In Volume 1 of Stranger Things 5, Lucas begged Max to wake up because El was “going to need the party, the full party” to defeat Vecna. Lucas was right. Eleven bested Henry Creel because, unlike him, she had help. It was a fitting conclusion to the hateful Vecna’s story because it captured what the series was always about at its core: friendship. And that idea was also at the center of Stranger Things beautiful, moving last scene… right up until it wasn’t. Because, somehow, despite setting it up perfectly, the show botched the revelation surrounding Eleven’s sacrifice. What she did wasn’t about the power of stories. It was all about friendship.
There’s meaning in ambiguity. So while I think the evidence Eleven survived is compelling (and the Duffers also loved their main characters too much to kill them), the fact we can never know matters more than whether or not she really died. But to understand why that ambiguity (should) matter, we need to understand what Eleven actually did that night in the MAC-Z.
We know in the macro why Eleven sacrificed herself. Whether she gave up her actual life or simply left it behind, Eleven was keeping the world and those she loved safe. As Kali had explained, the best Eleven could ever hope for was to hide for a little while. No matter where she went eventually the government would find her. When it did it would kill anyone who was with her, all so it could restart the cycle of violence and death that had begun with Henry Creel.
So long as Eleven “lived,” others would die. And no one would be at greater risk than the people she cared about most, her friends. That’s why they were the ones on her mind during her final moments in Hawkins. This is what she needed to tell Mike before she left forever. When she only had a brief moment to open her heart, to tell him what mattered most to her in life, this is what was Eleven cared about:
I need you to talk to the others. I need you to thank them for me. For being so kind to me. And teaching me what it means to be a friend. Mike, I need you to help them understand my choice.
She told this to Mike because he knew her best. He knew what was in her heart, so Eleven knew he would eventually figure what had actually happened in this moment and why. And eventually so did we. Their final conversation in the void wasn’t about their love. It wasn’t about Mike and Eleven as a couple. It was about Eleven protecting the people who gave her something she never had before, the ones who taught her the most important thing in life, that it only has value when you experience it with others. That’s why she had one and Vecna had lost. Her friends were her super power. Henry’s rejection of others was his fatal weakness.
That was the very idea that had always and forever, from Stranger Things‘ very first scene until its last, been the show’s most important one. She was going to save her friends just as they had saved her in the woods. That’s why her kiss with Mike happened second. Their relationship was secondary to the love the Party all shared together, the love that helped them stop Vecna for good.
The defeat of Henry followed by Eleven’s sacrifice were both perfectly in line with the show’s best and most enduring idea. And that was also true as Stranger Things said goodbye forever. When Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Will decided to have a final session of D&D rather than hanging out with others, they were celebrating friendship. That moment was about the bonds we make with a few special people, the connections that endure no matter how many monsters or life itself tries to split us apart.
That was still true as “the Storyteller” ended his campaign with hopeful visions for his friends’ future. In that moment, Mike was showing how much he loved them and wanted good things for them. How he believed in his friends and always would. But then Stranger Things lost the plot when it got to Eleven’s sacrifice and what it was really all about. It created ambiguity and then gave it meaning. The problem was the meaning didn’t fit with the moment or the show. When all of them said “I believe” she’s alive, that made her sacrifice about the meaning of stories and how they can reflect a “truth” more powerful than a fact, like whether or not someone really died or merely disappeared.
That’s not bad in a vacuum. It wasn’t even bad in that scene, which is otherwise fantastic! The problem is that idea is not what Stranger Things was ever been about! It was never been about the “power of stories.” At its core it was about is the “power of friendship.” And the mystery around Eleven’s “death” could and should have been about friendship, too.
The scene—truly emotional and beautiful in all the best ways—works until he talks about Eleven because until then Mike is using stories to comfort his friends. He’s using his role in the group as DM to say they’ll all be okay. He is giving them what they need from their own personal Storyteller. In that moment, the power of story is supporting the theme of friendship. But when he gets to the Mage and creates ambiguity around her death, the show shifts the perspective of the final scene. It uses friendship to support the theme of stories. It’s not a massive, scene-destroying shift in perspective. It doesn’t even change the tone of the moment. But that flip matters because it abandons the show’s best idea for one that was never really that important.
It’s enough of a shift to make it not work. What’s extra frustrating is that it didn’t have to shift at all. El’s sacrifice was not just about keeping her friend’s physically safe. She protected them from even more pain. The ambiguity of her death meant it wouldn’t matter if the government ever did come calling because no one knew for sure if she was even alive let alone where she went. But even more important for a bunch of kids who faced so much, it also meant they never had to mourn her. Eleven kept her friends safe from emotional pain. Her final act was to return all the kindness they had showed her and to be a good friend, which was the thing she cared about most.
Stranger Things 5, including its finale, was not subtle. Characters expressed themselves explicitly. Very little was left unsaid. That makes it hard to give the show credit even if you can pull this implicit meaning out. Even if we do give it credit, that doesn’t change what actually happened when we learned about the Mage. It gave us ambiguity but then imbued it with the wrong meaning.
Stranger Things‘ final scene really was gorgeous on the whole, but that’s what makes its one mistake forever frustrating. It was so close to being perfect, but it missed the mark. Not by a lot, no, but either hit the bullseye or you don’t. And for a show that was never about stories, the story of Eleven’s sacrifice wasn’t something we had to believe in. It was about something we saw be absolutely true for five seasons: friendship.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist and friend to all most. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post What STRANGER THINGS’ Final Scene Got Right and What It Got Wrong appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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