After nearly a decade and five epic seasons, Netflix's juggernaut sci-fi TV series Stranger Things is finally coming to an end. It's been a hell of a ride, but after tonight we'll say goodbye to beloved characters like Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Steve Harington (Joe Keery), Jim Hopper (David Harbour), Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), and all the rest of their friends. Are you ready for The Finale? I know I'm not.
The penultimate episode of season 5 left off on a massive cliffhanger as the Hawkins gang set out for the Upside Down on an insane mission to stop Vecna's (Jamie Campbell Bower) plan to meld their world with the dark dimension of the Abyss, all while saving Mike and Nancy's younger sister Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) and the other abducted children in the process. Will it work, or will this series end in devastation? And more importantly, will Stranger Things stick the landing and go down as one of the best TV shows of the modern age, or will it send fans into a wild frenzy of fury with its narrative choices and give us all Game of Thrones trauma flashbacks?
Let's find out together! We're recapping and reviewing the Stranger Things finale live on this page, so refresh and come along for what's sure to be an intense journey as we head to Hawkins one last time.
The players take their places on the board
"The Rightside Up" begins at the military base, where the forces occupying Hawkins are in hot pursuit of our heroes through the MAC-Z gate. Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) figures out that the security gates opening was caused by the team...and then we're into the Upside Down, and the run up to the final showdown.
Murray parks his truck outside Hawkins Lab, where the group splits up. Eleven and Mike share an emotional goodbye before she, Hopper, Murray (Brett Gelman), and Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) head into the lab so she can use the tank there to attack Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) when the time is right. Meanwhile, Lt. Akers (Alex Breaux) has a squadron of soldiers outside Hawkins Lab, who are there without Dr. Kay's knowledge. After their falling out last episode, he's determined to take down Eleven on his own. Here's hoping Hopper can keep her safe while she's in the tank.
From there we skip over to Vecna, who's taking control of the children in the Abyss in his Mr. Whatsit mind prison. Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) and all the rest have eyes rolled back into their head, which is creepy. And the beating heart of Vecna's spidery lair sends waves outward, cracking the ground around it in the Abyss and widening the rifts. There's an extremely cool shot as the camera pans through a rift into the top of the Upside Down while Vecna's trademark clock chime plays, and shows the Upside Down version of Hawkins below, with its rifts splitting it in four. The Abyss begins inching toward it, and the finale is underway!
Taking positions in the Upside Down
When we come back from the (last ever) opening credits, Erica and Mr. Clarke are arguing in the church tower near the MAC-Z base about whether their friends are safe. These two are an amazing duo on screen, and so fun. I kind of love that Stranger Things brought Mr. Clarke in at the 11th hour. But then Dr. Kay shows up with her soldiers, finds their van, and gives a big old smirk of villainous victory.
In the rightside up version of the Squawk, the lights are starting to flicker. Vicky (Amybeth McNulty) and Max (Sadie Sink) are up there, and Vicky is trying to keep her cool. Meanwhile, the main group arrives at the Upside Down version of the Squawk and begins to climb, hopefully heeding Jonathan's (Charlie Heaton) advice to take it slow and carefully.
Next we jump to the Upside Down Hawkins Lab, where Eleven's group has found the tank and Murray gets it functional. Eleven has a flashback to Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) walking her through the lab on the day that she first contacted the Demogorgon from that very same tank in season 1. I won't lie, I got some chills from the flashback. How far we've come.
Hopper lays out a series of knock signals for Eleven to signal her for when to attack Henry from the tank, while Murray heads up to the roof to lay a bomb to destroy the Upside Down's exotic matter after their mission succeeds. Then Hopper and El both make each other promises: El wants Hopper to leave her in the tank if something goes wrong so she can fight to the end, while Hopper wants Eleven to table her fears over Dr. Kay's plan to make more superpowered children until after the dust settles. It's easy to think they're both lying here, because Hopper and El are equally determined and rock-headed. I'm already getting nervous.
Kali blindfolds herself to join Eleven in her mind, and Hopper gives El one last wave goodbye. The tank shuts, closing her and the viewer in darkness.
Up the tower
As everyone makes the long climb up the tower, Mike and Will pause to finally have a heart-to-heart about Will's confession that he had a crush on him. This conversation has been a long time coming, and Mike displays his usual compassion and insists it changes nothing between them. I like how the show handled this without slowing down the pacing in this packed final episode.
Back up in the Rightside Up version of the Squawk, Max suddenly finds herself drawn into a dreamscape where she can once again walk. There's water on the floor, and it's generally pretty eerie. When Vicky comes back from sating her munchies, she finds Max's eyes rolled back. She's in a trance. Thankfully, it's just El and Kali rather than Vecna. And the three of them are off into the darkness of Eleven's mindscape.
Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and the rest of the Upside Down tower team reach the top of the Squawk, just in time to see the rocky floor (cieling?) of the Abyss descending through the mist toward Hawkins. The clock is ticking.
In Eleven's mindscape, she reveals to Kali and Max that she's already found Vecna, but can't reach into his mind yet because he's still in the Abyss. But then El touches his hand, and they're drawn into his mind because the Abyss is close enough to Upside Down. They land in Hawkins highscool on the day of a play, November 6, 1959. Max spouts off a bunch of fun Easter eggs about where the older characters like Joyce and Hopper were during this time, which are of course nods to the stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow where this whole play sequence appeared. But then they're off to find Vecna.
In the Rightside Up, Dr. Kay arrives at the Squawk. Vicky barely manages to hide herself and Max in the secret part of the radio station in time before Kay's forces take control of the location.
Back in the Upside Down, the first big problem emerges: the needle of the Squawk radio tower doesn't line up with one of the rifts on the Abyss, but the rocky ground of it instead. That means the tower will be crushed, unless Eleven can find a way to stop it in time. With only 30 seconds to spare, we're back into Henry's mind and into First Shadow territory.
Hopper signals to Eleven that she needs to strike, while a spooky play rehearsal with people in skull masks goes on around them in Henry's memories. The Abyss hits the top of the tower and begins crushing it, while Hopper frantically gives the signal again. The cross-cutting here is insanely intense. Then the curtains close on the play, Max leads Eleven through, and they're finally in Mr. Whatsit's house, where El makes her move.
But the Upside Down Squawk tower is damaged badly by the collision, and Steve Harrington slips from the edge...
The final battle begins
But not to worry, this is Stranger Things, and we don't kill main characters here. Jonathan caught Steve as he fell and pulled him to safety. Phew! And now the Abyss is close enough to the Squawk for our heroes to climb through the rifts and into the Abyss. The effect of the Abyss over the tower is stunning. The visual effects department really pulled out all the stops. Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and the team climb through, and survey the Abyss for the very first time, looking utterly badass.
Henry rises from getting knocked down by Eleven, and walks straight into a trap which proves to the kids that he's the real monster. She lets herself get caught, while Kali hides the kids with an illusion so they can watch. Vecna manages to pierce Eleven's mental defenses and finds out that the kids have run. Kali and El try to tak ehim down, but just as Kali drives the knife down toward Henry's heart, he vanishes.
Outside, the Abyss group makes their way toward Vecna's lair, and they're understandably antsy about the fact that they haven't found any monsters yet. This walk is a nice break for a few good character moments, between pairings like Mike and Will, and Steve and Jonathan. This is the last time we'll ever see these characters together, and I have a feeling things are going to get dicey once they arrive at Vecna's lair. It's nice that Steve and Jonathan have a chance to bury the hatchet before all's said and done.
The group arrives at Vecna's lair, and the scene fast cuts to Henry's mind, where Max, Eleven, and Kali are leading the kids toward the cave. And now there's another big complication: Vecna vanished because he left his mindscape. He's on the hunt for Eleven in the Upside Down.
Vecna's trick
Now the scene shifts to Hopper, who's waiting for Eleven to come out of the tank. Hopper is antsy for an update, notices some herbicide nearby, but then gas falls from the ceiling and he begins getting visions, first of his daughter dying, and then of Kali trying to convince Eleven to stay and die in the Upside Down from the previous episode. Vecna begins taunting Hopper, and appears before him. But when Hop shoots, Vecna disappears...and it turns out Hopper has accidentally shot the tank with Eleven. She's bleeding out, dying, and Hopper smashes the glas to pull her out. With Eleven gone, Kali and Max are pulled out of Henry's mind with her.
When Hop picks Eleven up, her wounds are gone. It was all an illusion from Vecna, tricking him into pulling Eleven out of the memory. Dr. Kay captures Max and Vicky, and finds the whiteboard in the Squawk with the plan for "Operation Beanstalk." That means she now knows how to get into the Abyss.
Back in Henry's memory, Holly starts leading the kids toward the cave, taking up the mantle of leadership.
Now we cut back to Hawkins Lab, where Eleven hatches a new plan to go into the Abyss in the flesh and kill Vecna, since she no longer has a tank to reach his mind. Hopper forces Eleven to confess her plan to stay behind in the Upside Down and die, and Kali pulls a gun on him, determined to keep their suicidal plan on course. This scene between Hopper and El is the most moving of the episode so far. It might even be David Harbour's best scene of the season. And it's a moving enough speech that Kali lowers the gun.
But hey, who needs quiet moments? The tension ratchets right back up as Akers' forces roll up to Hawkins Lab.
Back in Henry's mind, the kids nearly make it to the cave...but Derek (Jake Connelly) has fallen behind. Holly runs back for him and pulls him onward, right as Vecna re-enters his memories and gives chase. He uses his viney arm to grab Holly right at the entrance to the cave, nearly getting her, but Derek pulls her to safety. With a triumphant shout of "Suck my fat one!" the kids finally make it to safety inside the cave. If Henry wants them, he'll have to face his own worst memory.
Enter the hive mind
In the Abyss, the main group of heroes approaches Vecna's lair. Mike tries to convince Nancy to give him a gun, and she's hilariously tricks Mike by giving him a harmless flare gun. Personally, I'm hoping he finds some way to make it useful before all's said and done.
Will gets a flash of the hive mind, and realizes Henry is still alive. And then we're back in the memory, where Henry forces himself into the cave and gets flashes of his traumatic encounter where he killed a scientist and opened the briefcase that Max and Holly saw in Episode 6. In one brief flash, we see what looks like exotic matter when young Henry opens the case, melding into his wounded hand. Jamie Campbell Bower's acting here is amazing. The way he shifts between malice and utter terror perfectly conveys the conflict here, and totally sells how difficult this is for Vecna.
Will is able to fill in the Abyss group on what's happening with the kids as Vecna chases them out into the desert in his memory. Joyce urges the group to keep going, while Will tries to stop Vecna using his newfound hive mind powers.
Things are getting worse in Hawkins Lab as well, where the military deploys a helicopter with the kryptonite soundwave to immobilize Eleven and Kali. In a shocker moment, Hopper decides to take Eleven to safety and leaves Kali behind as the military combs the building. Brutal. But she did pull a gun on him, I guess.
Goodbye Eight
Vecna closes in on the kids as they near the tunnel where his most traumatic memory occurred. And then Eleven appeals to Hopper back in the lab, beseeching him to go back for Kali. He does, and saves her, only to get captured by Akers.
Back to the tunnel, Holly reminds the group of kids that nothing they see in the tunnel is real. I love that she says "Eyes on me" just like Mike did when leading the kids out of danger in Episode 4. They go to the exit, where she finds her abandoned fire poker she tried to use to defend her mother earlier in the season. I have a feeling Holly's defining moment is about to arrive.
The cuts are happening so fast! We're back in the lab, where Akers threatens to kill Kali unless Hopper tells him where Eleven is. Kali signals Hopper not to tell though; both of them are willing to die to protect El. But before Akers can pull the trigger, Murray pops a grenade and throws it off the roof of the building and into the rotors of the chopper. It blows, throwing the guards down as Akers fires a single shot and a fireball engulfs the outside of Hawkins Lab.
And then Eleven is there, and utterly murders the entire group of soldiers. The moment where she forces Akers to shoot himself in the head is brutal. But in the aftermath, we find out that the lone shot Akers fired went into Kali's stomach. Eleven pleads with her to pull through, but Kali is at peace with this. After all, she never wanted to make it out of this alive.
Henry's worst memory
Back in the tunnel, Holly makes her move and attacks Henry with the fire poker. She hurts him, carving a chunk out of his face, but he easily overpowers her. But then he's pulled into his worst memory. Jamie Campbell Bower's acting is incredible in this scene; arguably some of his best of the entire series. I especially love the shot where he reacts to young Henry's hand being shot in unison with the memory.
At the lab, Murray's celebration at destroying the chopper is cut short as he realizes Kali is dead. Eleven realizes she has another way to the Abyss: she can use her powers to jump across the floating boulders, carving out a dangerous shortcut to teh entrance to that deadly dimension. She and Hopper share an emotional goodbye, complete with cross-cutting to all their scenes together from older seasons. Stranger Things, going straight for the heart.
Then we're back in Henry's memory, where Jamie Campbell Bower continues to act for everything he's worth. Young Henry Raphael Luce is also doing an incredible job. And at last, we fully see what happened when Henry opened the briefcase. There was a dark piece of matter of some kind in it, which gives Henry a vision of the Mind Flayer particles in the Abyss, with a whispered entreaty to "Find Me." The scientist urges him to resist it, but his head's half split open and he's not very convincing, and Henry uses his newfound powers to blow up what's left of his face. The horror on Jamie Campbell Bower's face in this scene is perfection.
Will talks to Henry during this moment, and offers him something he's never had: empathy. Will urges Henry to fight the Mind Flayer's influence, saying young Henry was a vessel, just like him. This is an epic moment, as Henry says he chose to join the Mind Flayer: he doesn't control it, and it doesn't control him. And then we get a bombshell of a scene, as it's revealed that Vecna's lair is actually the Mind Flayer in the flesh. The lair unfurls into a full-sized Mind Flayer, which chases the Abyss group down in one of the most spectacular special-effects sequences of the series.
But just as it corners them and it seems all hope is lost, Eleven shows up and bashes its head with a rock. It's time for the final showdown.
Eleven versus Vecna and the Mind Flayer
Look, I just need to be straight here for a second: Eleven's assault on the massive Mind Flayer is one of the coolest scenes in all of Stranger Things. This is the sort of thing I could imagine the Duffer Brothers working toward for years, and man is it a satisfying pay off. She leaps into the air, tears a hole in its chest, and then yanks Vecna down from his hanging perch. Eleven and Vecna start fighting, and the stakes are life are death.
The Abyss group outside decides they need to help Eleven by hurting the Mind Flayer, which will hurt the hive mind and Vecna. Nancy volunteers as bait, being the obvious baddest person of the party, and begins firing on the monster just in time to keep Vecna from spearing Eleven.
Inside, El takes a page from Kali's book and creates a diversion by kicking up dust into Vecna's face to get the drop on him. The Mind Flayer corners Nancy outside, biting through solid rock to get to her as she fires clip after clip of ammo into its mouth. But just when all seems lost, the rest of the Abyss party comes to the rescue, hitting it with flamethrowers and molotov cocktails from the cliffsides. Mike even gets to fire off his flare gun! Eleven tries to impale Vecna on a spike inside the Mind Flayer's body, while Dustin and Steve stab the eggs under its stomach.
But despite Eleven's power, Vecna tries one more time to kill Eleven by spearing her with his hand. And it looks like he could actually get her...until Will takes control of him from within the hive mind. This is a chills moment, where Will tears off Vecna's arm while telling him they're not afraid of him, and Eleven finishes the job of impaling him. The Mind Flayer collapses, aflame, and its heart shrivels up.
With the battle won, Nancy heads inside the Mind Flayer's corpse and reunites with El. There's a great moment where she tears Holly down from her goopy prison, and the sisters and Mike are all reunited. They hug it out while the others kids just kind of hang there, until we get a scene of the rest of the party freeing all the captive children, who barf up Mind Flayer particles. Derek gives Steve a hug, because Stranger Things wants you to feel all the feels!
Just then, Vecna begins to cough up blood, revealing he's still alive and hampering the tender moment. The party gathers around him to witness his final moment, and Joyce Byers finally takes out her axe. She delivers an all-time banger of a line before cutting Vecna's head off with repeated, brutal swings as flashbacks to all the trauma he's caused the characters plays. It's bloody, it's cathartic, and it's a fantastic moment to give Joyce to end it once and for all.
With that final fall of Joyce's axe, Vecna is well and truly dead. Guess that's a wrap, right?
The end of the Upside Down
Of course that's not a wrap! Believe it or not, there's still 54 minutes left in this episode. I'm relieved Stranger Things left plenty of time for an extended epilogue.
Dustin radios Hopper and lets him know the party succeeded in their mission to save the kids and kill Vecna — and they all made it back to the Upside Down safe. Murray starts the bomb timer, and everyone seems to be rejoicing on the truck as it drives out of the Upside Down. But I can't lie, something about this scene is making me nervous.
Obviously, something else had to go wrong, or this all would have been too easy. As the team rolls out of the Upside Down, they run right over spikes set to blow their tires by the military. Dr. Kary is there, with all her soundwave devices and soldiers, ready to capture Eleven. It's a worst-case scenario, which would give Kay the means to restart the cycle of horror all over again.
Fortunately, Eleven gave them the slip...seemingly at the cost of her own life. She slipped away, back into the Upside Down. Mike tries to get to her, and is pulled into her mindscape for a tearful goodbye. Stranger Things busts out the flashbacks again, reminding us how far these two characters have come as she thanks him for their time spent together, and always understanding him. She wants him to tell the others her reasons for staying, but that's little consolation.
The bomb goes off. There's an insane special effects extravaganza as the Upside Down collapses and everything inside is swept out into the void of space. Eleven stands at the MAC-Z gate while everyone screams for her in slow motion.
And then Eleven is gone. The Upside Down is gone. And where the MAC-Z gate once stood, is simply the ruins of Hawkins Library. We get a last pan at the devastation on everyone's faces, and then the scene cuts to black.
18 Months Later
Now we're truly into the epilogue of Stranger Things, with a time jump separating us from the main actino of the episode. Robin (Maya Hawke) is back in the Squawk, narrating just like she did at the beginning of the season. The town has resettled; the military has left. We start to get glimpses of how everyone's lives have changed, beginning with Steve, who's now coaching little league baseball. Derek is on the team, of course.
It's graduation day for the core group of kids. Max is back up on her skateboard, and back to her old self. She and Lucas share a kiss, while Erica watches on in disgust. Dustin's mom finally makes an appearance this season, bawling at the prospect of taking his picture in his graduation gown. Dustin is the class valedictorian.
Over in Hopper's cabin, Jonathan is taking pictures of Will, Joyce, and Hopper. Hopper is back in his sheriff outfit, which was a pleasant surprise. Given everything that happened, you'd be forgiven for forgetting Hawkins even has a police department! There's a funny moment where they argue about the lighting, because lest we forget after all this time, Jonathan is a photographer. The phone rings; it's Karen Wheeler. Of all the kids, Mike is the only one not getting ready for graduation.
Hopper finds him at the memorial for the "Great Earthquake," where he's remembering what happened to Eleven. This conversation with Hopper and Mike is a strong moment of closure, where Hopper finally shows how much he's grown by accepting Eleven's choice, and lending Mike the sympathy he needs in this moment.
Graduation
From there we're off to the graduation ceremony for the Hawkins class of 1989. Mike arrives late, much to the relief of his mother Karen (Cara Buono), who has a crazy set of scars across her neck and chest from the Demogorgon attack.
Dustin has to give a valedictorian speech, and he uses it to talk about how a normal childhood was stolen form him and all the other kids in town. Nonetheless, he sees the goodness in the experiences. He makes a Dungeons & Dragons analogy, which feels like a perfect way to cap off this series that started with a bunch of kids using their favorite game to understand a supernatural threat. Dustin's speech about his unlikely friendships devolves into an on-stage antic where he yanks off his gown to reveal a Hellfire Club shirt beneath, while Iron Maiden's The Trooper plays. All his friends, and his mom, are so proud. And you know, Eddie Munson would be, too.
The principal shouts for order, peaking out the speakers and giving Mike a sudden PTSD flashback to El's death. Then the unexpected happens: popular girls invite Dustin and his friends to their party. The tides have shifted!
Our epilogue takes us next to the Squawk, where Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan are having a jarringly adult little party on the roof. Steve is not only the coach of kids' baseball, he's also the sex ed teacher for the school. Jonathan is an artist who now lives in New York. Nancy has dropped out of college and gotten a job at a newspaper, which is a nice full circle moment for her considering she started out at the school paper in season 1. I really like how much the epilogue is reminding us of where all these characters started, and how far they've come. It's emotional for us, and it's emotional for the characters, who all miss each other. They decide to meet up once a month at Robin's weird uncle's house, to keep their friendship going into their adulthood. I'm not crying, you're crying!
A new life together
Now that we've said goodbye to the older kids, it's time for a date with Joyce and Hopper. After all this time, they've finally made it to Enzo's for a proper date. It sounds like they're practically married, with a joint bank account and shared living space in Hopper's cabin. They discuss the possibility of leaving Hawkins. And then Hop makes that "practically" part of that equation a reality, by proposing to Joyce. She says yes, and once again, it is definitely the characters crying and not me.
One last game
With that emotional moment down, we get a shot of pure nostalgia next as we head to the Wheeler house for one last game of Dungeons & Dragons. Max is playing with the guys now, and it adds a fun dynamic as she rages at Mike's seemingly impossible final boss. But then the group realizes they can summon back-up: a mage. It's a nice nod to Eleven, who they referred to as their mage throughout the earlier seasons.
Taking down the final boss gives them all comfort and happiness...which leads Max to call out Mike for his lame storytelling. So he summons his best storytelling chops, and narrates an ending for each of our characters as it cross-cuts with closing scenes for them. Lucas and Max's relationship grows deeper with each year, and they finally get their movie date. Dustin goes to college and studies hard, but still makes time to see friends like Steve Harrington. Will heads to a bigger city, where he finds acceptance, both from within and without, and finally gets the courage to start dating other men.
As for Mike, he keeps writing stories. And he reveals that there's one story he can't write: that of the mage, Eleven. Mike reveals that in Eleven's final moments, Kali cast an illusion from a distance that let her slip away. The Eleven that stood in the doorway was not the true Eleven, but an illusion. Mike says that no one knows where Eleven went, but that he likes to imagine she's somewhere far away and peaceful, safe from the military. There are waterfalls. And Eleven can rest.
Mike's friends ask if it's true, and he says he can't know for sure..but he chooses to believe. So do all his friends. It's one last mega tear-jerker for the road. Whether it's true or not, it's one last way that these kids use D&D to work through their shared traumas. They all place their game books back on the shelf, and head upstairs for Karen Wheeler's lasagna.
And as they go, Holly and her friends rush down to take their turn playing. Their banter is raucous and reminiscent of the first season. Mike watches from the stairs, the torch passed on to the next generation, and smiles before he closes the door to the basement.
The scene fades slowly to black, and Stranger Things, at long last, reaches its well-earned ending.