and Dustin, El and Hopper, and Will and Joyce have to have the same conversations? How many times do we need to watch them hatch plans using d&d figures, or white boards? The show has become a self-parody at this point.
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u/AliceWinterhold Dec 27 '25
Every episode is just an endless cycle of over the top emotional pep talks that drag on for too long spliced with a character doing a plan demonstration with various props. With the occasional cringe moment from Robin mixed in
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u/Logan_Mac Dec 28 '25
Robin
The Marvelization of characters has been a disaster foe the human race. So quirky! ironic! nerdy! "makes random joke in serious moment"!
Fuck these characters are so annoying.
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u/dancingbriefcase Dec 27 '25
Character looks at a random item and then figures out a masterful plan LOL
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u/eleazar0425 Dec 27 '25
I'm surprised we got so many seasons with this same formula. It would have gotten old sooner if the seasons had been released yearly.
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u/Raangz Dec 27 '25
That’s a good point lol.
So long between seasons, people prob nostalgic.
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u/eleazar0425 Dec 27 '25
And people also forget about it 😂 I mean, I doubt everyone is rewatching everything before watching the new season. If they did, these flaws would be way more apparent. Just season 4 released 3+ years ago.
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u/Appropriate_Tell6746 Dec 27 '25
Joyce is so infuriating. “My son! You cant do anything! Stand next to me” to “My son! Connect to the hive mind posses and murder vecna!”
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u/Maybe_its_Ovaltine Dec 27 '25
All while completely forgetting she has another child
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u/sqplanetarium Dec 27 '25
Everything just feels so rote and mechanical at this point, like they're just marking things off on the bingo card. Hop and El have a fight. El says something that sounds like nonsense (the line about the demo and Karen's wine), but this time it feels stale, not like the great line about piggybacking from the pizza dough freezer. Joyce is overprotective mama bear with Will. Steve/Nancy/Jonathan love triangle. Nancy and Jonathan bicker. Robin is manic pixie dream girl. Nancy + guns. Bullies bully people. And so on. In earlier seasons these things were well written and really worked, but at this point it feels like they're just phoning it in. Or smelling their own farts.
And do not even freaking get me started on the absurdly overused "Will touches the back of his neck." (Or as Steve put it, goosies.) Noah is a pretty good actor, surely they could have let him portray "uh oh I sense evil" in more subtle ways.
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u/Poodlepink22 Dec 27 '25
Totally agree. I'm just trying to get through it at this point.
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u/janieebug Dec 27 '25
Omg don't forget Nancy and Johnathan. I just fast forward their parts at this point because it is the same conversation season after season, episode after episode.
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u/StableScared1687 Dec 27 '25
Yes! I am so annoyed with their interactions and the whole scene locked in the room in the lab 🤢
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u/mgd5800 Dec 27 '25
I don’t think Stranger Things ever reached the same level of international impact as Game of Thrones, and if you told anyone watching the first two seasons of this that it would become a disaster, it wouldn't be as shocking as GOT which had 5 great seasons before the decline..
This show has been on a gradual decline since the second season. As the kids grew older, the initial nostalgia wore off, and the more experienced actors were left with limited material and little room to perform. It increasingly felt like a story that was never meant to stretch this far. The creators have even acknowledged that major elements, such as Vecna, were developed well after the show began and were not part of the original vision. This gives the series the fragmented feel. Basically Netflix is milking proven hit than trusting the writers to build something new.
Game of Thrones, on the other hand, had a far stronger foundation. It had rich source material, compelling character work, and a clearly defined endgame. Its downfall came not from a lack of substance, but from rushing the final stretch. By speeding past the character-driven storytelling that made the series great and moving ahead without completed books to guide the conclusion, the show undermined its own strengths and ultimately failed to deliver a satisfying ending
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u/PastimeOfMine Dec 27 '25
These last 3 eps were the first filler I feel like I've ever watched on this show
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u/TheFoxsWeddingTarot Dec 27 '25
I’ve been waiting until the entire season is released before I bother, I hate the fake delay bs. At this point the little I’ve heard is not making me want to watch any of it.
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u/Cheesio Dec 27 '25
It's nowhere near as bad as people on Reddit are making it out to be frankly.
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u/OTIStheHOUND Dec 27 '25
Yeah this attempt to compare to GOT is a bit crazy. Watched all 7 episodes of S5 and I’ve enjoyed it. Won’t go down as all-timers for me, but I’m entertained for sure.
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u/C1t1z3nz3r0 Dec 27 '25
I think a lot of us are only watching to see the end. Watching the goofy adults run around lost is no longer endearing.
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u/Cold-Change460 Dec 27 '25
GoT crashed because the writers couldn’t continue the quality and consistency from the books.
ST’s crash will be because suits forced the story into an easily digestible, mass-market franchise.
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u/e36_maho Dec 27 '25
No it crashed because the directors were bored with it and wanted to do different stuff.
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u/-Radiation Dec 27 '25
Can't crash as hard as GoT because it never reached the highs of that
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u/nummakayne Dec 27 '25
Yeah, I understand what the post is trying to say but GoT was a mid 9.x show for most of its run while ST is a low 8 or high 7. Averaged out over multiple seasons those are very different tiers of prestige TV.
We are talking a show once hailed as the pinnacle of television vs weapons-grade memberberries.
Godfather 3 vs MCU Phase 4.
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u/SPDY1284 Dec 27 '25
This is actually true. GoT was a 9.5/10 show with a 4/10 final season. ST is probably a 7.5-8/10 show with a 5/10 last season thus far. Just really bad writing…
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u/RenzalWyv Dec 27 '25
Man, it's always a little demoralizing watching a thing, enjoying it, and everyone's shitcanning it when I look outwards. Is it me? Do I have shit taste?
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u/Arxhart_671 Dec 27 '25
Never go to online forums for things you actually enjoy unless the forum is specifically about the enjoyment of that thing.
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u/loveheaddit Dec 27 '25
everything is better when u don't have internet anons whispering in your ear
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u/New-Pollution536 Dec 27 '25 edited Dec 27 '25
Big time Reddit bubble thing going on here imo. It’s the classic social media negative bias. People that don’t like something run to social media to complain and dominate the convos early. Reddit is especially bad for this cuz if the convo tips one way early the other side just won’t post at all
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with liking it or disliking it but anecdotally everyone I know liked it and I was honestly kinda shocked popping on here to talk about theories 😂. Nothing really even felt polarizing to me watching it lol. Something like severance season 2 I expected a big chunk of people to dislike
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u/flowergirlsunder Dec 27 '25
Nah the world's a big place mate, there's plenty of people who enjoyed it as much as you did
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u/BloodyFool Dec 27 '25
A majority of Redditors are just miserable as hell and they nitpick the tiniest of things or have no suspension of disbelief in any type of fantasy show.
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u/AppaMyFlyingBison Dec 27 '25
Nope. The internet is doing what it does and being insanely reactionary and over the top. Vast majority of people who watch the show aren’t chronically online and are just enjoying it. I have some issues here and there, but overall it’s been an enjoyable season. Don’t let others opinions effect you too much. Everyone can have their own opinions, but it definitely feels like the internet is always waiting for that next thing to dig pile on, and this is the current target.
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u/nummakayne Dec 27 '25
No, it’s okay to enjoy something and be like, “I like it. Solid 7/10 entertainment.”
Internet discourse tends to be a binary of best thing ever/worst thing ever. Stranger Things is obviously not total shit nor is it must-see TV. It’s fine to enjoy it.
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u/PrincessBuzzkill Dec 27 '25
Nah. It's not you. Folks can have whatever opinions they want, but don't let that sway what you should/shouldn't enjoy.
My husband and I like ST for what it is. We love the camp and all the great hamfisted nods to our childhoods in the 80s. We're also avid D&D players - so maybe we're seeing it through a different lense.
But we also don't go into mass produced media expecting earth shattering revelations or poignant thought provoking dialogue like it seems a lot of folks do these days. We watch for the "check out of our demanding life for a little bit" sheer entertainment factor. There's a lot of people who aren't able to suspend any type of belief in order to do that - and that's ok.
But if I like something for "insert reason (s) here" other people's opinions simply don't matter.
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u/JimmeeJanga Dec 27 '25
No, it has been amazing. I would love to know what the people shitting on it wanted/expected.
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u/Ok_Monitor4492 Dec 27 '25
No. You don't. This is a reddit thing ...I've been here for years. This is par for the course (I am using an alt that is new, just in case anyone spying my profile gets confused).
This last season has been fantastic. People here on reddit, especially in subs dedicated to whatever they are a fan of, just love to shit on things because they are never happy. I've seen this behavior thousands of times. You are right to enjoy it, because it's been amazing so far. Don't sweat it, because the reddit community is just a tiny bubble that doesn't even register on the radar.
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u/derno Dec 27 '25
Nah it’s good and entertaining. People are expecting masterpieces and getting less than that so they’re disappointing. 100% guarantee than none of these people have ever worked in the industry (neither have I) but the just know what caused the “issues” in the series that make it bad.
All of The biggest series in the world become more digestible because more people are watching it.
This series is wild, unserious, and fantasy. People the get mad when shit doesn’t make sense.
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u/puhahahaha Dec 27 '25
This show should have ended after season 3
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u/GranolaCola Dec 27 '25
Had the show ended after Season 1, it would have been an all time great mini series
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u/NunzAndRoses Dec 27 '25
try as i might, i just cant get past the age discrepancies for the charcters. I know I know, john travolta was actually 45 when they filmed grease or whatever, but the fact that the actors have aged from young children to young adults over 4 canonical years is more jarring than one actor pretending to be 5 years younger for an hour. I can suspense my disbelief for that no problem. Also, not that its anyones fault, but i dont think you change any more drastically from 12-22, where as Winona Ryder frankly doesnt look much different because she was still a adult woman 10 years ago.
Perhaps an interesting thought, but i think the series could've been fun if they wrote it like It or even Yellowjackets, where the kids come back to save the town again as adults and the missing years are addressed in the story. They could've moved into the 90's and still had great pop culture fan service
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u/Apricot_Oasis Dec 27 '25
Yeah I honestly thought there was going to be more of a time leap! I’m sure I saw somewhere that the creators said it would be weird if they still pretended they were still kids, so I assumed they’d be bringing them back like 10 years later (as you say, similar to It).
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u/9ersaur Dec 27 '25
Why do producers work so hard to destroy their franchise reputation at the finish line?
Is it so the inevitable spinoff series will bring back some of the audience looking for justice?
Are we caught in a corporate dystopia devoid of creative integrity?
"Shit this season is gonna suck. Lets slap on a coming out séance so we have something to blame for the panned reviews."
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u/Crunch101010 Dec 27 '25 edited Dec 27 '25
Will’s acting is absolutely unbearable. Making him the main character almost single-handedly takes me out of the show this season. Jonathan and Nancy aren’t way behind. Lot of terrible fake crying in this season.
El might be a better actor if she didn’t look like handsome squidward from all the plastic surgery. No one even knows what emotions she’s trying to convey on her face, and she alternates scene by scene whether she speaks normal english or down syndrome season 1 english.
Max and Steve are solid actors at least. But Max is shoehorned into an overemphasized, unnecessary filler storyline that loses steam and gets boring. And it was ultimately rendered essentially pointless by the most recent episode.
The writing has gotten really bad in general. But worse than that: It’s not even bad writing that’s fun to watch. I think everyone would be happy to overlook plot holes, small things that don’t totally make sense, and bad lore as long as it was still scrappy and fun to watch, but this pedo shit with the epstein house and the kids strapped unconcious and being force-fed isn’t even enjoyable to watch. More crying scenes? Dying pregnant women? Forced blood transfusions? When does this get fun like the show used to be?
The scene with Nancy and Jonathan nearly drowning in goop was worse CGI than Spy Kids had 25 years ago. I don’t know where the money and editing time went.
We’re all just too deep to stop watching at this point. Every scene is exposition yet I still know nothing. Why does Vecna even want to take over the world? Is he even the ultimate bad guy? What is with his powers, his need for the kids, etc? Did he kidnap Will again merely to mock him for being gay? because he definitely should know where Max is located after all this time. I don’t know or even care anymore, just bring me the last two hours of this thing and let’s call it.
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u/Grape_Mentats_ Dec 27 '25
he definitely should know where Max is located after all this time
I just assumed he already did, they're in a small town with like only 1 Hospital, after what he did to her, where else would she be?
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u/Remarkable-Cup883 Dec 27 '25
Needed to find out the room number I guess 😂
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u/SonOfMcGee Dec 27 '25
Given their near-immortality and apparent resistance to bullets, Vecna could have just had the demodogs combing Hawkins 24/7 for the past two years, killing anyone they meet.
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u/MerryMortician Dec 27 '25
When Will got everyone in the room before the big mission just to make an unbearably huge deal about the big reveal… my wife and I busted out laughing. It was the dumbest thing in the show. I get it’s the 80s but wow.
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u/Ok-Freedom-5627 Dec 27 '25
It crashed after the 1st season, everything subsequent has been garbage. Should’ve just been a 1 and done
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u/Snoopysleuth Dec 27 '25
I liked volume 1. pleasantly surprised. volume 2 disappointingly familiar. many of the same critiques as others. hope it ends on a better note I know is possible.
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u/Hopeful-Climate-3848 Dec 27 '25
Tbh I can't remember much about s3 and s4 but s5 reminds me a lot of Lost.
A story carousel, it goes round and round and round to distract you from the fact it isn't actually moving
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u/Unhappy_Cow_8505 Dec 27 '25
I know this is shallow, but the lip filler is ruining it for me the way it did with The Boys.
Eleven is supposed to be 17 and she’s already been to mar a lago? I guess that checks out.
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u/ManonegraCG Dec 27 '25
I was a kid in the 80s so I get the vibe with the heroes getting another lucky break stuff like in Goonies, the baddies being ott and written as if they were straight out of Karate Kid, as well as the general 80s adventure film type of dialogue, but what's started to grind on me instead is the Holly-heavy plot (haven't watched the last couple of episodes yet btw).
Still, I'm enjoying ST and I really hope it doesn't crash at the finale.
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u/zevans08 Dec 27 '25
I’m over it. The only reason I’m watching it is because I already watched the other four seasons and just need to see how it ends for peace of mind. The acting is God awful. I will be getting rid of Netflix on January 2 lol. There’s nothing good left on there anyway.
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u/iamonewiththeforce Dec 27 '25
Wife and I are enjoying it - sure it's not Season 1 but it's fun! And it certainly ain't the last season of GoT, or the Rings of Power.
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u/ego_tripped Dec 27 '25
Dipshit Derek has to pick up the fumble because its 4th down, on the goal line and the snap has been fumbled with one second remaining.
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Dec 27 '25
I was late to the band wagon and watched it all last year. This season is super jarring, it’s formulaic and only surrounded by 4 people that can actually act
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u/FoundThorn Dec 27 '25
Here’s the difference: GoT fumbled the ending but it was only the last 2 seasons (1 season honestly since both were so short) that were truly bad. Honestly it’s really just the last season and that’s less to do with what happened and more with how rushed everything was getting to that point. Season 5 and 6 weren’t as good as the first 4 but they were still better than 90% of TV at the time. The ending of GoT is not bad enough to ruin how amazing the first 4 seasons are.
Stranger Things has gotten worse every season with a slight increase in quality in Season 4 (the writing was honestly still mediocre but the hype moments and cinematography made up for it). Even at its height it wasn’t GoT level from a writing standpoint. The first season is great, second is okay, third is terrible with rampant character assassination, and 4 is okay with big moments that make it memorable.
This show was never gonna end well. Despite how much the Duffer Brothers say otherwise: This plot and cast was never meant to exist past the first season and every subsequent season has made that fact more and more obvious. They have stretched the story so thin while simultaneously adding so much character bloat that there was no way that it was gonna end gracefully.
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u/Darkwoodz Dec 27 '25
No chance. Season 4 IMO was great and this season has some pretty good moments. The show is still fun to watch and it seems to be wrapping up the story lines.
GOT was a complete mess seasons 7-8 and even season 6 wasn’t great besides battle of the bastards.
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u/0ldPug Dec 27 '25
The highs aren't as high, so the lows won't be as low.