I finished watching the final episode of Stranger Things tonight. I had watched through the first four seasons over the years. Sometime before season five was released, I decided to watch through the first four again. Thinking they might like it, I invited my mom and dad to watch through with me. My mom wasn’t interested, but my dad was, so we watched a few episodes a week, however long that took, from the beginning through the end of the new season. It was a long journey, but it was good.
I still think season one was the best. It was just saturated with 80s and the Dixon / Stein synth music. It had a slower, curious pace than later seasons. It spent time building the many characters and the story, and had points that felt quite powerful. It was put together better, had a better feel, and was more interesting. The rest of the seasons were good though too, and the overall series was quite good.
I’m generally happy with the ending, especially the 18 months later part, other than the absence of Suzie. Some bits during the final season felt rushed, but did get us through to the end of the story. It was a bit jumpy and there are some things I might’ve missed or misunderstood. There was a lot that seems left unexplained though, and I want to share my theory of some of what happened before reading what others have concluded.
Since the stuff in the tunnel suitcase was able to spread the Mind Flayer to Henry, it follows that scientists had already opened up the wormhole to the other planet before Henry gained his powers. They presumably opened it up at Hawkins Lab and built the containment thing sometime before that. Then tunnel guy took some of the Mind Flayer material for whatever reason, either to use it or to destroy it. After Henry gained his powers and took a malevolent view of humans, he killed his family in an odd way, drawing the attention of Dr. Brenner.
Brenner may or may not have been involved with the wormhole stuff, but seemed to already be interested in psychic powers in children. Henry was exactly what he was looking for, so he attempted to create more Henrys by using his blood in other children and pregnant women. At some point during experiments, training, or blood drawing, Henry became too much of a danger / risk and too hard to control, so Brenner made something to stop his power and thus control him.
When El pushed Henry through the wall, she pushed him through the already existing wormhole. He went to the other planet where he met the Mind Flayer and connected creatures that he was already connected to via the suitcase thing, though it hadn’t been as direct and powerful before. He gained power and control of the creatures.
Brenner, having lost all of his psychics except the most powerful controllable one, continued on with his training for military applications with that one. In the meantime, military explored the now easy to access wormhole between area, the Upside Down. Creatures from the other end of the wormhole had made their way into Upside Down and started going across to Earth. That and El’s escape put a series of events into motion that led the military to be unable to control the connection to the Upside Down, many military deaths, and a closing of the connection. With that and city pressure, they abandoned the now worthless Hawkins facility.
Russian intelligence became aware of the Upside Down or / and wormhole planet, and saw the military potential of the creatures there. After finding the importance of Hawkins for easy access and coming up with a way to reopen the connection, they went there and collected a bunch of creatures and material from the Upside Down and / or other planet and did experiments with them for military applications. A series of events forced them out of Hawkins, but they had already gotten lots of materials, and continued their experiments. Another series of events destroyed many of these materials and associated personnel.
US military was still interested in the project and continued working with what they had. After another of their subjects (Eight) showed herself by killing many Hawkins people, they found her and used her blood to work on creating more psychic subjects. She had a different kind of power than El though that wasn’t as useful to the military, so they continued looking for her. Friendly government people helped hide El, but more bad Mind Flayer stuff started happening in Hawkins. The friendly government people saw El as necessary to fight those problems and sought her help, but also revealed her location to the more militant interests.
That set off a series of events that led to a giant rupture between the Upside Down and Earth across Hawkins and had Henry go to the other planet again to recuperate from injuries and strengthen his powers even further. The rupture brought in a much larger military presence again to control the situation, hide it, and continue work in the Upside Down. Our heroes knew of the continued problem of the Upside Down and possibly Henry, and continued to work on it. They were forced to act as Henry began activity on Earth again. The heroes learned more about the situation and found a way to kill Henry and likely the Mind Flayer, and then sever the wormhole connection between the other planet and Earth, destroying the between area, the Upside Down, in the process.
The military, thinking El and Eight were dead, discontinued their work with her. With no more Upside Down or wormhole and nothing to protect Hawkins, they left, presumably continuing with whatever they had left outside of the Upside Down at that point. Our heroes went back to normal lives without any more need to deal with those dangers. The military had them help with their cover up by not sharing what happened, but Mike was able to share it by passing it off as fiction, presumably changing names and details to prevent connections to reality that would draw the military’s ire. They no longer were forced by circumstances to spend a lot of time together, but maintained strong friendships made unbreakable by shared trauma.