This article contains spoilers for season 5 of Stranger Things.

To call the fifth and final season of Stranger Things underwhelming fails to grasp how much of a letdown it truly was.

Stranger Things 4 ended with the earth splitting in half, which may have been the highest stakes the show had ever seen. Yet, those heightened stakes were discarded in Stranger Things 5’s opening sequence, where Robyn (Maya Hawke), now working as a radio DJ, complains to her audience (and, by extension, the viewer) about Hawkins’ situation in the eighteen months since the events of the previous season. This time jump is just the first of many disappointments delivered by ST5, where the show runners continually set up interesting narratives before disregarding them to keep the story moving, creating repeated plot holes that the show fails to fill.

The inconsistencies of ST5 were so bad, in fact, that it prompted a rumor of a longer “Snyder cut,” wherein episode run times were supposedly twice as long as the final version, which would, theoretically, tie up the season’s massive loose threads. This further evolved into an online conspiracy titled “Conformity gate,” where audiences believed that a secret ninth episode had been hinted at, set for release on January 7th , which would be the show’s true finale. Although very few people were surprised when the imaginary episode failed to release, it solidified the season’s poor writing, losing the faith of many hardcore fans.

The biggest failure of ST5 lies in its ridiculously sized cast of characters, and the creators’ inability to let any of them go. The absurd number of primary and secondary characters, which had been presented by the borderline comical “floating head” poster, was further highlighted during Will’s coming-out scene, which looked more like a press conference than a private, emotional moment of vulnerability.

However, despite this asinine number of characters, the season only counted two major protagonist deaths: Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), the latter of who sacrifices herself to ensure that her body would not be used to create others like her—a sacrifice that had been planned in a previous episode, removing any possible stakes and giving the show’s central character an undeservedly lackluster ending. With cast and crew alike insisting that this season would by far be the saddest, audiences were promised a roller coaster but were instead presented with a 10-hour carousel ride.

Another myriad of criticisms can be made about Stranger Things 5, from the sub-par acting by key members of the younger cast (namely Noah Schnapp as Will, who had been an emotional powerhouse in earlier seasons) to the thirty-minute-long ending sequence—which comes after yet another eighteen-month time jump, a lazy way to avoid exploring the immediate consequences of the final battle—a sequence just long enough to let you mistakenly hope for a final twist, to name just a few.

Shortcoming after shortcoming all contributed to the monumentally disappointing ending to what had once been a thrilling, original show.

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