Vecna, the Mindflayer, and a cathartic series finale

[Ed. note: This article contains full spoilers for the series finale of Stranger Things.]

One thing has appeared mistaken since, let’s say, a while in 2016. No matter your political, financial, or spiritual affiliations, there’s no denying our world has veered down a polarized path within the final decade, one which most individuals by no means noticed coming within the optimistic, post-recession period of the early 2010s. To cite a much-memed sentiment, we’re all residing within the “mistaken timeline” — however there’s no simple, dimension-hopping strategy to repair it.

That’s not the case in Stranger Things, which provides precisely that resolution to a decade of trauma and horror in its movie-length final episode. After launching on Netflix in the summer of 2016 as a taught, science-fiction thriller best-described as E.T. meets The X-Information, the present culminates a decade later with an epic battle between psychic warriors, molotov-cocktail-chucking people, and a large CGI monster known as The Mindflayer — all set in opposition to the backdrop of an evil alternate actuality often known as The Abyss.

It’s an absurd ending to what was as soon as a tightly constructed horror present with a moody synth soundtrack, nevertheless it additionally feels weirdly applicable. Like lastly taking down an inconceivable Darkish Souls boss, the expertise of watching these youngsters someway defeat a Godzilla-sized enemy that represents all their fears and self-doubts was extremely cathartic, but it was solely an appetizer for what got here subsequent.

With the Mindflayer lifeless and its partner-in-crime Vecna impaled on a large rock, our heroes have a good time their victory, nevertheless it’s not fairly over but. Vecna remains to be respiration, and for a second, it appears to be like just like the character (a human corrupted by evil) would possibly get redemption. As a substitute, Joyce Byers (Wynona Rider) picks up an axe and chops his head off. As she hacks at Vecna’s tree-trunk-esque neck, we see flashbacks of all of the methods he’s tortured the present’s sprawling solid of characters; a decade of dying, violence, ache, and anguish summed up in just a few quick moments. Then, Joyce cuts clear via and the nightmare lastly ends.

Picture: Netflix

The gang units off a bomb to destroy the Upside Down (which we realized in season 5 is definitely a wormhole connecting our world to the Abyss) and makes their escape, as a pair of Prince songs (“When Doves Cry,” adopted by “Purple Rain”) units the tone for his or her last victory. Forward of the finale’s launch, Netflix overrated the episode as that includes a track that had by no means been utilized in TV or movie earlier than. That’s not precisely true — these Prince tracks famously seem in his 1984 film Purple Rain — nevertheless it’s nonetheless a formidable accomplishment that factors again to a bigger theme within the Stranger Issues finale.

Prince died in 2016, just some months earlier than Stranger Issues premiered. It was certainly one of many tragic deaths on the time that appears, in hindsight, like an omen of the darkish path we have been about to embark on. The artist’s inclusion right here solely heightens the cathartic feeling of watching a decade of trauma fade away and vanish.

However Stranger Issues isn’t over but. A last act reunites the core gang (minus Billie Bobby Brown’s Eleven) for one final Dungeons & Dragons marketing campaign. As they vanquish an evil vampire, Dungeon Grasp Mike (Finn Wolfhard) spins a narrative of the place their lives will lead subsequent, imagining completely satisfied younger adulthoods for every of them. It’s a touching farewell to a solid of characters we’ve come to like, if a bit drawn out in an already indulgent finale. In fact, actual life has its challenges, too. The youngsters will all face their share of defeat and heartbreak as their lives go on, however within the present’s last moments, we’re given a quick respite from each sci-fi horror and actuality to think about an ideal world would possibly actually be attainable.

In Stranger Issues, evil has lastly been vanquished. If solely our personal actuality was so easy.