The Stranger Things finale: The day after.

I have been living in the Upside Down extensively these past few weeks. I ate KFC at the hidden Stranger Things restaurant in Sydney. I even bought one of the Stranger Things upside down burgers a few days ago (which was unusual for me as I don’t really eat KFC more than once or twice a year… I also eat bacon even less frequently than that…).

Inside KFC's hidden Stranger Things pop-up restaurant

I have been non-stop streaming WSQK, the UK pop-up Stranger Things radio station. It actually shuts down in just a few hours as I type this (at 11pm UK-time, which works out to midday Sydney-time). The announcer ‘on-air’ has said that it will halt broadcasts because of damage to the tower, which is a nice link to the final episode.

Stranger Things Radio... AKA 'The Squark'... is a little bit brilliant

I am so close to buying a WSQK t-shirt…

And, of course, I have been watching the final season of the show. Released in three batches of episodes, last week we saw episodes 5-7 released and yesterday was the series finale.

**WARNING: Spoilers ahead**

The first hour of the finale was hugely exciting and ticked all of the expected boxes. I liked that the final battle essentially had the characters fighting a giant spider version of the villain, evoking the final battle against Pennywise in Steven King’s It. That seemed fitting.

It was also nice to see Winona Ryder actually being given something to do after multiple seasons of the lightest workload in television.

What disappointed me was the 18 months later epilogue to the show. The Dustin graduation day speech was fun, but the rest of it all just felt slow and too self-indulgent. Did we need that dull scene on the WSQK rooftop with the older kids making plans to stay in contact?

It had real lets meet at 9am in ten years vibes.

And the final scene creating a sense of ambiguity around El’s sacrifice? It didn’t make a lick of sense based on what we had seen earlier in the episode when the plan was supposedly hatched.

So, we are left to assume that El is just off travelling the world in the optimistic take on the final episode. We know she loved eggos, but there’s no word on if she’s into cafe latte.

Broadly, I enjoyed the finale. I’m maybe a bit less in love with Dungeons and Dragons than the show needed me to be in order for that final scene to land with much emotional resonance, but it was a satisfying-enough conclusion. There was nothing in this that would stop people from wanting to go back and watch the series again in the way that I feel fan reaction about the Battlestar Galactica finale soured a lot of people on the series (I generally liked it). Nor was there anything that would have the series be referenced in lists of the best TV finales of all time.

It was a perfectly good and fitting way to go out.

More on Stranger Things:

• The Duffer Brothers have an exit interview on the Tudum site where they discuss the decision to end the show with ambiguity around El. You’ll hear them offer similar thoughts in other interviews across the trade and entertainment sites today. Read: Tudum

• The Duffer Brothers are no longer attached to adapting The Talisman at Netflix. Read: Dark Horizons

• Andrew McGowan cites the 11 moments that got a big crowd reaction from fans watching the finale at a US cinema screening. Read: Variety

---

News Desk

• Series writer David Carr spoke with the NYT about adapting The Night Manager to the screen for season 2 without a source to adapt from. Read: NYT

• Chevy Chase says he wants to reunite with his Three Amigos co-stars on Only Murders in The Building. I feel like there’s probably a good reason that hasn’t happened already… Read: Deadline

• The MTV linear music channels have stopped broadcasting across the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Brazil, and Australia. Appropriately, they went out full-circle with the final music video being Video Killed The Radio Star. Read: Deadline

---

Trailer Park

Will Trent returns for season 4 on the US ABC on Jan 6.

---

That’s the newsletter for the today. ABW will be back to publishing 5 days a week from Monday.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.