Posted in: Netflix, Stranger Things, TV | Tagged: stranger things

Stranger Things 5: Lingering Questions Remain Following the Finale

The Duffers left more than a few breadcrumbs in the Stranger Things 5 series finale: Eleven's fate, Hopper's job, Vecna's origins, and more.

As Matt and Ross Duffer rang in the new year, they appear to have stuck to the landing on Netflix's Stranger Things 5 two-hour-plus finale with predictability, no shocking surprises with the Hawkins heroes battling Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). That's not to say we have the happiest of possible endings, but it is definitive in completing the eight-year journey that began in 2017. When we last left our heroes, we discovered that Vecna has a home base beyond the Upside-Down in the Abyss, and our heroes must find a way to reach it, but to do that, they must wait as Vecna starts his apocalyptic plan involving his chosen youths, whose minds he needs to tap to enhance his powers. The following contains major spoilers on potential loose ends.

Stranger Things 5 Finale, Making Sense of It, Possible Spinoffs

As the heroes did their best impression of the Avengers in teaming up and doing their part, taking out the Vecna and freeing the children from their cocoons, they try to drive triumphantly home when the military, led by Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton), finally catches up to the heroes, trying to capture Eleven/Jane (Millie Bobby Brown), but somehow to miraculously escape from their clutches. As the military tries to track down El, the Upside-Down is collapsing due to the explosives set by Hopper (David Harbour) and Murray (Brett Gelman), and she finds her way to the border, infiltrating Mike's (Finn Wolfhard) mind, trying to explain why she has to sacrifice herself before getting swept up…or so we thought.

The plan sees El severing all contact with her Hawkins friends, believing her dead, but we see her emerging into a mountainous area, hiking to another small town with two waterfalls, as Mike had described it, perhaps marking a new beginning. Just as we see Kali do the bulk of the work, deceiving friends and foes alike, we're led to believe that she was fatally shot in the stomach. So if she was dying, how could she have the strength to muster as much power to keep up the illusion for that many people as long as she did? Keep in mind, El and Kali have psychic powers too, so they could very well have escaped on their own, but Kali isn't seen in the epilogue, and we don't see a body since the military miraculously disappears from Hawkins as life moves on and the kids graduate.

The natural follow-up and the question becomes: Is that the only fragment we had from Hawkins' lab? Obviously, there are sequels and spinoffs. While I don't suspect it's an every-27-year curse for its resident monster to appear like the It franchise, there's always another potential vessel for Vecna beyond Henry Creel, and there are more than enough curious and ambitious scientists out there looking to follow in Brennan's (Matthew Modine) and Kay's research into trying to replicate what they had in Henry.

The third and last question is: Does El become a divining rod for any future vessel for Vecna? As long as he's a part of her, the drive exists, not to mention the government is always watching. While there's probably a hefty payday for Brown in continuing her adventure elsewhere with a brand-new cast, the interest in following up is probably too much of an uphill battle creatively and cost on Netflix, given how much higher in demand the cast is. At the bare minimum, would it be enough to have Brown and Wolfhard around to rewrite a new ending, or would it cheapen the intent of the original?

The Duffers know what they're doing, but there's no reason why they wouldn't be treading carefully on Stranger Things' future, because we know the strength as an ensemble, but are any of the characters interesting enough to center an entire series around? We see the seeds ahead with the flash forward and several missing characters we don't see again, who we know survive, like Vickie (Amybeth McNulty). Aside from the obvious potential El-Mike reunion spinoff with Brown and Wolfhard, we also have Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper moving to Montauk, NY, taking a job as police chief, but the Duffers dashed any potential spinoff hopes for that. I'm curious to see if we get a new version of Friends with a supernatural twist with Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), and Robin (Maya Hawke).

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