#CONFORMITYGATE: Stranger Things Should Be Over But Isn't ...

Okay, I need to get my thoughts out here before Jan 7th hits because I think a vast majority of us are going to be majorly disappointed.

Here's the thing, I LOVE narratives like Stranger Things. It took a DnD game and turned it into this sci-fi fantasy, over the top, 80s nostalgic craze that was so much fun disappearing into. I loved how it began, and to be honest, the second and third seasons worked because they had a thread that felt emotionally evocative and grounded.

Characters like Steve, El, Max, Dustin, and Robin became beloved trademarks of the show. The earlier seasons, especially, did a great job creating a real and natural rapport between the characters that made even the fantastical elements of the plot feel believable. I mean, I root for Steve to this very day. I loved his relationship with Dustin. Similarly, Max's backstory, as dark as it was, worked well to really help transition the characters into the later seasons, both maintaining the initial childhood comical tone from the first season while also navigating growingly more complex and serious themes.

I loved the second season because it delved into the horror genre: Will was possessed, we had the Mind Flayer, the undefeatable essence of a villain. Then, in the third season, the villain grew, we got these really cool backstories for each of the main characters, and Max's arc took over the show. It was phenomenal and dark and so much fun because it enabled each character room to develop! Meanwhile, despite how shitty Eleven's storyline was becoming, what with the random bunch of kids she was bonding with, it felt comic book-esque and over the top enough for me to stay with it.

I watched the final season mostly because I wanted to know what they'd do with Max. I shouldn't have been surprised when I was thoroughly disappointed, however... and this is a big one... I think something about the final season was so blatantly off-tune, off-course, and plasticky that it can't be simply reduced to bad writing.

That's right. I'm team #conformitygate.

I've seen bad writing before. I mean, Lost (loved that show, but what the hell guys?) is one example of a really good storyline being shot down to hell. I watched the entirety of Kissing Booth, and I was with Community even through the final seasons when the writing got so bad it stopped being funny. That's where my baseline is in terms of shitty storytelling. There are telltale signs when writing is simply bad. One of the major signs is that a new random plotline or character is randomly added, or the main ending feels forced and rushed.

Stranger Things, bless the writing team's hearts, has managed to do both throughout all of the seasons. We can get examples of bad writing with the random Russian spy subplot, or with El's detour as the writers panic-wrote her origin story. Don't even get me started on Jonathan and Nancy's romance plotline. That whole scene of them getting together while staying over at Murray's place was stupid and contrived and I hated every single second of it. Season 5 is no better, but one thing that differentiates it from simply bad writing is that the errors seem too intentional. I was expecting way more loose ends, but even the loose ends that the season presents us with ties into a greater narrative.

Okay, so I've watched literally all the videos on TikTok on #conformitygate and, guys, I believe it. Marketing-wise, it makes sense. It literally borrows a page from Taylor Swift's gamebook. If the Duffer Bros know anything it is that a shitty story can be sold if there is enough to analyze.

Costumes:

The first thing that struck me when I watched this season was the costuming and set design. It was uncanny. I mean, yes, they were leaning hard on the 90s nostalgia, but the costumes felt like costumes. They didn't sit on any of the characters right; in fact, they took up the attention on screen. I mean, come on, what the hell was Eleven wearing? Why did it genuinely take away from her character? Same thing with Max and Holly. They looked more like Toy Story characters than anything from the show.

Compare that to the previous seasons. The costuming was comparatively natural. Over the top, yes, but cohesive to the rest of the narrative and tone of the series.

Okay, sure, maybe this was intentional because the writers wanted the season to feel separate. This was the branching off into the new world the Duffer Bros want to expand on. Yet, the issue with that theory is that the costuming doesn't affect every character. Everything else outside of Max, Holly, and Eleven is comparatively more cohesive (I'm not saying good, but a little more in line with the rest of the seasons and the tone of the show). The characters that matter this season don't seem to fit in the story we're being shown. Does that not seem intentional to you?

Set Design:

Okay, so the team has so much more money... why did the set design look so bad? I mean, everything felt like it was a stage performance. Especially in the last episode.

I mean, the cave and the desert actually feels like a stage. Henry's house, the Upside Down, all feel... different. If the show is not spelling it out for us, it is showing us that something is off. Here, again, I return to the uncanny. As the episodes continued, I started finding it more and more difficult to escape into the narrative. Everything about it felt like it was transforming into pages of a comic book rather than the series it started out as. That thought's been haunting my mind quite a bit because bad writing doesn't do that. Bad writing doesn't intentionally change the format of the series— this was one where I felt the characters were literally on the DnD playing board. A secret dice was being rolled. The fantasy elements were taking over.

Compare it to the first couple of seasons. We kept getting these allusions to DnD with like food equating to "battery" for Eleven, we'd get the creature names inspired by DnD but the rest of the show was grounded in its reality, which was Hawkins during the 90s. With each season, more of the DnD elements started showing up. First, the demagorgon's transformation into the Mind Flayer added more of a fantasy element to Hawkins. Like the Upside Down was slowly eating reality up. Then, we had Vecna and I originally was like, what the hell, this is the absolute worst villain, horrible writing from the writing team.

My thoughts were true— horrible writing— BUT, also, very intentional. Because what does making Vecna do? It humanizes the villain and takes away his power a bit, but it also gives time for writers to start working on the world building. What was happening in the background? The Upside Down was growing. Elements of Hawkins, of the show's reality, started disappearing.

Obviously, you can't forget the literal Easter Eggs, like the book spines, the high-pitched mind-fuck sound that stopped Eleven's powers, the graduation scene, and the orange uniforms. All of these things that fans have pointed out don't point to bad writing, they point to hints, ones that invariably lead back to Vecna's abilities.

Bad writing can usually be determined by plot holes that don't refer back to the story at all. The anarchist group from season 2 and then how they were completely forgotten for the rest of the season indicates bad writing because it was clear that the writers didn't know what El's origin story should be or what to do with the one they wrote for her. Or the whole mom subplot with Eleven; it was something that I felt the writers were actively trying to erase from our memories.

Season 5 wasn't like that, though. The main goal was to tie everything back together, that was clear from the very first episode. In fact, the writers were so adamant on tying things up that they brought Kali (a character that most of the fans were opposed to and made no sense to the plot) back into the story. We got so many references back to the past that these mistakes, these continuity errors also can't really be excused. Too many details have been thought through to simply brush the easter eggs off.

Like, watch a video about Max's sweater as she runs through the Upside Down. That blue shade was intentional. Mixing that up in literally one scene in the finale is not a mistake. The rest of the episodes in the same season got the colour correct. Changing the colour of the voltage dial or the roundabout in one episode is not a mistake, it's a decision.

I mean, biggest question of all time: what the hell happened to Vicky? The writers don't just forget about an entire character in the same season she was written.

Most importantly, writers don't acknowledge the mistakes they've made or the plotholes in the dialogue itself unless they want attention drawn to it. Amidst all that exposition, what do we keep being brought back to? Lucas breaks the fourth wall and says it to us: There are no such things as coincidences. Mike brings up how implausible El's death actually is. The characters try to rationalize it or explain their doubt away, but what is important is that the doubt is actually there. The writers wrote it in.

Things aren't just not fitting, they are indicating something unspoken: the writers know what they are doing. Victory against Vecna and the Mind Flayer isn't just anticlimactic, it isn't real.

Does this mean 100% we get a show tomorrow?

I mean, no idea. Depends on how much money the Duffer Bros thought they could squeeze out of this show, I guess.

However, I think it does give us the option to look at the season finale in a different light. What might seem shitty has a really good saving grace.

What did the Duffer Bros do well with this season? Well, they pulled a really solid full circle: we got the characters officially becoming DnD characters. I mean, the whole final season reminded me of those DnD animation series they make on Netflix, like Legend of the Vox Machina— they literally brought the game to life, which, in my opinion, is genius. It's also not that far-fetched because I think each season has successfully played and experimented with forms of storytelling and style. We get the serious dark sci-fi fantasy in season 1, then straight up horror in season 2 and 3, season 4 becomes more fantastical and surreal, and then season 5 returns to a more comic, lighthearted form of storytelling despite its many other flaws.

Am I saying the writing is good? Nah. But, if the ending is as dark as we are all reading it to be, then, the show is clever, at the very least.

I mean, the best takeaway I can come to is that all of them lost. That this reality is like the matrix and the whole group is being sucked up by Vecna and the Mind Flayer.

Leaving the show at that is also pretty cool.

Leave your comments and reasons below! Write your theories using the #CONFORMITYGATE