Spoiler alert for “Stranger Things” series finale: if you haven’t seen it, there are spoilers ahead.

“Stranger Things” is a popular Netflix horror TV show that was initially released on July 15, 2016. The show takes place in Hawkins, a fictional small town located in Indiana in the 1980s. The plot revolves around a young group of friends who uncover supernatural events occurring in a government lab. There they discover a portal that leads to a dimension called “The Upside Down.”

The opening of the portal brings in new monster foes like the demogorgons, all while a girl with psychokinetic powers named Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) joins them to save the town and her new friends from these monsters throughout five seasons.

On December 31, 2025, the last episode of the final season was released. In the final episode, the main cast goes into the Upside Down for the final battle with the main antagonist named Vecna (Jaime Campbell Bower).

They battle in the Upside Down and defeat Vecna with Joyce (Winona Ryder), one of the main characters’ mothers, delivering the final blow. As they leave the Upside Down, Eleven decides to sacrifice herself to close the portal, leaving her fate ambiguous.

The ending sounds decent on paper, but in reality it did not deliver. Many fans complained online about how rushed it feels, claiming some ending character arcs were unearned and rushed, the danger that defines horror was severely lacking from the episode, and that the ending played it safe instead of going through with a bold ending.

Fans have also hoped for a ninth episode or even a potential sequel because of how haphazard the ending was, but the Duffer Brothers, the co-creators and showrunners, have ruled that out and confirmed that there would be no sequel for “Stranger Things” as they do not want a sequel to feel like a cash grab.