Stranger Issues Characters Whose Fates Stay Unknown After The Collection Finale

I might advise that you do not run up that hill if you have not seen “The Rightside Up,” the sequence finale of “Stranger Issues.” Spoilers forward!

After a decade of dithering and more and more convoluted fan theories, “Stranger Issues,” the hit Netflix sequence created by the Duffer Brothers, is over. When the two-plus-hour, characteristic film-length sequence finale aired on the night of December 31, followers gathered ‘spherical to see what occurred to their favourite characters. Would Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) be capable of save everybody from Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), aided by Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and his newfound powers? Would Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers (David Harbour and Winona Ryder) lastly get their glad ending? What about all the opposite children, like Nancy and Mike Wheeler (Natalia Dyer and Finn Wolfhard), Will’s brother Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin)?

In a frankly interminably lengthy epilogue that follows Vecna’s defeat, we received some solutions. Nancy dropped out of Emerson School to pursue a journalism profession, Steve is a coach and sex-ed trainer in Hawkins, Robin is having fun with her time at Smith School, and Jonathan is making (most likely horrible) pupil movies at New York College. The youthful children are graduating and heading off to school. Joyce and Hopper are engaged, and Eleven sacrificed herself to cease the navy takeover of Hawkins. Nonetheless, as a result of that is “Stranger Issues” and the Duffers form of bit off greater than they will chew in relation to this present’s total mythos and narrative, some character threads have been left frayed and hanging. So what occurred to those fairly necessary characters on the finish of “Stranger Issues?” We’d by no means know.

Personally, I discovered Brett Gelman’s long-running “Stranger Issues” character, conspiracy nut and doubtful non-public investigator Murray Bauman, to be actually exhausting and extra irritating than anybody else, so I do not essentially care if he received a cheerful ending or not. Nonetheless, it is bizarre and actually noticeable that, after Murray is a significant a part of the central gang’s plan to explode the Upside Down to chop off entry from the Abyss to Hawkins, he simply … vanishes. 

Murray was form of a gopher for the group in season 5 of “Stranger Issues,” getting them much-needed provides and even transport as they conspired to defeat Vecna as soon as and for all, and once more, he is deemed necessary sufficient, as a personality, to be part of the last push in opposition to Vecna within the Upside Down. We all know he left the Upside Down safely with everyone else earlier than the detonation occurred that presumably killed Eleven (extra on that shortly), however it’s unbelievably weird that we by no means see him once more. You’ll suppose that, after all the pieces they’d all been by means of, perhaps Murray would be part of different non-parents like Steve and Robin on the class of 1989’s highschool commencement, the place Max, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Will all matriculate. Nope! I assume he is in a darkish room someplace surrounded by piles of newspapers or one thing.

What’s the level of casting an ideal Molly Ringwald doppelganger in your nostalgic sequence (Amybeth McNulty, along with her swoop of crimson hair and charming smile, completely evokes the Nineteen Eighties star) for those who’re simply going to ditch her by the point the present is over with no clarification by any means? McNulty’s Vickie Dunne first appeared in “Stranger Issues” in the course of the present’s fourth season as the item of Robin’s affection; by the point we meet up with Robin in season 5, she and Vickie are relationship, and she or he retains promising to take Vickie on a romantic date to the Hawkins eatery Enzo’s.

Not solely do they by no means get to go to Enzo’s — that is reserved for Joyce and Hopper, who get engaged there in the course of the epilogue — however after Vickie, whose job was to take care of an unconscious Max whereas her fellow redhead was serving to Eleven infiltrate Vecna’s thoughts, is apprehended by the navy, we by no means see her once more. What occurred right here?! Once we meet up with Robin in that very same epilogue, she makes a remark about “overbearing important others” when she, Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve promise to stay pals eternally regardless of any obstacles. What does that imply? At no level did we see Vickie act overbearing or intrude in any manner with Robin’s friendships. She appeared like a pleasant lady. I hope she discovered a a lot better girlfriend, truthfully — and if we’re all being trustworthy with ourselves, Vickie was principally only a character whose personal queer identification served as a plot system to assist Will reckon together with his personal sexuality.

Everyone’s favourite wisecracker Erica Sinclair, Lucas’s youthful sister performed by Priah Ferguson, performs a fairly large position within the last season of “Stranger Issues,” all issues thought of. Erica has been a reasonably constant presence on “Stranger Issues” for the reason that present’s second season, and Ferguson has been reliably pleasant on-screen, so it was nice to see Erica flex her psychological muscle groups and assist her brother and play an enormous position within the last plan. In reality, Erica is the one who finally ends up drugging Derek Turnbow (Jake Connelly) and his household to try to use the younger boy to determine what Vecna, née Henry Creel, is as much as with all of those kidnapped youngsters, and she or he’s the one who enlists native science trainer Scott Clarke (Randy Havens) to assist them destroy Vecna.

With all of that in thoughts, it is bizarre at greatest and infuriating at worst that Erica would not seem in that epilogue. She would not attend her personal brother’s commencement, apparently, and once we see Mike observe his youthful sister Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) and Derek begin taking part in a sport of Dungeons & Dragons within the Wheeler household basement, Erica, who’s their identical age, is nowhere to be seen. Did she transfer away on her personal? Get recruited by the CIA? For followers of Erica, I am sorry to say that we most likely will not get a solution to this one.

Sorry, however it’s extremely weird to forged “Terminator” star Linda Hamilton within the last season of your Nineteen Eighties-set present and never solely give her nothing of substance to do, however by no means even inform us what occurred to her. Hamilton’s Main Normal Dr. Kay, who additionally by no means will get the distinction of an actual first identify, reveals up in season 5 principally out of nowhere to function the ultimate outing’s fundamental villain. As we’re advised time and time once more, Dr. Kay is looking tirelessly for Eleven, as a result of she’s conscious of the work the younger superpowered lady did with Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) and desires to make use of Eleven’s blood for extra experiments. Just about each time Dr. Kay reveals up on display screen, she’s menacing Eleven and the gang and demanding they ship the lady unto her, which they clearly refuse to do.

We do see Dr. Kay within the sequence finale. After our heroes efficiently plant bombs within the Upside Down and recuperate the youngsters captured by a now-dead Vecna, Dr. Kay and her navy goons are all ready to arrest them and take Eleven, who opts to move again into the doorway of the Upside Down and go down with the proverbial ship (once more, we’ll circle again to that complete mess in only a second). So does the navy simply … go away, even after a few of these children and some of the adults, together with Nancy and Hopper, straight-up killed a bunch of members of the armed forces? The place does Dr. Kay go? Does anybody face any penalties for something, and is Dr. Kay nonetheless trying to find Eleven in any manner? Dr. Kay was removed from an ideal character, however this ending can be a shame.

Let’s discuss in regards to the Eleven “loss of life scene.” All through season 5 of “Stranger Issues,” Eleven seems to be concocting a plan to sacrifice her personal life to save lots of her family members — a plan she makes along with her “sister” Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), often known as Eight, and a plan that makes Eleven’s adopted father Hopper completely panic. Regardless of her personal needs to provide her life to guard everyone, Hopper appears to persuade Eleven that she ought to go away the Upside Down and search a happier destiny in a peaceable Hawkins. However when Dr. Kay surrounds the entire gang and begins trying to find her, Eleven apparently vanishes earlier than showing within the makeshift doorway to the Upside Down (which, as a reminder, is about to violently explode). With everybody watching, Eleven appears to die because the Upside Down erupts in flames behind her.

Or does she?! On the finish of the epilogue, a grief-stricken Mike places ahead a fairly convoluted idea that, as Kali lay dying from a gunshot wound, she used her personal powers to ship a imaginative and prescient of Eleven to fake to sacrifice herself. This appears to be a manifestation of Mike’s enduring love for Eleven greater than a factor that truly occurred, however nonetheless, the present clearly needs it to be ambiguous contemplating that we’re handled to a imaginative and prescient of Eleven mountain climbing by means of the mountains to see waterfalls in some distant location. Once more, we may chalk this up as merely a part of Mike’s fantasy, however I believe the present does need us to surprise, which is, frankly, fairly irritating on the finish of the day. Nonetheless, we do not definitively know Eleven’s destiny on “Stranger Issues,” so she needed to be included right here.

All of “Stranger Issues” is streaming on Netflix now.