After running for five seasons and nearly a full decade, Stranger Things has come to a close with the release of its finale, “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up."
The episode is packed-to-the-brim with blockbuster-sized action and huge story reveals, giving audiences a huge bang for their buck. But notably, the two-hour-plus runtime of the episode is not predominantly filled with insane set pieces or suspense sequences, but rather by intimate interpersonal beats between its vast ensemble of characters.
This includes an entire lengthy epilogue, set 18 months after the story proper, in which all the characters say their goodbyes to one another and the audience.
The Duffer Brothers have credited Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for inspiring this character-centered approach to the episode’s closing, but in reality, it’s actually far more akin to a very different ending; the finale of the beloved ‘90s sitcom, Friends.
In the finale of the sitcom, the gang of titular friends are all preparing to move to different areas and are grappling with the knowledge that they will likely be seeing much less of each other in the coming years. As it draws to a close, the characters all mournfully put their keys on the countertop of the apartment set, each exiting individually.
It definitely isn’t hard to see where the Duffer Brothers pulled Return of the King as a central inspiration for the finale as a whole; it’s an action-packed climax to a long-running story with a bunch of characters that sees them all facing off against the big-bad of the series on the antagonist’s home turf.
This extends to the epilogue as well, where both projects extensively chronicle what the lives of each of the main characters was like after their adventures and even features a central protagonist writing a version of the ensemble’s story in novel-form.
The final beats for all of the younger characters in Stranger Things is essentially two extended sequences of different groups saying goodbye to one another. The first features Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin on the rooftop of WSQK, where they all catch up and reminisce, promising to see each other more often even though they live states apart.
The second is Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Max all in the Wheeler basement, closing out a game of D&D and all mournfully putting their respective books away before ascending the staircase and leaving, individually.
These moments have no real parallels in Return of the King, but they do in Friends.
As in Stranger Things, the ending presents a clear visual metaphor for the characters closing one chapter of their life and beginning another. Furthermore, in each scene, the exits resonate with a sense of metatextuality; these are the characters and actors bidding farewell to one another just as much as they are to the audience.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing that Stranger Things feels more like Friends than it does like Return of the King.
There’s a reason that that sitcom has endured for decades; audiences formed a palpable connection with those characters and grew exceedingly invested in them. The same is now true of Stranger Things; audiences have grown up alongside these characters.
Thus, having ending beats that are reminiscent of Friends is ultimately a good call, allowing these relationships, in narrative and out, to come to an organic and satisfying close.