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Notes -
Stranger Things was disappointing.
The first season was great, and it was all about the settings and vibes. After that, they didn't know what to do with it: sequels demanded they simultaneously up the stakes and explain the universe. S2 went with a kind of eldritch Lovecraftian approach, which was exciting to me because it's a genre that's nearly impossible to do well (explanations are self-undermining), and that season gave a reasonable go at it. But the task of following through proved too much for the writers, so we got creature features and supernatural slashers instead.
The weak story thus forced the focus onto interpersonal relationships that turned into soap opera, with an ever-expanding cast (with outrageous plot armor) to pander to more market segments with fan service. By season 5, it was impossibly unwieldy.
Will's coming out was entirely unnecessary, but it's important not to treat it as some departure from an otherwise good season. Every scene involved some long-winded heart-to-heart with unearned development. Somehow there's no tension at all: the world is ending, but you wouldn't know it by how the characters acted. The final journey to Vecna's layer (which is supposedly on a timer, as it's literally actively traversing a wormhole to destroy our own world) becomes a calm stroll (through a brightly lit, demogorgon-less set) where two guys just talk about their shared like of a girl and find out actually we're not too different after all!
So, does it matter that Vecna and the Mindflayer are weaker than the L1 demogorgon in season 1? Nope, because they're entirely secondary to the real goal: shoveling slop and 80s nostalgia to a bunch of Millennial Netflix watchers who want soap opera but want the imprimatur of prestige television.
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