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Foreign.
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Welcome back to House of R. It's a new year, but it's still us. It's 2026. I'm Joanna Robinson. That is Mallory Rubin, and we're here today to talk to you about the end of Stranger Things. Mallory, how are you feeling about. It's the end. This is it. The finale.
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After all that straw van douchebag just wins.
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No. Impossible.
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There has to be something else. I can't wait to pod today. So many tears, so many laughs, so many things to talk about.
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B
Thank you for your patience. We'll get all into all of that after this. This episode is brought to you by Happy Egg. The recipe for a better egg starts with how the hen lives.
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Happy Egg.
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Hens spend their days outside on pasture, running, stretching and flapping their wings in the sunshine. That freedom leads to rich, tasty orange yolks and a difference you can see and taste happy. Eg plate happier. The proof, it's inside the shelf. Visit happyag.com Spotify to crack open happy. All right, so as. As a few messages and DMS we might have received over the past few days saying, where's the finale pod of us? We. Yeah, we took a couple days to process what we saw and also to, you know, me, have a break, Mallory, watch all the football in the world. And. And we're here to talk to you about the finale in depth. That is not all we're doing. This week we're wrapping up Stranger Things. This is our final, final Stranger Things episode until the show gets rebooted in three years later. This week, Mallory and I are doing our part one of our Buffy season three check in. Mallory has watched all of Buffy Vampire Slayer season three. So here at the beginning of the year, we're gonna squeeze in a little Buffy check in because then to the races pretty soon with Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and a ton of other stuff. I am so excited. Same for Buffy, for Night of the Seven Kingdoms, for everything that 2026 holds for us, including a hype draft, of course. Molly Rubin. How can folks keep track of all of that?
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Here's what I'd recommend. Follow the pod, follow House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You can get full video episodes of House of R in the Spotify app. Incredible. You can also, I know, follow the Ringerverse YouTube channel. And while you're at it, follow the Ringer verse on the social media platform of your choosing. We are on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, et cetera. And then while you're at it you, your computer, your phone's in your hands. Send us your emails. The inbox is always open hobbits and dragons gmail.com thank you for all of the Stranger Things emails. Send us your hyped draft thoughts. Your pre hype hyped draft thoughts. Buffy Season three and as Joe said, we're back in Westeros in in mere days. So we're doing up the emails.
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B
We're doing the Hypedraft in person this year. And I'm like very excited and nervous about what that energy will be like in the room.
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Hypedraft is always. It's. It's about excitement. It's we all win. We all win because we get to look ahead to all the things that we're celebrating and anticipating before they disappoint us.
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B
As someone who has not been in the mix in some of the big drafts that have been happening recently in the Ringer, I am aware however, of Sean Fedisy being completely normal around drafts recently. So I'm really excited to see what energy he brings to House of Arms that regard Spoiler warning today. Yes, all of Stranger Things.
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That's right.
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B
Every post episode interview is is on the table. So and and there have been many and we will be quoting them proposed spin offs. That that is kosher to talk about stage show. I actually don't have a ton to say about the stage show, so if you still like want some mystery of the stage show preserved for you, I don't think there's anything that we need to talk about that isn't just like flat out confirmed inside of this episode. So we're not really going to do a stage show foreshadow section of of the podcast today. But that's is that, is that the proper spoiler warning? Did we do it all?
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Mallory Rubin I think so. I mean, as always, you know, some other stories might come up, you might hear some never ending story mentioned, some Lord of the Rings mentions, et cetera. But it's a house of our podcast. You're probably expecting that.
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Do I have more than one note about the film Tremors in this outline? I do. I do. And I can only be myself.
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Okay, Elite outline work as always. But it was just boy, you know, you're processing, you're grieving after the end of a 10 year experience and then going through the outline again. It's like getting to experience the finale again. Very cathartic.
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My. My New Year's gift to you. Okay, let's go now to our opening snapshot. The Bhad Bhabies wrote in at length. And I gotta say, in terms of the emails we got about the finale, were there many? Yes. And that happens, you know, when big, big episodes hit. I want to say the trend though that I noticed was that we got more like dissertation length emails than we usually get people had. And we're not going to be reading a ton of those just because we have a lot to get through. But like I read them all. Thank you for sending them. You guys had a lot of thoughts and feelings and it was just like many, many paragraphs in all of these emails and, and you know, people have big feelings about Stranger Things for, for good or for ill. So we all that I did want to hit two really quickly here at the top because they felt very like house of our proper adjacent. So I want to talk about them. The first one comes from Nicole. Nicole had a very long email, but this was a section of it that I thought was. Was really interesting about why it had to be quote unquote, the nerds who, who defeated Vecna and the Mind Flayer and etc. Nicole wrote, I know you feel the same, but prior to the season of Stranger Things, the most inspiring thing I watched this year that spoke to our current reality in the US was andor specifically the Gorman Rebe Rebellion arc. It prompted me to, prompted me to ask questions like, what is my part to play in all this? Stranger Things, with its affirmations of all of our gifts, even the ones that society as a whole dismisses or denigrates, like queerness reminds us that we need each of us in our full power. It reminds us that each of our uniqueness works even better as a group called to show up and fight even when you know you could lose. It had to be the nerds. It has to be the nerds. So that's the end of what Nicole wrote. And I would just say like, I agree with that and I would just, you know, whatever your definition of nerd is, that's like sort of an expansive, I think word that she's using here, but to mean something that, like a quality that not everyone recognizes as the most powerful or the most influential, but is something that I agree and I think about a lot. Anything you want to say in regards to this email, Mallory?
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Oh, I mean I think this will be a through line of the, of the discussion of the finale, certainly the epilogue, as we take our time luxuriating in every beat of those 40ish minutes, you know, and I think we'll obviously talk about this when we get to Dustin's graduation speech, which was quite memorable and certainly, like, rooted in this idea. And I think also made a point to say that part of the journey of Stranger Things was, you know, a bond that develops between somebody like Steve and Dustin. And then you get the great moment not only where Steve is hearing Dustin say that and knows it's about him, but then looks to Robin and their origin story is like, I sat behind you in homeroom and you never knew I was there. And so, like, I think the show did this really amazing thing of encouraging people to look past their perceived or real differences and try to embrace each other. And the. The things that you can achieve when you push outside of your typical bubble or cafeteria table while never losing at all. It's rooting and it's mooring in this embrace of the nerdom, the party, the kids especially. But everybody at any age in their life who felt for one reason or another, at some point, do I have a place in all this?
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Unseen, undervalued, all these other things? Yeah.
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And for the place to be something that you find with other people who feel that way and the gift that you give each other is pushing through that toward we can be heroes, and we are is just such a wonderfully empowering and encouraging message. And I think, like, ending the show, celebrating that was the only. The only way to do it, the only place to be.
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B
And I think you bringing up Steve here is a really excellent point because, of course, Steve starts as the, like, stereotypical, like, popular kid, rich kid, drives a Beamer. Jock in season one was supposed to die, famously, at the end of season one. Joe Kerry, too good to die. But the qualities inside of Steve that make him a hero to the people who fall in love with that character is not that he's good. Well, yes, that he's good looking. His hair looks nice. That's great. It's not the Beamer. The Beamer has been shoved out into space. He's not driving the Beamer anymore. It's like, it's the babysitter. It's the heart, it's the care. It's all these other. It's the tenderness, it's the friendship. And so that even inside someone like that, you know, there are certainly, like, jock bullies that didn't get any kind of arc inside of this show. But even inside a character like Steve, someone who is. Has obvious societally approved merits, there is something else that is of value that you. That could be drawn forward. And I love that about that character, specifically.
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Yeah, totally. Like, did Steve teach Dustin about hairspray? Yeah, but Steve learned a lot more from our party ultimately at the end of the day. And I think that that inversion of maybe like what would be considered typical in a middle school into high school coming of age story is really something to like cherish and celebrate. So. Great email.
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And the second one, I just can't remember if we've talked about this. It was possible. We have. My brain has holes in it, but our listener Billy, Our listener Billy said with all the superhero slash superpowers talk in the show, especially this season, I just noticed now that Kali and Elle's names might be a nod to Kal El might have been mentioned before. I don't know. Just let me. Just tell me to shut up if I'm wrong. Love you guys. So thank you, Billy, for that email. I don't remember us saying it explicitly, so I just thought we should in. In the post 2025, you know, being. Being kind as punk rock Superman era. It's good to call out K. So why not?
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Love it.
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Anything else you want to say here?
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Lots of Superman coding. We got an overt Supergirl mention. All the kryptonite talk. It all tracks.
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B
It's all coming together. It all tracks as we like to do. We sort of do like a big picture look at the episode. Mal and I have exchanged a few, I would say very slight but not in depth texts. So we have not had a conversation with each other, like a real check in with each other about how we feel about this episode. I texted you because I actually wasn't sure when you were watching it. So I just was like vague and I just said I liked it. I cried. And then you were like, same, basically. So this is, this is the moment we're going to talk. How do we feel about season five and the finale? Where did we watch it? At home in the theater. And then also I just kind of here at the top. Wanted to hit like the inescapable nostalgia of our own life over the past decade reflected in themes of this ending. This is something that you and I talked about a lot in our complete rewatch that we did. We of course have been talking about, like, where were we when we watched these seasons of Stranger Things? But you know, the show has always leaned on flashbacks. I got a little irritated with it in season four when they're like, remember when Max and Eleven went to the mall that one time and we saw that flash to like a billion bajillion times.
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It was a great shopping spree. Though it was really good.
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B
I mean, the fits were great. The fits were great. But inside of this episode, inside of this finale, the way in which we are confronted with how tiny they all were when they started. And you and I were not children when the show started, but plenty of the viewers were, but I was a decade ago. I was a different person in a different place in my life. And so it is inextricable. That passage of time that we have experienced in ourselves, in our lives, that investment of time inside of this world and these characters and is, is inextricable. From your reaction to the show and, and plenty of people did not like this finale, did not touch on that is fine, like live your life. But the, the theme and the ending of the show. Watching Mike pass the torch to a new crop of young kids, watching Finn wolfhard as a 20 something year old man looked down the stairs at like where he as a child started all of this. And with like, you know, the entire party in that scene obviously crying tears, not just as characters but as actors sort of graduating from this moment. You know, that emotionality landed so hard for me. And we will talk about some notes we might have, but I watched this at home as quickly as possible just because I knew I would be spoiled if I didn't. So even though I knew we weren't covering it right away, I wanted to just like watch it. And then I closed down the computer and then I had my New Year's Eve. But like, I just wanted to like not get spoiled on it. And I didn't get to watch in the theater. But we heard from a lot of Bhad Bhabies who did. And we'll talk about that in a second. But like, I wish I, I kind of wish I had. It sounds like it was a really magical experience for those who did. Mallory, what's your, what's your big picture taken? What was your experience? Watch finale.
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I think we're in very similar places with this. Like, I, I'm already feeling really emotional just hearing what you just said. And I have, I do have a number of notes about the finale and questions about the finale. The first chunk of it, the first hour in particular, I thought the epilogue was like so good.
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B
When I, when I saw how much time was left when we got to the epilogue, I was like, we deserve on cloud nine.
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A
I was just like, thank you. Same. Yeah, I really liked the, the finale overall because the epilogue was so emotionally rich and you know, hearing you talk about just like the, our lives mapping on to the story and you know, I do like thinking about that in general. Like I've talked many times about like my first memory of, you know, before the prequels came out was Star wars, the re release of the original trilogy, and going to see them in the theater, my dad taking me. And that's just imprinted as this moment in time that started a journey for me. Right. And I've mentioned before that one of the fun things to think about for thinking about my life is like Iron man came out like the week I graduated college. And so it's just this journey into the next phase of my life that the Infinity saga is a part of. So Stranger Things maps on basically exactly to the first decade of the ringer. And so we've talked about this like you said it going through the rewatch, but just thinking back to moments of slack blowing up with people arguing about Barb in season one and CR Blog Lord, just like, I gotta blog this. It's just such a potent memory. And talking to Chris in season three about what it was, not just watching season three, but what did it feel like when you were a kid and you were independent for the first time and your parents let you go to the mall alone. You know, those moments that are rooted in the present moment of watching it for the first time, but then port you back to your youth and that.
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Nostalgia, most importantly season four because you got to cover it with me in.
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Your favorite building to it getting to talk about season four with you in real time, like, you know, and doing it all again and going back on the eve of the end, like, it's just, it's a memory I love and it's, it's, it's fun that people have that decade long experience with it and also that they don't and they'll, it'll be a show that's always there for people to discover for the first time. I texted you the other day that like, I think honestly mostly because we're potting about it so much recently, my dad like was like, I'm gonna watch, I'm finally gonna watch Stranger Things. You know, he's making his way through season one and he's texting me and it's just fun. And it's fun to think about kids who will get to the age where they're ready to jump into something that's a little scary, but also a great coming of age tale. And when they watch it, what will they think? And you know, you move further away from when it entered the world for the first time, but also from the references. And that's fun, actually, and cool because it puts them in people's lives. And, like, I don't know, it's just. It is fun to think about the experience overall. And so I'm emotional thinking about the decade of Stranger Things inside of this season as an. As an opening snapshot. Table center. I will say that what I loved so much about the epilogue, which I adored and genuinely can't wait to talk about today, I think we'll both be a mess when we talk about. Did heighten the things that I didn't think worked about the rest of the season. And we talked about them as we went. But even when I think we were obviously both higher on volume one than on volume two, but even in volume one, which had episodes and moments that we really liked, there were moments we liked in volume two, but it was like, okay, I've got some mounting worry about the word Justin. Like, and I love an action movie, to be clear, but we're like, just in a. Kids have formed a militia. Like, action movie. And, you know, so much of the season was oriented around resolving or. Or like lingering in elements of the mythology that I then think makes the like aspect of the opening hour of the finale, like, even more puzzling. Yeah. And the moments where we're like, where does. Where's Dustin's mom? Where are the Sinclairs? Like, where are these moments where they're at school and, yeah, we get it. The world is about to end. Vecna. We're on the clock. Literally, the ticking clock. It was, in fact, a countdown into the abyss crashing towards Hawkins. Like, I just. I loved the epilogue and I'm grateful we got it because it was a return to form. And the thing that I cherish most about the show, which are these relationships and what it means to be a young who feels unsure about your place in the world because it was so good, it made me long even more for more of the core of the heartbeat of the show throughout the rest of the season.
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B
And what's interesting about that, I agree with that. And what's interesting about that is. And I said this a couple times as we covered this final volume, this final season, but I am generally so anti binge culture, and I like luxuriating in episodes and all of that sort of stuff. I think this season of Stranger Things really suffered from the way that they developed. Divided it up. I think if we had not had to deal with volume two, which I think was pretty weak, as I made my feelings pretty clear on the podcast, if if we had watched all of that and then. And then had the finale at the end of that, we wouldn't have been, like, lingering in. In the. You know, in. In the weaker stuff. And so that's, you know, that's an advantage that previous seasons of Stranger Things has had. Yeah. That this season did. Did not had it.
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A
It sort of excited.
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B
Exposed some of the weakness of a middle of. Of a Stranger Things arc. But I really agree. It's that data. It's. Yeah, it's seeing. It's seeing this in Claire's. It's seeing Mrs. Henderson. It's like, you know, it's just seeing Hawkins, you know, back in action, that. That mattered a lot to us. So in terms of the theatrical experience, neither of us watched it in the theater, but I heard from a lot of people who did in my own life, and. And nobody up here, by the way. Like, if anyone up here had been like, joanna, let's go see strange, I would have gone. But that's not. That's not what happened. But a lot of people in LA talk to me about it. And so our listener Devin wrote in about this, which I really liked. Devin wrote, fandom is more than what happens in your living room or what you find online. It's about being in a room full of people and listening to them laugh and cry, applaud and cheer. It's conversations with strangers about shared theories and excitements for what is going to happen next. It's the exhale of the friend next to you when you're sitting in a dark, packed theater and you're both flooded with relief that Steve the Hair Harrington didn't die. It's about looking to your left and then you're right at the Die Hards, the nerds, the freaks just like you, who love this thing, too, and knowing that you're not alone. Did we know we were in the glory days? The theatrical experience is a thing worth fighting for, if nothing else than for the fans. So that's from Devin. Great email. As we. As we stare down the barrel of various industry mergers that threaten the theatrical experience, I think it's worth celebrating something like this, listening to, you know, Gate Matarazzo gave an interview to Variety where he was talking about how hard the duffers had to fight Netflix to get this in the theaters, that it was, like, very late in the day that they actually got approval for it. And he was like, it kept going back and forth. They knew they wanted to do it. They were not sure if they could convince Netflix to do it. Netflix doesn't do this for their TV shows. They barely do it for their films. And I think based on, you know, the fact that it was sold out everywhere, you had a hard time, like, even finding a screening you could go to. And, yeah, that that collective shared what it means to be in a room with people as they gasp and laugh and cry together. The communal shared experience. There is something that. There's a version of that that hopefully we do in this pod space where, like, we share how we feel, and you listening at home, are hearing how we feel, and you. You email us back and tell us how you're feeling. There is a communal aspect of that, but in real space, in real time, with real people, with strangers in a room, there's just something so strong about that that I am just, like. Like, really glad a lot of people got to experience.
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So, you know, yeah, it's very cool. I wish that it had been in theaters a little longer, especially given that the very brief period of time in which it was airing on the big screen happened to be New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, which is not a time where everybody in the world is necessarily able to go see a movie for multiple hours. But I think it's super cool that the people who got to go did get that experience. And it's always, you know, again, that's something that I think makes these. These seminal releases and seminal moments. Whether it's a huge blockbuster film or a finale or something like that. One of the things that kind of embeds itself in, like, your. Your brain and your retina is like, the gasp across the theater when Cap wields Mjolnir. Right? What did. What did everybody. What were they doing in their seats when they. When the snap happened? Like, it's been fun and cool to see videos of people in the theater reacting and everybody wearing their hellfire shirts and, like, you know, it's lovely. And was this a perfect season of television? It was not. It was not. I think I'll be curious to see how it feels to, like, rewatch the entire series together in the future. I think for me, right now, very much in real time, it's, like, I think, easily the weakest season of the five. Overall, I agree. Even though it has incredible scenes and character moments. And again, the epilogue was, I thought, extraordinary. But to have the opportunity to sit together or to join each other today on Zoom, and then, you know, like you said, the. The. The way that we can hopefully provide that sense of community to people with the pod, like, that is one of the things that I love so much about getting to make the pod is like, when we get to talk about it with each other, we get to. To tap into a yes, remote and digital version of it. Buddy version of that. And you know, it's about the shared experience in whatever form you can, you can get it. So I think that it's really cool this was in theaters. I wish gotten a chance to see it. I do regret not doing it, but I think that all the different ways that people can not only find, but continue to embrace the community around Stranger Things or whatever story they love. How many people started a D and D campaign for the first time because they watched Stranger Things? You know what I mean?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah. It's really fun to think about little things like that. How many parties are there now?
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B
To your point about rewatchability that you made earlier, I meant to say this, that, you know, you were talking about the references. What is. What's fun about Stranger Things is because it's a period piece. Different to the way that like, re watching Buffy feels. This will never feel dated in the same way. Right. You know, because it's not like it wasn't. There aren't references to the aughts, you know, that are. That are in here. I mean, there might be, but like, they're deeply embedded. And so it's just always gonna feel like something out of time. The same way that like Lord of the Rings does. Then it feels timeless. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like. It's different. I saw a red carpet interview where. Where maybe at the Critics Choice Awards. I can't. No. Couple days before that, someone was asking Ethan Hawke about the finale and about, you know, about Maya and, you know, his daughter and Robin. And he was like getting choked up talking about it. He was like. He was like, it's so amazing. And he was like. He's like, I've been trying to tell her, like, it's so hard to pull off something this big, this spectacular, this full hearted, all these things. He's like, of course Robin's my favorite. He was like. He's like. But I was trying to tell her, like, she. I don't think she really understands yet, like, how decades from now this will continue to be important to people and like, what a huge. That this. This is gonna linger and last and matter and how huge it is that she was a part of that. And. And he got choked up talking about it. I was just like. And then I started thinking about, like, how When I first started watching movies, Ethan Hawke was a fresh face kid, you know what I mean? So it's just sort of like these cycles and passing of torches and time and we might not have had time travel. We had a lot of of thoughts about time and, and a time travel of sorts. And, you know, we're all time travelers if you really think about it, so don't worry about it. Two more things before we get into the deep dive, because of course we have a lot to talk about. But we've mentioned a couple times the finales that the duffers have cited as inspirations. Six Feet Under, Breaking Bad, front end, Like Lights, and like Six Feet under and Friday Night Lights. Being there specifically really prepared me for a chunky epilogue. It was more than I even dreamed of, but I knew that we were gonna get a like. And here's what these characters did later on because that's what those two finales sort of famously do. Six Feet under, even more so than Friday Night Lights and Friday Night Lights especially. Like, we'll talk about this when we get there. But like, Steve Harrington on the roof talking about how much he loves Hawkins, Indiana was so Riggins brothers, Texas forever coded for me that I like, like, you should have. I mean, I will always take a cowboy junkies needle drop, but, like, if Explosion in the sky had started playing there, I would not have been surprised at all.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then with Breaking Bad, I think there's like, this, the bittersweetness of it, the sacrifice and, and that sort of stuff. I won't get into specifics if people have never seen Breaking Bad, but I, I, I really do see what they were sort of swinging for with all of those inspirations. And it's been really fun to, like, hear them talk about their movie inspirations or their finale inspirations at the beginning of the season and then sort of see how those pay off as, as the episodes are delivered to us. And I was just like, I really think they hit what they wanted to get out of specifically. I would say Six Feet under and Friday Night Lights, which is just that feeling of, like, are my friends gonna be okay? You know?
- [27:31]
A
Yeah.
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B
Is, is their adventure going to continue in some form after this, even if I don't get to go with them on it.
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A
Right.
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B
And I think they really did that. So. Yeah.
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A
And of course, you know, we get a Philly shout out, so. Pennsylvania.
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B
Okay. You're always thinking about the, the Taylors. All right, so. Oh, I am. That's correct. I am. Who isn't? All right, Needle Drop City. I'm just gonna run through the needle drops. We'll talk about them when we get there. But I just thought that I would just mention them here at the top. We get a return of Shaboom by the chords. That's our. We're back in the Hawkins highway hallway. We get the double hit of Prince tracks, and we'll talk about how hard the duffers work to get those in there. But when does Cry. Purple Rain, Landslide. Fleetwood Mac. Ever heard of it? Here comes your man. The Pixies, The Trooper, Iron Maiden as an Eddie Munson reference. Sweet Jane, the aforementioned Cowboy Junkies, needle drop. And then of course, the one that Mallory was hoping for Heroes, but Joe Keery requested the David Bowie version. So that's what we got. And it was great.
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A
Genuine. Back to the Peter Gabriel version to end on.
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B
On Bowie Sick.
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A
That was awesome. That was like dynamite.
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B
I.
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A
We've loved the needle tracks across the entire series. I thought that this was a relatively needle drop light season, actually, compared to prior seasons. The finale delivered on this. I mean, I can't wait to talk about bringing in Prince at the end here. What an absolute. Just all time flex. The Fleetwood Mac killed me. Yeah. It's just like destroyed me.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
Oh, my God. It was just perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Great stuff.
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B
Love all of this. Let's go now to our deep dive. All right, we're starting with. We're gonna go roughly chronological. We've got a few sections where we're sort of like grouping things that happen so we're not bouncing back and forth between character sets. But we're gonna start with Operation Beanstalk. Of course, the kids left their homework out. We're gonna follow it.
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A
So many notes for the group about leaving very visible, easy to track evidence of.
- [29:50]
B
Take your overhead transparency with you. Just a. Just a thought. Okay, so operation beanstalk in three parts, and we're gonna start with part one, the lab edition. Right. So this is where 11, Hopper, Kali, and Murray get off and. And. And start their side quest. It starts with sort of like a mic goodbye to Eleven. There will be a second goodbye in the void space. But this is one, and I just wanted to highlight it here because what he says here, listen, I know this plan is totally mad and a million things have to go right, and a million things could and probably will go wrong, but we can do this. I know it. One last fight and this whole nightmare, it will be over. It'll finally over. I just want less fight highlight in there because Hopper says almost an Identical thing to her in. In sort of what will be his. You have to live. And we have some questions about how that paid off speech. But I thought the echoing of the language was just like one last fight for 11. And, and I like that language reiterated because when we get to her ending. Yeah, there is an interpretation of that ending that the Duffers certainly seem to kind of have, which is a very like, well, until he returns for Avengers Doomsday, but a very Steve Rogers at the end of Endgame, like I get to go have a life. Right. You know, so one last fight and then you don't have to fight anymore. You can go hiking in Iceland, which I believe where they filmed that section of beautiful episode.
- [31:20]
A
What a gorgeous spot. My goodness, we should go there. I really. Yeah, this, this through line and this recurring beat and just now like thinking about it, you go back, you rewatch the episode, you think about how we got to where we ended up and like there's such a bittersweet aspect to this because it's like the last fight that ends the nightmare that saves the Shire, but also another time together, but not for me, you know. And so like it felt like an appropriate opening note. And I, I. We're going to talk about like some of the strengths of many of the performances across finale in like more contextually specific spots. But what a finale for. For both Mike and Elle and for, for Millie and Finn. Like I. They both destroyed me a number of times. And so much of the emotional weight of the finale falls on Finn falls on Mike in the storyteller sequence during the.
- [32:14]
B
The D and D stretch of the.
- [32:15]
A
The really closing sequence of the entire series. And I, I just thought it was really great.
- [32:22]
B
I think this is, you know, I think Finn was like an extraordinary child actor. And then I went, as I've mentioned, fairly cold on Mike in some of the seasons. This has been a great season for Mike, which we've talked about from the beginning. And then this finale, especially the epilogue stuff. Yeah, it's just like. But also like the goodbye and the Void stuff also really got me. Same 11 Hopper, Kali and Marie go into the lab. Marie had canisters in first second. I thought they were full of water, but it was like gas for a jet generator. Papa's tank is full of upside down water and ready to go and. Okay, fine, sure, whatever. I will just say this. Even if water was no problem in the Upside down. If, if like my, my note last time of like, hey, isn't the Upside down like famously water free? Why would There be water in a tank also years of, like, sitting empty. Like, I. I'm just.
- [33:19]
A
Just.
- [33:19]
B
I'm confused about it.
- [33:20]
A
But anyway, I. This will not be. It's not the first note already. It won't be the last note. I. I think, obviously, like, the. The response varies fan to fan, in terms of the level of enthusiasm, the level of dismay in general, or the level of, like, I am emotionally raw and, like, very attached and grieving and grateful. But I have some notes out. It's a spectrum. Right. There are plenty of stops along the way. I think that there are a number of, like, very legitimate questions and. And gripes, I think. And, like, this one. It's not something we need to linger on.
- [33:58]
B
No.
- [33:58]
A
But I. I actually do think it's very fair to point to this as, like, kind of emblematic, the specific thing, but also, like, emblematic of a little bit of a loose hand with the canon in the final season.
- [34:10]
B
Loose hand is such a good way to reference it. I. I really agree. You know, it's just sort of like, they're, like. It reminded me. Gives me, like, end of Thrones ptsd, where, like, you know, we. There would be, like, Thrones directors who would give interviews and be like, no one really cares about that. And I'm like, it's my literal job to care about this, about how long it takes to get from point A to point B or whatever the case may be.
- [34:32]
A
Danny kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet is like, a great meme that we still love, but, like, actually made me want to die. Like, die when it happened. And there are so many other examples. I've heard.
- [34:43]
B
I've heard some people, like, accuse certain generations or certain fandoms or whatever of just wanting to nitpick. And certainly, like, inside of any big finale of a big show, there is a reaction that can just be snarky dismissal. And that's like, fine. That's not what we're here to do today. I think there can be a coping mechanism of, like, but what about, you know, is part of a. Like, I'm not finished with this story, and so I have lingering questions that you didn't answer. But what about this? But what about that? And I. I agree with you, where I just feel like the Duffers. So in pursuit of the larger emotional truth, they hop, skipped and jumped over some logical things, Henry's age being one of them, et cetera, et cetera. All this sort of stuff. I said. You just said, we don't need to linger long. We are lingering here. But I just. I just want to say, like, I.
- [35:41]
A
Want to do some lingering today.
- [35:42]
B
I would rather the priority be the emotional truth than tick every logical box. Personally, it's okay if that's not true for you, but for me personally, that's where the balance lies, so.
- [35:55]
A
No question. Obviously, I agree. That's something that. I think part of the reason we love talking about stories together is because that's kind of like a fundamental rooting principle for both of us and how we form attachments to the worlds that we love. So if I had to pick, I would always pick the character arc, the character journey, the relationships. I think that as we, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of hours from both of us on the Internet about the end of Thrones and how that specifically, among many other things, was devastating. You know, I. I just, like, I can still feel like the. The way that I actually have cried on plenty of POs, like, couldn't control my emotions, talking about, like. Like, what a catastrophic foundational failure it was to, like, up John and Ghost, for example. Right. You know, and, like, on and on the list goes. So no question. I think it is also true that too often in. I think, especially, like, the modern streaming era, it feels like there has to be this choice that's, like, you know, oh, well, is there room for, you know, the. And so much of the, like, style over substance, the spectacle over the heart was the downfall of the final season of Thrones. And that's why one of the many reasons we're both so partial to the second episode of the final season of Night of the Seven Kingdoms is because it was everything that it should have been about honoring our time with those characters and their time with each other. Proof inside of the larger failure of season eight that it was possible to do both things. So I think that, like, it's possible to. You know, we talked about this kind of in an anticipatory fashion in the volume. The second Volume two pod that, like, quote from the. I think the Variety interviewer. Maybe it was a Deadline interview.
- [37:45]
B
I can't remember all the questions.
- [37:47]
A
We've got a lot of questions to answer. And it's like, I think this season ended in a little bit of a funky spot on that front where, like, a lot of those questions weren't answered or maybe they weren't a little bit like, where are the Demogorgons at the end? Is just something that, like. Like, I actually do think is, like, weird and, like.
- [38:02]
B
And unfortunately, the Duffers gave a kind of Danny kind of Forgot about the Iron Fleet answer to it. And I'm just like, where he was. Like, Vecna kind of wasn't expecting anyone to come up there.
- [38:12]
A
The end of the what? Like, it's the final moment of Vecna's plan. He's gathered his 12 vessels. They're in the.
- [38:18]
B
He's.
- [38:18]
A
We're lowering the abyss. Like, that's just. That is to me genuinely like nonsensical. So if.
- [38:26]
B
If the Demogorgons had seen Nancy poke her little head, her well armed head up out of the rift and they're like another wheeler. No. And run screaming for the hills like the orcs when they see some ants or something like that. Like, fine. But to just be like, yeah, it was.
- [38:41]
A
Yeah. The stuff like that is bizarre and it takes you out of the story. And so I think again, there are levels and variants in the response. I think the like review bombing of episode seven is like, that is not what we're talking about. That is like really unfortunate. I think that when we are saying there are like there's. And part of forming an attachment to a story, of course, and loving something so deeply is that you are going to be. I think your coping point is great, but it's also just like there's a higher likelihood of being let down when you're that invested in something.
- [39:11]
B
Would you say paying attention to something is how we show.
- [39:13]
A
It's how we show. It's how we show last of us on our minds in the finale. I think in. In a lot of places, obviously with Hop and El most of all. But like, like, yeah, so like the water. I. I guess what I. To. To close the loop on the water. I'll say it. Does it invalidate the finale? For me. No, it doesn't. Because the epilogue is so rich. Is it kind of an own goal and I think reflective of a imbalance at the end? Yes.
- [39:44]
B
Is it?
- [39:44]
A
In addition to being a little bit odd on the mythology canon lore, like, this is what's been established about how the universe works. You can do whatever you want in your fictional universe when you craft it. You just have to abide by the rules that you set. Right. It also is emblematic of another, I think, shortcoming of the final season, which is the characters consistently behaving in ways that don't make sense. Like, part of what has been interesting about the character set in Stranger Things is obviously there are adults, there are young adults, but there are children who are growing into adulthood and the next phase of their life. And so when they make mistakes or they do things that are wrong or they think they know and they don't. There's has often been a. Like, this is part of the journey of discovery of like where are your limits or what do you know what don't you. That's different from like. There is no reason that the characters in the story should not have wondered if there would be water in that tank. It doesn't make sense that they wouldn't have prepared for an outcome where there was. What was their plan? What was the backup plan? There are no backup plans for anybody. The fact that there's a van, a van where Erica and Mr. Clark are the just set. It's basically a map to their secret base is like. That's just the fact that there's no.
- [40:52]
B
Plan for when the tower hits the planet that's coming down. That was like absolutely bananas. The fact there was no plan for when they come back out of the rift having gone in, killing a bunch of military people being shot at and they're like, we'll just drive out scot free. And there was surprise in the military was waiting for them. Like. Like, I understand that they're sleep deprived. I understand that they are mere mortals, but this is. There are just like moments where you're just sort of like, what was the. What was. Yeah, what was the idea here? So you know, okay, so that. That's a bigger statement that will sort of knock out a bunch of other little moments that we could have just gotten bumped off. So let's. We got that out of the way. Really sketchy knocking code established.
- [41:39]
A
Just not.
- [41:39]
B
That's simply not what I would have done personally.
- [41:42]
A
But three, just simply not sufficient. Simply not sufficient.
- [41:47]
B
And then 11 makes hob promise he won't pull her out of the tank no matter what. Not until she's sure Henry's dead. And he makes her promise that they'll deal with Dr. Casef after they survive all of this. And this goes very well for both of them. Absolutely fine. Mallory, how is this tracking for you? Emotion so like character, logic aside, all those other things. Sides hop putting 11 in the tank. Them calling back to the very same gesture of like Brenner on the other side of the glass. And Elle having her hand up, little Elle having her hand up to the glass and she goes in the tank. But this time it's hopper and older 11. Like, how is that feeling for you emotionally?
- [42:20]
A
I'm looking forward to going through in later sequences and scenes the many very intense conversations that they have with each other. But in terms of just that, establishing that emotional framework for their relationship and the finale. Perhaps it won't surprise you to hear that this actually worked for me. And, like, you know, I. I care deeply about their relationship. I think it is more, though, actually, about what you said at the beginning of the podcast. The flashbacks, seeing how young they were, reminding us of the journey, like, tonally. The finale of Stranger Things and Avengers Endgame. I would not say they're like one to one as a pair or anything, but it gave me a little bit of that. The time heist was a scrapbook for our memories of the Infinity Saga feeling, and I'm a sucker for that stuff. I am. I thought also just something like, like, okay, Eleven has her hair pulled back, and that's practical, right? But the other thing it did was when we're looking through the glass of the tank and we're looking through the glass, helmet or plastic, whatever that's made of, it just looked like the head. Her head was shaved again, even though it wasn't. And so even we have the flashes of young L and how scared she was. But then we have L in that current form. Let me tell you. Let me swing you the other way, though, on this for a second. Second. Here's another thing. Seeing Brenner did this is bad. That was the good. This is the bad. All of the stuff about K, not a single thing about K or the military worked for me at the end. Not a single thing.
- [43:55]
B
Not for a second.
- [43:56]
A
Not. Not one. Show it yet.
- [43:57]
B
Showing us Brenner is maybe a mistake to remind us of when this worked. Right?
- [44:01]
A
Of when it worked. And also I'm like, fuck, okay, so we're in the final episode. They're just like, not bringing Owens back. That sucks. That's a. That's a bummer. You know, that would have been, I think, a better way to go. But I also just like. Then I was like, wait. And actually, it's possible someone has asked the duffer system. They've answered, and I didn't see it. It's entirely possible. They've done credit to them. They're doing a lot of interviews. They're out there.
- [44:23]
B
They're out there.
- [44:25]
A
I'm like, wait, okay. Every single aspect of the end of Stranger Things hinges on as long as 11's alive or is known to be alive, the blood could be targeted. Between the 79 massacre and El's escape at the beginning of Stranger Things, Brenner didn't take any of Eleven's blood. There's not like a blood bank somewhere really like that is that I don't know too many aspects of just the plot, not the emotional truth, but the plot of the final season, I think allow us to ask questions that I would prefer we not be like lingering on and asking at the end of a five season ten year journey. But I was like, wow, it looks like a bus cut. Remember, everyone else was so small. Two papas My heart. And you know, there are other shows that stumbled at the end where all I had was the opportunity to ask those questions and think about the things that let me down and didn't have the other pullback. So this was a little bit more of a seesaw than a slide into the abyss of despair.
- [45:33]
B
I was thinking about that. I was thinking about like, like, you know, Millie Bobby Brown probably being like, can I, can we not shave my head again or, or put me in like the, the buzz cut wig? Like can I just have my hair? And the hair department, which made many grievous errors this season, I would say coming up with the slick back was like a really, really smart. I was thinking about that as well. Really, really smart choice. I did see a great Instagram reel. Have you, have you heard the like. I think it's a Kardashian clip where it's like, it's a, it's a viral audio where it's like, club, another club. Like, you know, Nobu, like sleep another club, another club, blah blah. Someone did it for Elle in the final episode. They're like wetsuit chafe, Wetsuit chief, sand chafe. Like she's in that wetsuit the whole time. And like, yeah, how that's quite tough. Okay.
- [46:23]
A
Do you think the, the body, love the wetsuit will become like an iconic bit of costuming or, or not so.
- [46:28]
B
Much with the track pants over it? Is that the look?
- [46:32]
A
The track pant was a good pairing, I think, but yeah. Will this stand the test of time as a look that we associate a pivotal moment in our shared experience?
- [46:41]
B
A Halloween, Halloween costume. That's the body glove, wetsuit, track pants, slick back. Am I dead? Am I alive? You decide. Great question. Okay. Operation Beanstalk Part 2. They're really setting Joyce up that tower. It's a 500 foot tower. Climbing up the tower. Today we have tower vets Steve and Jonathan. They've done this before. Robin and Nancy are here. Will and Mike and Lucas, all spry. And Joyce, a 47 year old woman runner. Ryder is actually 40, 54.
- [47:12]
A
Hell yes.
- [47:12]
B
I say as a woman in her 40s, I will say hell yes. Joyce can climb that tower with.
- [47:17]
A
With the clock ticking. I'm not sure.
- [47:19]
B
We did have the, like, lampshade of, like, make sure to take some rests as you go. But, like, when they sent her, I was like, they're sending Joyce up that tower. And then, like. Like, as I wrote in our notes later, it's 45 minutes before. Roughly 45 minutes before. Winona Ryder has a line in this episode, and it's just her saying, will.
- [47:38]
A
That killed me in the Outlaw Dying.
- [47:41]
B
When I got there.
- [47:41]
A
Well, because, like, when before she said.
- [47:43]
B
That, I was like, are they gonna let Joyce speak in this episode? What's happening? And so, like, the whole time, I was like, what is she doing at this tower? And then I was like, oh, they wanted her to chop Vecna's head off. Okay. But anyway, as someone who wants to support women in their 40s doing their best, I support Joyce climbing this tow.
- [48:00]
A
You know, I will say I. I genuinely. I paused when I realized Joyce was part of tower team.
- [48:09]
B
Yeah.
- [48:09]
A
I was like, wait, what? Why is this the. Why is Joyce not with. And, you know, it was like, is it just to keep an eye on Will or what's the payoff gonna be? And then when the payoff comes, it made sense to me that Joyce was there. But there was a long march and many steps until I understood why. Why Joyce was there, and some comedy along the way. I. Let me say this. I think that I would struggle to climb that tower at this point in my life. Life.
- [48:32]
B
As you know, I dedicated last year to trying to get, like, stronger, and I am a much stronger person than I was at the beginning of last year. I'm not climbing that tower, let me tell you. And especially if there's a clock on it, I'm not climbing. If you're like, give me my time to do, I will, but not if. If the ceiling's descending. It's not. It's not happening. I will be team lab. Or actually, to be honest with you, I'll be team back at the radio station, hiding better from the military than Vicky and Matt Max decided to do now.
- [49:00]
A
Was Vicki terrified when she saw Max of the trance? She was. Did Vicki still have a lot of questions at the end? She did. Did we get any clarity in the epilogue of where Vicky is at the end of all things? We did not. No. Did Vicki definitely have the best job, which was eat snacks? Yeah. That would have been my preferred assignment.
- [49:18]
B
Be bad at hiding. Yep. She crushed.
- [49:20]
A
Be bad at hiding and eat snacks. At first, I thought she Was like a. She had very quickly made her way through a bowl of Mac and cheese. Then I realized it was cereal. Later she's munching on more cereal. Just great stuff. I. When I was a kid, I used to love to like climb to the top of a lighthouse on an Outer Banks trip or you know, in college semester abroad. Yeah, I'll hit some in Florence. I'll climb to the top of the Dwell. No problem. I did that too. Oh great. If I tried to do that now it's been a minute since I've attempted something like that. That. But I can barely walk from my car to the studio at the office without feeling like I need a refreshing beverage.
- [50:00]
B
That's not true. You're. You're a great and fast walker.
- [50:02]
A
But I'm a brisk walker. But then a window.
- [50:06]
B
So I. Yeah, I've climbed, I've climbed towers my day. I've climbed Duomo, climbed. Climbed that tower in, in the movie in Bruges that he's like, you guys can't climb that tower. I've climbed that tower.
- [50:15]
A
I did that as well. I actually did that quite recently.
- [50:17]
B
But I'm not climbing this fucking 500 foot tower when the time is counting down.
- [50:22]
A
No, absolutely not. Did you like that? We got the. Just. Jonathan does emerge half a body ahead of Steve. What's up?
- [50:33]
B
What's up? Team Jonathan? Okay.
- [50:35]
A
Oh man.
- [50:36]
B
Mike and Will pause to have a tremendously, I thought, awkwardly written chat about how they'll be friends post coming out. This scene was included apparently at Noah Schnapp's request to give some closure and relief to the Byler folks are just like to wrap up. Make sure that we all understand that Will and Mike are going to be okay. But I think the duffers could have done better than Friends. No thanks.
- [50:57]
A
Best friends.
- [50:57]
B
Best friends. You didn't pause long enough. You didn't pause for like panic and, or hope to manifest. And then best friends. I thought that was a stupid moment in this episode that made me feel a lot of things and cry. But good on Mike for acknowledging his self absorbed nature. And since Mike is such a smash success for me elsewhere in the finale, I'm willing to give it a pass. But I thought this was not good.
- [51:21]
A
Yeah, I think it's like it felt appropriate and right that the two of them and just the two of them would have a conversation in, you know, following this like massive moment in their shared experience and in Will's life. The particular execution. I, I agree. But I think it would have the absence of a scene like, this would have felt odd, actually, and slightly conspicuous. But the.
- [51:47]
B
Just give it three more passing.
- [51:49]
A
Yeah.
- [51:49]
B
Three more passes on the rewrite. Give us some of that, like, you know, Peter. Multiple Peter Parkers hanging out on some scaffolding kind of energy. Like, I feel like we could have gotten there if we tried.
- [51:59]
A
Okay.
- [52:00]
B
Our listener Corey wrote in about this sort of resolution for Mike and Will. And said Corey, who identifies as a queer person, says, I will always cheer when queer love gets the spotlight. But when Frodo and Sam are best friends.
- [52:10]
A
Friends.
- [52:11]
B
When Mike demands he and Will are still best friends, that is also a win against a specific strand of homophobia. It leaves rooms for room for a world where we wouldn't have to distance ourselves from touch, intimacy, and care that friends can share platonically. So I also cheer for friendships like these. Friendships like yours. Well, like ours. That's so sweet. Yeah. So that's. That's an argument that I've heard over the years when people are like, frodo and Sam don't have to be gay. Like, friendship. Friendship between men matter. And it does. But if you want to make Frodo and Sam gay and you're fanfics, that's fine too. I don't care. But, like, I like this line about, like, that's. That's a win against a specific strand of homophobia as well. Right. That this is like, Corey's larger email was about sort of the accusation of queer baiting and the. And the review bombing that you were talking about.
- [52:55]
A
Yeah.
- [52:56]
B
But like, I thought this was. Again, I would have written this scene a bit differently, but the fact that Mike is like, will, you're my best friend.
- [53:03]
A
Yeah. Also matters. Yes. You know, so I agree.
- [53:07]
B
All right. I've already mentioned that Steve's fucking plan didn't account for the fact that the tower wouldn't line up perfectly with the rifts, which I didn't understand how they knew the rifts were there in the first place, which I mentioned last time. Will was like, he's making riffs. I've seen them. But, like, what was the plan, guys? What was the plan Here? I.
- [53:28]
A
A couple quick things on this joke. Just the. Like I will say right before the. Like, wait, what is happening with the. The alignment of the rift concern really pulled me into, like, the undertow of the wave. I was worried I would not escape the rest. I was like, what? No, no.
- [53:48]
B
Yeah.
- [53:49]
A
Right before that, I did, like, Dustin's like, mother of God moment. And just like, it's a subtle thing, but just not Being like, I was right, but like, it made me think of this, the, the moment, the Steve Eddie moment that we love. The, like, the humility. It's his tone, right? Like thinking that like Eddie would be proud. Like Dustin showing a little humility. I enjoyed that. In terms of the on the rift misalignment thing, two things. One, as you said, I just would like to reiterate one more time that I really agree and I thought this was baffling in a way I could barely articulate it. Did not think that Operation Beanstalk made much sense when we learned that Operation Beanstalk was afoot in Volume two. And the plan was just even dumber to me when I realized that they were just basically hoping a rift would perfectly align with the tip of the tower or it was going to crumble and they would all die and also have no way through. I'm like, that's actually not a plan, that's a hope. Now you could write it in a way where you lean into that, right into the fact that so much is unknown and there's so much we have.
- [54:56]
B
To try or something like that.
- [54:58]
A
Again, we. A little bit of that with Mike's like a million things could go wrong. But I actually would have preferred an overt acknowledgment that like they had. If, if this doesn't align like earlier, it's all going to go to having it happen in this moment. You're like, wait, did they think it would align? Why? Just really pulled me out of it in a way that I did not appreciate or enjoy. Here's what I did appreciate and enjoy of all of the influences on Stranger Things. And there are many. And again, I think this will be a very Lord of the Rings, a never ending story, rich reference set for. For today's pop over the years and certainly certainly Dungeons and Dragons. To be clear, over the years, Stranger Things and we, while covering Stranger Things, have talked about Star wars many a time. And this felt to me like a great way to honor and nod to one of the central aspects of Star wars and consuming Star wars for the first time, which is that's Sarlacc pit. It's just a vagina. Like everything is kind of about wanting to fuck. And so the idea that the finale of Stranger Things was gonna come down to like, I knew will this waiting phallus make its way into the slit was I knew when you said just.
- [56:11]
B
The tip, we weren't done with that conversation, first of all. Secondly, I would like to share another great meme I saw which is someone put footage of the Mind Flayer with, like, sort of the gaping the way I put in our notes, Georgia o' Keefe esque sort of orifices. And it was just sort of like, you have no power over me. And it was Will, and it was like, the fact that, like, Will doesn't like girls that way. Was not intimidated by the vagina monster coming at him. So love that for all of us. The riververse contains adult content okay, Steve. Steve's fake death. I thought this was annoying and dumb, but I saw footage of people shrieking and gasping in the theaters, and I love that it worked for them. I thought this was, like, really dumb. I thought it was particularly weird to have, like, a fake cut to commercial and then come back and, like, was the plan at one point to cut away to a different plot line and come back and show us that Jonathan had grabbed him? I don't know, but it was just like an odd fade to black and then come back and Jonathan has him. I thought this was dumb. I understand the temptation to want to do it. I understand that it was, like, irresistible for the duffers, but, like, I. I didn't enjoy it, but. But it's not a big deal, you know? Know.
- [57:27]
A
I also was annoyed by this.
- [57:29]
B
I.
- [57:31]
A
You know, we're obviously going to talk about everything with Elle when we get to that stretch of the pod, and I can't wait to discuss all of that. And I. I think we both have a lot to say and a lot that we're feeling about all of that. Mileage may vary on, like, how people feel about how many Stranger Things characters, like, needed to die at the end. I think it is, like, pretty valid to say that an undertaking of this nature, at this scale, with this level of peril, it is implausible that, like, our entire party would survive it. I think that's totally fair. I also think it's totally fair to say I don't need my characters to die to care about a show or to feel like it has stakes anywhere in between. What I. What I. I feel is undeniable for me personally is, like, that these fake outs felt insulting by the end because.
- [58:28]
B
It'S like, yeah, a little.
- [58:30]
A
So much of what is rewarding about the finale and the experience, the epilogue, the series overall, is the emotional attachment and what those cut to black moments, like, the cut to black. I was thinking inside of this season, like, there was a little bit of that. That with Karen and the Demogorgon, do we care about Karen Wheeler as much as Steve no, but just we talked about at the time, like, oh, this is sort of like an eye.
- [58:51]
B
It did, like, hopped in time.
- [58:53]
A
Yeah. Sequence to understand what happened. That's a little bit different than what happened here. But, you know, and then in a moment, in real time, watching season three for the first time and revisiting season three still, honestly, that always gets me. That I love is Hop and Joyce looking out at Hop and, you know, his smile and the nod. And then we cut and, like, they've done this before, but now at the end, it starts to feel like you're counting on my emotional response to that.
- [59:16]
B
And it feels like they're toying with us or just sort of like. Yeah, they're like, they know what that's gonna do to people. And so it's just sort of like. It reminds me, again, of Thrones ptsd, but it reminds me of the way in which the people who worked on Thrones talked about making the show after the Red Wedding. And it was like watching the impact of the Red Wedding had on the viewership. They were, like, chasing that high of, like, we're gonna really, like, get that kind of shock and devastation for them. And, like, Thrones did do that several times after that. But again, there's just, like, ways in which it just feels like you're chasing the wrong thing and there's ways to devastate us, which the episode absolutely did without this, which feels like a cheap trick, honestly, to me.
- [60:03]
A
But, yeah, like, I am glad that Steve did not die, to be clear. Clear. I'm quite happy that Steve Harrington is alive and teaching sex ed and coaching middle school baseball and really hoping that he'll be able to keep drinking beers on the roof with his friends, which I think we both feel is not something that is likely to continue. Very sad. I'm thrilled that Steve is showing up with his new truck and his rv. The rv. He always wanted to hang out with Dustin now that Dustin is off at college. Like, Steve, being alive is one of the great joys of my life. I'm not complaining about that. Don't cut to black to make me think he fell off the tower and died. I don't need you to do that because I already care about Steve, and I don't need to be reminded that I care about him, because the experience of watching him grow and change over five years is how I know that I care about him.
- [60:45]
B
So that is similarly. Similarly the moment later when the mind flayer, you know, pointy talon foot is about to come down on Dustin Yeah. And then Lucas, like, rolls. That one was, like, less annoying because it just all happened inside of the action. So I was just sort of like, you're not. You're not like, lingering on this in a sort of like, aha, got you kind of way. But, yeah, I am very glad that Steve's alive. I thought it was cute that Jonathan saved him. Seeing Robin and Dustin, like, sort of react to that was, you know, was. Was fine. And again, if it worked on you, especially in that sort of theatrical space where you're all sharing, like, your feelings, I love that for you. Okay, Operation Beastar Part 3. Time travel is. Is what we're calling it. Did you immediately understand that Max, when she got up out of the chair, was headed into Eleven's mind? Since, like, of course she did say, like, I can help guide you or something like that. Or were you worried ever that Vecna had her again? Because for a second I was like, is she in a Vecna trance again? You know what I mean? Like, what did you think?
- [61:46]
A
Yeah, I think the ominous scoring, the musical notes, and the kind of underbed of the soundscape, the visual treatment. Anytime that 11, across the series, enters the void, the black space, Max tipping her toes into the wet floor, the. The. The electric sign for the squawk. Like, all of it looks really cool.
- [62:10]
B
Looks really cool.
- [62:11]
A
It heightened an emotion.
- [62:12]
B
I.
- [62:13]
A
It actually was like, it's not. I didn't feel this nearly as keenly as the cut to black with Steve falling off the tower, but I. I actually was like, I don't know. Like, they told us the plan was for Max to, like, Max is going to be in the mindscape, so why try to make us think for a minute that. But only for, like, a half a beat. It, like, wasn't enough to make us think that something had really gone wrong for Max there. Obviously, Vicki is. Is scared, but y. Was like, I thought, just like, a little bit odd. I wasn't sure really if we were supposed to feel concerned or if we were supposed to understand exactly from the word go what was happening. And it didn't end up lasting long enough, that period of uncertainty to matter. So then it's like, why do it that way?
- [62:52]
B
I do. I do think that the sign inside the voice base, which is separate from what we're talking about, is, like, one of the coolest visuals of the finale in a lot of. There were a lot of great visuals in the finale. Elle gives her a really odd high. Like, a high, like, very strange. But I don't Know, it's kind of cool, but some people are bumping on it. Okay. We're back at Hawkins High in 1959. You could tell because Shaboom is playing Max. Sadie Sink, Broadway kid that she is, has spent a lot of time watching the first shadow, and so she knows what the entire cast of characters is up to. Shout out the myth, the man, the legend, Ted Wheeler, for getting a this guy reference in the finale. Mallory, before we check in on your time travel feelings, how did you feel about this first, but not last, Ted Wheeler moment inside of the finale?
- [63:40]
A
As always, I could have done with more Ted, but I was grateful for the Ted that we got. It's just. I appreciate this last attempt to try to convince us that Ted Wheeler has always been the sage, even though he has not. I appreciate it, but, yeah, Ted, you know, sex. Sex. God, Ted Wheeler. Why not? Swinging a golf club of a certain sort, always why not? You know, good for him. Good for him.
- [64:09]
B
Carlos, will you. Will you play this clip for me?
- [64:12]
A
What's up, Mallory?
- [64:13]
B
It's Joe Pressed here, AKA Ted Wheeler on Stranger Things. And, Mallory, I just want to wish.
- [64:20]
A
You a happy new year. Happy 2026.
- [64:24]
B
It's already such a great year.
- [64:27]
A
And this is coming to you from.
- [64:29]
B
Me and from Joanna. I understand you guys have a podcast together. That's fantastic. And I also wanted to thank you for watching the show and thanks for having Ted's back.
- [64:41]
A
My goodness. Oh, my God, somebody has, too. Did you notice in the hospital, all friends and family running around in there, demogorgons on the loose, and no one.
- [64:54]
B
Was worried or even asked about Ted.
- [64:57]
A
I bet you would have asked about Ted, so you would have probably even made sure he had at least one strip of bacon left on this plate when it came his way.
- [65:07]
B
Anyway, Mallory, I thank you for having Ted.
- [65:11]
A
Oh, my God. I also want to wish you a happy New Year. And little dad advice here for you.
- [65:19]
B
Don't wait for it to be a great year. Get out there and make it a great year.
- [65:23]
A
Each and every day those feet hit the ground, it's a beautiful day. So get out there and make the most of it. And thank you, guys. Holy.
- [65:32]
B
Happy New Year.
- [65:33]
A
What? What? Till I. I've got. Absolutely. Lord, how did that come to be? Oh, my God. I can't believe I. I'm so overwhelmed right now.
- [65:46]
B
Happy Hanukkah.
- [65:47]
A
Holy shit. That is the best. That is. That was the best. That is the best thing that has ever happened. Oh, my God. The specificity of it. Did we notice that nobody Checked on Ted in the hospital. Yeah, yeah, we did. It's all we talked about for many podcasts. The bacon call out. Oh, my God. That was sort of including a language language because of haft. And we. We curse on the pod. I don't know that anything else could have matched that experience. How did that come to be? Tell me everything.
- [66:22]
B
No free ads on this podcast, but Joe Cross does have cameos if anyone wants a cameo from Ted Wheeler. I did submit this request a while ago.
- [66:31]
A
Oh, my God.
- [66:32]
B
Joe was enjoying the holidays with his family, and I do not begrudge him that. So it's like, there's like a window on cameo of, like, when the person can fulfill it, and if they don't, it just, like, refunds you. And he didn't because he. He was enjoying his holidays. And I was like, we're gonna try it again.
- [66:47]
A
And he came through.
- [66:49]
B
Came through like late Saturday night. So just in time for the podcast. Thanks, Joe, for coming through. Carlos did a little. A little podcast friendly edit on it, so thanks to Carlos for getting that ready for you. It's our gift to you, Mallory. We love you and we wanted to make sure you had your Ted Wheeler moment on the podcast.
- [67:05]
A
So this is one of the best moments of my life. That's great. This was absolutely incredible. Is it. Is it tragic that that Joe and Ted got more total runtime on the Stranger Things house of our finale podcast than in the final season of Stranger Things? Little bit. Little bit. But it's nice to have this time, and it's nice to have one more reminder of what Ted gave us over the years. And I truly can't believe that that just happened. It was the opposite of how it feels to ask for bacon at the breakfast table and then receive nothing but a greasy, empty plate. It was like a. It was. This was basically my version of the. The Bounty at the Creel Mansion. You know, just goodness.
- [67:49]
B
Everywhere you look, sprinkles, sprinkles. As far as the eye can see.
- [67:53]
A
For you.
- [67:54]
B
Holly ribbons.
- [67:54]
A
You're the best. Holy shit.
- [67:56]
B
I love it.
- [67:57]
A
I love it. Thank you.
- [67:58]
B
Thank you. Thanks, Joe.
- [67:59]
A
Thank you.
- [68:00]
B
Also, if anyone listening wants to. Wow, throw Joe some cameo bucks, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. Okay, so listen.
- [68:06]
A
Holy shit, Joe. From that.
- [68:08]
B
From that high.
- [68:09]
A
Oh, I need a minute. Like, over. I can't believe it.
- [68:15]
B
While I have you in this euphoria space, is now the time to check in on time travel 12 kids hourglass feelings? Or is it too soon to go there for you? How do you in terms of navigating memories. Yeah. Being the closest kind of we get to time travel inside of this finale. How do you. How do you feel about that? Fine.
- [68:38]
A
Like I think that, you know, we. We talk about this a lot. Hold. Hold your theories loosely. It's not like I ever needed the kids to go actively like back to 1983 and that we needed. Or I needed to see that like 11 was somehow responsible for the door unlocking at the buyer's home or something like that. Like it. I was thinking a little bit of our conversations. I don't want to. I don't want to spoil a key development of Rings of Power for people who have not seen that show. Check it out yet. I'll try to say this in a coded fashion. You'll know what I mean. And anyone who's seen the show as will know what I mean. I was thinking a little bit about the conversation we had about if you're gonna tease and set up this many times that a certain character might be a certain someone at a certain point, like you gotta kind of do whip. Actually.
- [69:26]
B
I really respect you trying to like keep that a non secret secret for people who want to catch up for Rings of Power season three. And ready Jamie Camp. Jamie Camp. Bauer will be. Exactly. Do you think he's playing Celeborn? That's what I think. They haven't announced who he's playing.
- [69:43]
A
It would be one of the thrills of my life, your life and our shared experience. If that ended up being true, that'd be fucking great. So excited. So like I, you know, I don't think it was quite that because I do think we got time travel in a fashion with the MEM and I think in general this kind of like thematic exploration of the nature of time and the passage of time and what time means and what it experience in a certain moment of time and the people you share it with means all of that was there. Am I like. I do kind of not totally understand the like sequential editing of the end of season three while talking about time and like, you know, X, Y and Z. And why did Henry need the number 12 for hen. For the kids not mattering when we get so many including in this finale like Henry standing in front of a clock looking at the hands of a clock. This wizard and his clocks mentions like that's a little weird to me at the end. But it's less about me needing the party to travel through time and more about. I feel like they did signal that this was coming in a certain way. But, yeah, ultimately I'm like, all right, why, why 12? I don't know, but that's okay. The ticking of the ticking. The very, very, very heavy ticking of the clock and chiming of the clock as we look at the, the, the, the X and the abyss is starting to lower. I was like, wait, is it like just the countdown clock and draft day? Like, that was sort of a weird, weird feeling, honestly. But it's okay.
- [71:12]
B
Okay, back to Hawkins High. If you were confused, why the cut through the theater bears zero resemblance to any production of Oklahoma you've ever seen. We actually got a lot of emails from First Shadow theater goers in the past few weeks letting us know that Joyce was not, not putting on a production of Oklahoma. She was sneakily mounting a play called Darker the Moon, which she did not think she could get away with. So she's, like, pretended it was Oklahoma, and then she was gonna bait and switch with Dark of the Moon. Theater corner.
- [71:41]
A
Tell me. Yeah.
- [71:42]
B
Dark of the moon is a 1945 play by Howard Richardson and William Burney, a quote, legend with music set in the Appalachian mountains. Based on the folk ballad of Barbara Allen. It tells the tragic love story of John, a quote, witch boy who wants to become a human to marry a mortal girl, Barbara Allen, leading to conflict with superstitious townspeople and fail outcomes, fatal outcomes for the lovers, with John returning to the world of the witches. So couple things. One last foreshadow fact. Henry was cast. Henry Creel, young Henry Creel was cast as the witch boy, which may not be Curly from Oklahoma, but it is the lead, so good job, Henry. I still don't understand what you're doing at a high school production. And then does this plot sound 11 coded to you? Like, we're of two different worlds. We cannot be together. I need to return to my world, and you stay in your world sort of thing. What do you think?
- [72:33]
A
Yeah, definitely interesting. This is, this is fun to know. I, I, I, I. Yet another area where, again, I just, I have more questions that I'd like at the end still. I, I thought that the, like, everything connects, but there are long ways and short ways. Max, Dorothy, Oz, Yellow Brick Road. Like, suddenly we lost the plot in.
- [73:02]
B
In wizard of Oz. But the fact that I think the fact that Max knows the, the shortcuts or the memories makes a lot of sense to me. Right. She's just spent. She had all that time to explore it. It's like, yeah, like in Groundhog's Day when, like, Bill Murray knows what everyone's gonna do at any given second. And she's like, there's a shortcut through the theater. Like, I think. Yeah, I think she could have said, there's a shortcut through the theater or not stand on the stage and be confused, you know, just like it was like.
- [73:28]
A
Yes, I agree. I think it makes sense to me. And especially including her in the. This stretch of the finale in this way, because as Kali is like, I thought you knew this place like the. You said you knew it like the back of your hands. She's got the experience. I think that because we traveled very sequentially previously, in part because Max, with Holly, like, we were looking for the breakthrough and the clues. Then it's another example, I think, where there could have been, like, literally, maybe, like, one line or half a line earlier to, like, prepare us for something. So it felt less jarring. Ultimately, Max knowing this because of her time there and Max being involved in this way, I think makes sense. I would have loved if Joyce, while swinging the ax to decapitate Vecna, had said at the end, and by the way, you were a shitty witch boy. Give us the clarity. And. And none of this, like, yeah, we. They probably talked about it off screen. Screen like, that they knew Henry in high school stuff, which is just.
- [74:25]
B
Tough answer from the double brothers. Really tough. Yeah. To be clear, if you haven't seen that, the Duffer brothers in interviewers said, like, oh, yeah. Hop and Joyce probably talked about Henry. They kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet. And they probably talked about Henry off screen. Fine.
- [74:39]
A
Would have been high comedy if Joy said, you were, like, witch boy.
- [74:43]
B
I like so much better than you with the wrong family. Can I just say, like, a final line?
- [74:47]
A
You with the wrong family. And by the way, you were a. Yeah, I know who you are. Are. It's like, it's not quite who are you? Right. It's like, I know who you are, and you are.
- [74:58]
B
You're wish.
- [74:59]
A
Now I'm gonna sever your head from your body.
- [75:03]
B
Okay, here we go. A reminder of K's powers that we get before the end. Okay, so 11. 11, notably, does not pause when she runs into the grill house. Kali, take notes. 11 just goes in. Someone must have told her Steve's life was hanging in the balance. She just, like, rips Henry away from the kids, and then the trio execute a pretty cool gamut involving Kali's powers and Henry's fondness for. For monologuing. Right. So there's illusion magic here. And then Henry just, like, loves to yammer. So that's Great. He loves to, like, let the kids know behind the veil that he's a bad guy. Unfortunately, couple things happen here. Yep. Henry taps into Eleven's mind and gets some psychological dirt on her suicide pact with Kali. And eventually Jim Hopper's wartime slash Sarah PTSD stuff, which he either extracts from from Jim or maybe gets some hint from 11 and knows where to look. And she gym. Either way, Ki pauses to say, hello, brother. She pauses to quit before stabbing.
- [76:00]
A
Yeah.
- [76:00]
B
Here's a lesson from Buffy, vampire slayer. Usually Buffy quips after she staked the vampire. Stake first, quip later. That's the order of operations, Ki. And last but not least, Max says to Holly here, I'm not leaving your side ever again. Not till we're out of here, all of us. Max, beloved, I love you so much. That was a tough promise to make when you're gonna evaporate it to air mere minutes from now. So how did all of this work, work for you? I mean, I think the plan was pretty good. It wasn't executed perfectly, but we did manage to convince the kids to hightail it out of there, like, pretty quickly. So that's. That's good, you know?
- [76:41]
A
Yeah. I think that the. You know, we get the. It's him. He's. He's the. The black thing line. Thomas contributing only a. Holy shit. You know, we got. It's. It's fucking Thomas.
- [76:53]
B
Thomas, my number one enemy comes. He'll come up several times in the notes.
- [76:58]
A
I will say an astonishing amount of Thomas in your outline, which I really respect and admire. I think is appropriate.
- [77:06]
B
To be clear, that's the kid that called Holly a bitch, and I. He's just on my shit list forever. Yes.
- [77:12]
A
So I think this idea of, like, the way the wrinkle. The way the wrinkle in time was used throughout the season with Camazotz. The black think, like we have. We're going to obviously talk about it. We build toward this, like, we are one. This great Henry Creel moment that, you know, was. I mean, just we. I think we both can't wait to talk about Jamie Campbell Bower. More just iconic stuff from him in this finale. This idea of, like, the black thing and it. And how much is entwined and how much is distinct and, like, I think the. The. The influence there and how that was, like, deployed here and the idea of the kids needing to witness that truth and be pulled out of a fog was an interesting way to kind of, like, continue to incorporate that influence. I think this was a good use of Kali's magic. And obviously it will not be the last time that we talk about her.
- [78:08]
B
But good to remind us within the episode that she can do this.
- [78:11]
A
Yeah, that was so smart. I On the Max front, you never make a promise at all. I just think in general, you know, talk about something we talk about in Thrones. You never make a promise in a situation like this. Just don't do it because you don't know if you're going to be able to keep it. And frankly, you probably won't. Did I like that Max had learned a lesson? I did.
- [78:33]
B
Did she?
- [78:33]
A
I think I know. I mean, you know, maybe like Holly with the fire poker, we got to get the to like the third or fourth time before it really. She could have said something like, I'm.
- [78:43]
B
Sorry I left you. I shouldn't have or something like that without saying, I'll never leave you again. Never again. We're out of here.
- [78:50]
A
Never again. To Max's credit, she managed to like maintain her. Her corporeal form for like a beat longer than Helen Colleague did so that she could be like, ollie wrong. So good for Max. Good for Max.
- [79:01]
B
On that front. Makes no sense. 11 should have been the last one corporeal there, but that's okay. What.
- [79:08]
A
On. I want to hit Vecna and Elle for a second. But on the Kali front and just the plan I. The shit talking, the flexing, the hello, brother moment. Buffy comp. Iconic work from you. All great points. I do not think that it is appropriate for the plan to destroy Vecna to come down to we'll stab him with a steak knife. I do not think that is good enough. I'm sorry. It is not a good enough plan. And that continues the theme of this is not a good enough plan. The plan was to cut him like our dinner.
- [79:47]
B
Operation Beanstalk kind of sucks. I'll say it. I'll say it. What the.
- [79:53]
A
I'll say it on kitchen.
- [79:55]
B
Shoddy plan work all the way down. Yeah.
- [79:57]
A
I mean, where is a gasoline filled grenade water balloon when you need it? We'll get one soon.
- [80:05]
B
But where is it?
- [80:06]
A
Here, let's light this fire.
- [80:08]
B
Hoarding. All of them. Well, can you. Can you take a flare gun into the. Like they're in his head, so maybe they can.
- [80:16]
A
They're working with what's there.
- [80:17]
B
What's there. And they're like the. So many candles were lit so many.
- [80:21]
A
Candles were lit in that home. There is fire there. Light this fucker up and light this fuck up up.
- [80:27]
B
He likes it cold. I don't know if you know that.
- [80:29]
A
Okay, we're stabbing it. Absurd. Okay.
- [80:31]
B
11 and Vecna.
- [80:33]
A
Stronger, aren't we? So am I. Now I will talk about some of the story beats and some of the. The scripting a little bit more as we go, the plotting, etc. Performance wise. Not a misstep from Jamie Campbell Bower in. In. In the run. Not a misstep. This was unbelievable. All of it.
- [80:52]
B
Absolutely.
- [80:53]
A
Can't wait to talk about the cave. Can't wait to talk about the mineshaft. This also, though, gave me a chill.
- [80:59]
B
Stronger, aren't we? So am I. So good.
- [81:03]
A
It put me in the mental, emotional, like, spiritual place I wanted to be in the finale. And it was great because it was threatening, it was ominous, it was scary, but it also was human. Right? Like, he's our bad guy, he's our villain, but he's also still just like a lost boy who's trying to find his way and, like, keep leveling up and getting better. And so I think the way that this little line and little moment continued to maintain and establish a parallel between them two Brenner lab rats who've had to find ways for different purposes ultimately.
- [81:39]
B
Right.
- [81:39]
A
To channel what's inside, like, really worked. And obviously we will get more of that as we go. But I was grateful for that moment here.
- [81:47]
B
I really agree. That's a song. So into the next section we have here, which is which I'm calling Hopper Freaks out and we get the full complement of stressors for Hop. Agent Orange.
- [81:58]
A
Yes.
- [81:58]
B
Sarah. Yeah. A threat to 11 safety. You're the curse, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And to that point about, like, Henry saying to eleven, stronger, aren't we? So am I. I did see some criticisms of, like, this is not how Vecna's powers exactly has worked in the past. And I'm like, so he leveled up. 11 leveled up. He leveled up. I feel like that's fine. I'm not stressed about that. That personally. He's juiced up on the essence of 12 kids, including Thomas. So, you know, he's. He's doing things he's never done before. Hop reacts.
- [82:28]
A
She sure does. Yeah.
- [82:29]
B
Mallory, I want to make space for you and your feelings on this scene because we have a different relationship to Hop. And I'm also suffering from Star War, Star Lord and Infinity War ptsd. I will never get over. So this did not hit for me, I think, the way they wanted it to hit for me. But how did. How did it work for you?
- [82:46]
A
I. I enjoyed this. I I think that, you know, my, My. I think my relationship to and draw to Hopper is very rooted in his persistent fallibility. I would have overall, across the final season, not. Not the finale, but the final season.
- [83:06]
B
Yeah.
- [83:06]
A
Preferred for us to spend more time in a space of growth and advancement and a little less time in the back. But I think the backslides are human. In this scene in particular, though, Sarah, the vision of Sarah, all of these insecurities, all of these fears coming back to the fore. You knew this would happen, just like, you know what will happen to her. First of all, it's just like a classic Vecna move leveled up as. As you noted. But this idea of like weaponizing fear. We actually talked about this in season four. The way that, like you mentioned, like, Hop is so ripe for what is happening to Chrissy and Max and Patrick and Fred and the way that Vecna is preying on your darkest thoughts.
- [83:50]
B
We talked. We talked about in volume one of this run too, because he, like, he was telling his war stories a couple times and I was like wondering if Vecna would use the. The war guilt. She does, you know.
- [84:02]
A
Yeah. And so the fact that like, you know, we talk. We've revisited and talked about, you know, the. The conversation at the end of season two that he and El have in the truck and this idea of being the black hole and everything he said to Enzo, not Enzo in season four, like, I curse like the. The lament of like leading people in his life as he sees it time and again to this devastating place. It's exactly the kind of thing that Vecna would try to pounce upon. So it made sense to me that that happened here for. For. For both of them. I was a little confused. I was thinking back to our conversations in prior episodes about like, how. How much did he know or not know about what Kali and Elle had discussed. And it's like, I think made pretty clear in the finale that this is revealed to him here. So then that's like, again, it's another example of where sometimes even what I liked in the finale actually makes me like, lowers in my estimation of a little bit of what came before in the season. But the. So there we are. I thought that the Vecna, I am many things, but I am not a liar was another note that I was glad the finale returned to. Yeah, I'm a self mythologizing tree branch with a God complex and a knack for manipulating. I love a spider, but I'm not a liar, man. And this idea that like, well, what is the truth, really? Because Henry believes that he is not a liar. Of course. One of the ways that he and Eleven bonded in season four, one of the things that we loved to watch in that relationship in the Hawkins lab flashbacks was like, papa's the one who lies, actually. But part of what has made Henry Creel an interesting villain is that he. You know, we talked about this a lot this season is like, well, what. What, Henry is this future that he thinks he's building. Like, Right.
- [85:52]
B
The light bringing back the light. Like, all this sort of stuff like that. How much does he actually believe that to be a proper framing? So is he lying to these kids? He's. He's manipulating these kids.
- [86:03]
A
Yes.
- [86:03]
B
But is he lying to these kids?
- [86:05]
A
And does he know the difference? And, like, I think that's an interesting. Interesting thing to center again, for considering his character here at the end. Where does the idea of perception and perspective just cease to matter because the mania has taken such a firm grip and root. And I think it was also cool that Eleven and Hopper, in a way, kind of had a shared experience of being on the receiving end of that message from him. I liked that part of it. And I just think, like I will say, notable contrast to our party, our beloved heroes. This was a good plan from Henry. Like, it was. Right? Pretty savvy stuff from vet.
- [86:45]
B
Yeah.
- [86:45]
A
Quick thinking to you. He sees what's happened. Okay. I have escaped from under the steak knife with a quickness of pretty easily. Right now, I need to remove 11 from the mindscape. And guess what? There's no water in the Upside Down. Down. So if I get this guy to shoot this tank, where are they going to find another bathtub? They didn't come prepared. Like, I. I don't know. It's good to see. Is this completely undone by. He kind of forgot about his Demogorgans, just as Danny kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet. It is. But here, in this moment, I was like, yeah, this is good. And I think the fact that, like, he's. He's preying on Hop's fears, it's sick. It's wrong. It's what Vecna does. It also has the, I think, capacity to warm us, some of us again, to Hop. Because amid all of the missteps, like, you're. You're rooted in the why, right? The insecurity and the love for why. He fears what he fears, why he makes the mistakes, why he holds on as tightly, too tightly as he does to the things he's afraid to Lose. And I think remembering that is great. And then there's that last little element that I liked about it, which was I thought there was something kind of delicious about Vecna doing this to a parent, given that so much of his origin story and his personal mythology is like, I would like. I saw who my parents really were. Like, this predictable drudgery of people pairing up and starting families and domestic life and society and structure, all of that, I don't have room for it at all. Like, the fact that that's, like, the thing he's to. Trying. Trying to prey upon and wear down all. Like, the thing that our heroes are drawn into and also fighting to save the thing that gives them their strength. I thought all of that was kind of present here. And so honestly, there wasn't really a part of me that was like, why did Hop fuck up? I was like, this kind of. All this feels like this is how this should go. Yeah.
- [88:40]
B
No, I definitely wasn't like, why did Hop fuck up? Because Hop is a perpetual fuck up. That's what he does. It was just aggravating.
- [88:47]
A
Yeah. We're not done with hoping Hop yet, though. Okay. Oh, we're not done with Hop yet. We've got a lot of Hop in this finale. Joe. We will eventually get 11 making her case to Hopper, but first we kind of have Hop making his. His pitch to. To L on the collie front in this sequence. First of all, great on the sneaker marketing, great close up of Elle lacing up the field, general highs shoe that they made in a high for the Stranger Things run crazy stuff. But I thought that Kali. There's a lot that ended up warming me to Kali in this finale. Just this moment of, like, genuine fear and worry. The kids, like, we got it. We're on the clock, guys. The kids are all alone. I liked as a beat, I thought that was, like, a good thing to have there. You know, whether you're worried about a kid being a blood bag or a vessel, they all remind her of. Of her and of El and their experience.
- [89:43]
B
Also her saying, like, he's lost his mind. Like, fear has infected him. Like, I thought that was like, that was accurate and a good assessment of what was going.
- [89:50]
A
And also the. That's a lot of ifs. It's like, I thought, very fair, very fair. El, you know, saying to Hop, like, he tricked you. He used you and you fell for it. I have to end the cycle. Them talking this through, this idea of this anchor and this fear, when ha said life has been so unfair. To you. So cruel, but you never let it break you. And then he, like, kind of implores her, fight for happy days on the other side of this. Fight for a world beyond Hawkins. And then later, you will find a way, because he says, I promise you we will find a way to make it real. And then he takes a beat and says, you will find a way to make it real. This kind of last appeal from him is, of course, still fueled by his need and his despair and his fear and his insecurity. I thought it was really important that the language and framing of this pitch, even though we have yet another step for the two of them to take still that he didn't make it about him, he made it about her.
- [90:57]
B
Right.
- [90:58]
A
He made it about what 11 has lost, about what 11 deserves, what 11 can have and what 11 can achieve. Right. Because as she will say, like, later, like, believe in me. Trust me, the way that you keep telling me you're going to. It gave me some Joel Ellie, like, if that day should come, I hope you do a little better than me vibes. Not to the extent of the porch sequence, to be clear. No, I. I was.
- [91:22]
B
I was thinking about that as well. Yeah, I. I want to push back Sl. I mean, like, I don't. I don't want to yuck your yum. About when he says, fight for that day that you have a kid of your own. You give her the life you never have for the day you get so angry because she invites some boy over and she won't keep the door open three inches. Like.
- [91:36]
A
Yeah.
- [91:37]
B
Is he talking about her? No, he's talking about himself. He's like, sure. He's like, fight to become me is like a really, you know, which is slightly different from if one day you have a kid of your own, I hope you do a little bit better than I did. You know what I mean? Like, it's a little bit different. And that's just like, hop inside of a narcissistic space. That is just how he operates. You know what I mean? And, like, there are. There are great qualities to hop, but there's just, like, also just things I constantly bump on with him.
- [92:09]
A
Totally. I. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that, like, this felt like a one more rung on a ladder that he is still climbing, both in his journey as a character and inside of this episode.
- [92:23]
B
And, you know, when he gets. When we get to the conversation with Mike on the bench, like, that's a different. That's a different and a much more Evolved. I agree with you ultimately, that, like Hop and all of these people as fallible people who like, backslide, move forward, backslide, all this sort of stuff like that. But like, Hop feels like, especially in the early parts of this season.
- [92:45]
A
Yeah.
- [92:46]
B
So regressed.
- [92:47]
A
Yeah. I definitely.
- [92:49]
B
That it almost feels like he, like hops like LEAPS 10 Steps Forward to get to that conversation with Mike on the bench. Whereas I feel like if we had watched him in a bit more of an evolved space this season in then him being in that acceptance. It was her choice space that he gets to with Mike on the bench. All feels like it flows a little bit better, you know.
- [93:11]
A
I totally agree. I think this is one of the miscalibrations of the season. Just as some of the Dustin Steve stuff was miscalibrated. Do we get to a rewarding place at the end? We do. Was the journey there where we. We and the character should have been in season four, five? I think no. So I agree with you. I think that's fair. I think that's actually. Because I actually feel that so keenly with Hop, a character I'm so invested in and Hop and El a relationship I'm so invested in. I think this conversation as a path to the next conversation that they'll have on the roof. And then the Hop and Mike scene on. On the bench felt to me like a little bit like a drop of water in a desert. This season of, like, the moments that I wanted.
- [93:51]
B
Where's the water In a waterless upside down.
- [93:54]
A
Be a fucking. There shouldn't be a single drop. So, you know, like, this gave me a little. As many things in the finale do. And more. More to come. A little of the. Like, we're thinking of Frodo. We're thinking of the Shire. And this, like, appeal to think about what the future could be, what you're trying to save. But, you know, it also did. It just made me think of one of my favorite Stranger Things moments, which was the letter at the end of season three. Like, when life hurts you because it will remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you're out of that cave. I think this. This appeal that he's making to 11 here. The idea that the pain can be so debilitating for him, for her, for anyone, anybody. That. That's actually worth holding on to because it's how you. It's how you know you're here. I. I like when the show explores that idea inside of this relationship. So plenty of notes on Hop in season five. I. I thought we. We Were working our way back here a little too late, but better than that at all.
- [94:45]
B
All right, so elsewhere, the teens and the young adults and Joyce reach the abyss.
- [94:54]
A
Yeah.
- [94:54]
B
And then. I'm sorry, they mosey to find the kids. It's what I've called in the notes, Amblin Entertainment.
- [95:04]
A
Up here, they're just great stuff, like.
- [95:08]
B
Taking a cheery little walk through the abyss to find him. And I know that they think Henry is dead, but why are they making that assumption, first of all? And then if he is still move. There are children hooked up to a weird thing that Will has painted on the side of a barn. And so listen, our listener Camille pointed out that she doesn't. It doesn't seem as if any of them have slept all season since November 4th. So there is that, But I was just still. So as you know, I've been annoyed all season by the lack of running on some of our characters part and the lack of hustle from this team in this. In this moment was extremely frustrating. Inside of the lack of hustle, you can have some of these conversations we have with a faster pace, with a quickness. Right. Steve and Jonathan have a little chat about Nancy. Fine. I thought that was fine. Didn't light my hair on fire. And then Mike and Nance have a little chat about firearms. Nancy gives Mike a flare gun, which Lucas points out. And I'm choosing to believe this was a Tremors reference. If you've seen Tremors, one of my favorite movies of all time time, there's a kid who's constantly asking for a gun from a character who has a ton of guns, and he finally gives him a gun, but he doesn't load it. And so that's. I. I believe this was a reference to that, but no one tell me otherwise. Okay. Anything you want to say about. About this section?
- [96:28]
A
I did not understand. I mean, I understand, you know, the abyss stops. So they're like, oh, got Henry out of there. Maybe he's dead. But I, again, I was like, why do. Why are they making. Making these assumptions so many assumptions with.
- [96:41]
B
The kids still in peril? You know, very odd. I agree.
- [96:45]
A
This was, of course, also where we've already talked about this, but I was just like, you know, they're talking about. They're lampshading the lack of. Of, like, the demo army, the creatures, and all the things they thought they would confront. And I'm like, acknowledging that the. These things that you thought would be here are not here does not make it any less odd that they're not Here, actually, I loved.
- [97:01]
B
I love the theory that the Duffers contradicted when they said he just kind of forgot about the threats to his plan. Um, but there was someone. Someone had the theory that he had, like, used the bodies of the Demogorgons to make the Pain Tree to make the Mind Flayer structure. And I. I loved that idea. Not what happened, but that could have been a fun idea.
- [97:23]
A
Yeah. I think especially because, like, the. The creature design, obviously at scale in a genuinely, like, breathtaking and spectacular way, really, I thought connected most. Or obviously it connects to the season two. You know, the. The drawing of the smoke monster. But, like, really took me to season three, finally. Yeah, yeah.
- [97:42]
B
Made from the flesh of Hawkins. Yeah.
- [97:44]
A
So that would have been. That would have been fun. But I agree, the pace of this sequence and the lack of urgency from the character struck me as odd. And I think while I like those little beats and little moments and the little pairings and the little chats, it felt to me like a little bit of a product of the. The. The failure to properly, like, assign time across the season to moments like that. So, like, right, we've got all this. All this stuff left to do in these covers. We need to have, like, Stephen Jonathan bury the Nancy hatchet at the end. And it's like, but is this the moment? So that was all a little bit odd. I did think it was very funny when Steve realized that Nancy had put him on blast about the nuggets. That was. That was classic tough stuff there.
- [98:29]
B
Maybe just don't call them nuggets.
- [98:30]
A
Maybe just don't call them. Yeah, so, yeah, I. It's just the pacing stuff was a little.
- [98:37]
B
I think the Jonathan and Steve stuff. I've really been sort of mulling over this season, and I think something that they wanted to do was try to capture the very real natural chemistry that Joe Keery and Charlie Heaton, who are like, very, very good friends have. And you can see it in interviews, they just, like, adore each other. They have a bromance again, I think, as I've mentioned, Joe Kerry wrote a song called Charlie's Garden about, like, like, just hanging out in. In Charlie Natalia's Garden. Like, I. And I just don't think they. If that was their hope, you know, the way in which Robin and Steve or Dustin and Steve or Eddie and Steve, like, maybe they were like, how do we make Jonathan feel a bit more sort of like, sticky here at the end? Because they've struggled a bit with that character, I think, in the last few seasons. And, and I just don't, I don't think they achieved what I think they wanted to achieve. So.
- [99:31]
A
Yeah, I, I agree.
- [99:32]
B
I understand the impulse.
- [99:34]
A
Same. I was glad that you know, we got the moment from Steve where he's like, I could have like saved you guys some, some trouble here because I've known for, for, for a hot minute here that wasn't going to happen with Nancy. I did feel grateful as we've, you know, discussed the season. I felt it was important that not all of these like childhood lovers staying.
- [99:55]
B
Together and so for it just Max and Lucas.
- [99:58]
A
And that felt right. Yeah, like for Max to be strong at the end for us to get the glimpse of them. The movie theater. Perfect. Can't wait to talk more about their little skateboard moment. Those two are having a good time. It's clear. Great. You know, I think it's right like even after it doesn't make the ship wars debates for five seasons any less like fun or a thing that I participated in very actively in real time and liked thinking about and felt invested in this felt right. And that's part of what like evolution in a coming of age story should feel like, you know, that the priorities or the things that feel appropriate or right for a character at a given moment change. So I was glad that Steve was like, actually I'm not you guys broke. I'm not making a move.
- [100:40]
B
Jonathan winds up with his film camera, Steve winds up with a baseball team, and Nancy winds up with a journalism career and a bunch of guns. So.
- [100:50]
A
And a new haircut.
- [100:50]
B
Great job for everyone. And a new haircut Smith. Perfect. So the teens and, and Joyce and the young adults are not running. But you know who is running? The kids. And guess what? They never stop running. And this is the energy I want to see. So because of hops actions, right? And Max, despite her reckless promise, 11 and Kali vanish, leaving Holly the heroic in charge. But you know what? Holly absolutely delivers. The kids are sprinting to the cave. Derek is winded. Relatable, content Derek. But Holly does not like abandon him. And then she saves Derek.
- [101:29]
A
Save yourselves.
- [101:32]
B
She saves Derek. Derek in turn saves her. When Henry shows up and try to groot arm Holly out of the crevice. And we get the last and perhaps most important suck my fat one though you know that bad news bear style like Derek is using that on the baseball team all the time. No question. I don't know if Steve has ever had a team him with language, but certainly not as.
- [101:55]
A
Not from, not from coach Steve, not from Coach Harrington. Yeah, I, as you know, love Derek. I think Derek is fantastic. I thought he was great. And just a ray of light and levity across the final season. I've gotten a kick out of basically every suck my fat one until this point. The in the barn, Robin's like, Jesus, what response would have had this happen spot saying suck my fat one 2.
- [102:24]
B
Vecna.
- [102:26]
A
Is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. And his Henry's face response to this was so perfect. I believe that this instantly iconic moment will stand the test of time. And I think that that's fair and I think that that's right and it's what Derek deserves and it's what we deserve. This is great. Do you what happens, by the way of all the. Like, we didn't check in on this character at the end, people we can mention. How do you think the rest of the turnbows are doing?
- [102:54]
B
Oh, they're still in that barn mouldering 18 months later. No, they're still tied up in the barn. Like they have no reason to go to the graduation. So I don't think we needed them in the graduation scene. But maybe like in the stands at the baseball game cheering for Derek or something like that.
- [103:10]
A
I don't know, like showing us the. That they had survived. Survived the barn encounter. Also, like on the, you know, on the list of spin offs that I am interested in, we'll get to the one that we seem to be heading toward later. But you know, I'd really be into like some sort of real estate show with the how are you selling life in after absolutely nothing House Hunters? Hawkins with the Turnbulls.
- [103:31]
B
No, it's Steve Harrington, Little league coach or it's fucking nothing. And I think you know that that's true, obviously.
- [103:37]
A
I mean that's so clearly the. The only contender of real consideration and merit.
- [103:44]
B
Robin and Smith. I'm not to be honest with you.
- [103:47]
A
That would be great as well. But yeah, when the hug between Derek and Steve in the mind flayer and then the glimpse of them on the baseball diamond, it's hard not to think about the future that we could have.
- [104:01]
B
Okay, so Ted with a golf club, Karen with a wine bottle. Nancy with all of her guns. Mike with his flare gun. The Wheelers are doing their best, but here comes Holly the heroic. And she finds the fireplace poker she does right when she needs it. How did you feel about this blow? The very fetching cheekbone slice. You know, one of my favorite. We got some emails from listeners being like, oh, Joanna's favorite. A Cheekbone slice.
- [104:32]
A
You do. You love a cheekbone. You hate a crevice. You have poor crevice.
- [104:35]
B
Yeah.
- [104:36]
A
But you love an ocean vista, and you love a cheekbone slice. This was a pretty deep gash. Less of a. Less of a slice and more of a. Like, that's. We. We've. We've cut. We've cut deep here. But I liked this. I thought this was good for a couple reasons. First of all, just Henry's face, the shock when this happens. He is doing so much and conveying so much with his eyes and with his expression. It's just remarkable. Yeah, we talked about this a lot. Last volume in the last couple pods. But, like, obviously, Holly and Max spent a lot of time talking about Holly's lament. Right. That she hadn't.
- [105:15]
B
I froze.
- [105:16]
A
Intervened when the Demogorgon was attacking Karen or when Vecna was attacking Max. And so we sort of, I think, felt and knew that we were going to get a payoff for that was the he. On the heels of Holly. Holly, the heroic speech, running toward her, her own portal alone.
- [105:30]
B
Thank you.
- [105:31]
A
Thanks, Max. The payoff, or was there more to come? You know, stumbling up a sky, stumbling upon the poker, and deciding to lift it and to go and protect her friends, I thought was a nice payoff. You know, we had gotten Max saying, like, you're not being fair to yourself. Like, you think. You honestly think you get to stop these monsters with a fire poker. But it's like, Holly is a character who will try, and that's a cool thing to. To know about her. I also thought, given that we are building toward the big. Are we heading toward a moment of redemption for Henry Creel or not? Stretch of the finale, seeing Henry stop the third swing of the fire poker, twist Holly's arm to drop it out of her hand, choke her, knock her down, knock her unconscious. It's like, not that we needed it, but one more reminder of the violence that he has inflicted upon child after child after child. Right on the precipice of what is about to unfold. I thought was useful.
- [106:39]
B
I think that's a really good point. Henry's falling apart. Yeah, this, as you've already mentioned, like, Jamie Campbell Bower. I already put this on like, like, Twitter and Blue sky and already got roasted by people being like, you love a tall, gangly, blonde villain of dubious European extraction. It's true, but that's not. I just think this is one of the best performances I've ever seen, honestly. And I don't know that I think The Henry stuff is, like, perfectly written here in the finale, but I think it's perfectly performed. And so it just sort of pastes over any of the cracks that I. That I have in this. The decision to let Henry be in his. Let Jamie perform this in his Mr. Whatsit, guys, rather than Vecna, is so crucial. Yeah. So thank you so much, Duffer Brothers, for. For giving us a human face. I just think that, like elsewhere in. In in the Abyss, right, Will starts to psychically connect with Henry, realizing he's still Alive. Live again, 42 minutes in the finale, we get Joyce's first line, Will. But his entrance into the cave, him fighting. What we discover really is the mind flare trying to keep him out of there. The Resisted. At first I thought that was the Mind Flayer's voice in his mind being like, resist going into the cave or resist. So I don't know. But we find out later that it is a character who still doesn't have a name is called Rogue Son Scientist. But Henry. We'll come back to this because it sort of happens in two parts. But like Henry watching the end of his innocence in that Mind Shaft, the notion that we talked about again and again of there before the Grace goes will or 11 Henry is just another version of them without the party, without the family, because the Creel family kind of sucks. Like, I just think Jamie's performance of that, the horror, the humanity, the desperation just in his eyes alone is, you know, the quivering as he's sort of like physically fighting off something that's restraining him. I just. I was captivated by it. I thought it was so, so good.
- [109:01]
A
I wrote quivering down in my notes a lot as well. The shaking, shuddering breaths.
- [109:08]
B
You know, we had seen.
- [109:09]
A
Seen him stand at the face of that cave before. We had heard Max use similar language. Like, what Will is saying here about he's afraid. He's. He's terrified, he's afraid. But what we. The version of it that we got here, the way that it was completely undoing him, to stand on the brink of confronting this again was really arresting to watch. Like you said, we'll talk about because we get the glimpses and then the full thing later, we'll talk about all of the particulars about our rock and our spinoff scientists and our rogue scientists. Later, I thought that to your point about the barrier of this memory, this was interesting to me. Of course, it is also still, yes, there's the trauma and that is real and the terror, but this idea that there was this literal, the barrier that was stopping him and that he had to fight through the kind of grabbing of his stomach, the clawing, the kind of parallel there.
- [110:04]
B
Incredible wig work, honestly. The wig is coming unraveled and just sort of hanging in his face.
- [110:09]
A
Some amazing, like, shaggy strands there.
- [110:12]
B
Yeah.
- [110:12]
A
You know, we see many times in this finale and across the season the way that eleven is trying to like, claw forward against the force of the Sonic Hedgehogs. And so, like, you know, a parallel there of just the visual nature of trying to break through something or someone who is trying to stop you, I thought was interesting.
- [110:28]
B
Is that the first time we've called it the Sonic Hedgehog? Because that's the first time that the name hedgehog has made sense to me.
- [110:38]
A
Okay.
- [110:39]
B
So this happens. Will's like, yeah, you know, he's hurt. All this sort of stuff like that. Everyone's still kind of Robin's like, can you stop him with your powers? Just like, everyone's still kind of standing there. And then at last, Mike and Lucas and the rest of them start running towards the. The pain tree, which is actually the Mind Flayer upside down. Okay. Meanwhile. And we've avoided it for as long as we. We've. We can. Yeah. Meanwhile. Psy. The military.
- [111:04]
A
Yep.
- [111:04]
B
I just want to echo what you said earlier. None of this works for me. Like, absolutely none of it.
- [111:08]
A
You know, we're like, this will probably lead to a mutiny. It did. Nobody cared. You know, Acres. She's got a God complex. Didn't care. It doesn't matter.
- [111:15]
B
Who gives a shit? Like, he's just like, he could have gone in with Kay's approval or not. It didn't matter at all. Ultimately, Kaner goons track down Vicki and Max after radio shack and Spo leaves them first, Erica, Missouri, Mr. Clark.
- [111:27]
A
Good detective work.
- [111:29]
B
Baffling. Okay.
- [111:30]
A
Looking at her short form radio box, that just happened to be like the one thing. Well, I never saw this.
- [111:37]
B
I will say the Radio Shack has been prominently there the whole time. So at least there was that. But I was just like, based on what I know.
- [111:44]
A
Any excuse to think about. Bob. Great. I mean, the fact that that like this, the opening of the episode is basically like Kay and a couple dudes we don't know. Which was a worrying choice. I was like, oh, my God, how. How much time are we gonna have to spend with these guys when we. I've already mentioned leaving the. The. The squawk van below where Erica and Mr. Clark are hiding. Not a thing that I think makes a lot of sense for characters that Smart. But did I enjoy the like. The real hasn't started yet. Erica, language please. This is an Intro to Science. This situation demands cussing. Yes. And I would say this is another spin off. I would watch. By the way, the like.
- [112:17]
B
Erica. Mr. Clark.
- [112:18]
A
Yeah. Intro to Science actually is the like, let's go save the world. The situation demands custom sync group. Great stuff. They're the best. They're the best.
- [112:28]
B
Flip side of that is Acres and his goons, which is the worst they.
- [112:32]
A
Wow.
- [112:33]
B
I even wrote the note here. Hedgehog. Sonic waves. And I didn't put it together. You had to put Sonic in front of Hedgehog for me to really feel it there. Okay. They come into the Hawkins Lab because they've gone rogue. I guess Murray gets to blow up a helicopter. That's fun. I did have a second. So I made a bet with the someone about who would die in the finale.
- [112:53]
A
And this.
- [112:53]
B
And I. I won, by the way. Because the bet was just simply do Dustin and Steve survive? And I said yes and this person said no. So I won. That was. Those are the simple stakes. But my death. My final death prediction. Yeah. Was Ki dies and maybe Murray dies. So it's not just one young brown woman who dies in the finale. We'll get to the. The 11 complication is the complication. But this was a moment where I was like, is Murray going to jump off that roof with that explosive and sacrifice himself? He seemed too gleeful in his execution for that to be that moment. But there was a second where I was like, oh, am I going to be right about both deaths? And I wasn't. But that's fine. Murray gets to blow up a helicopter.
- [113:31]
A
He does. This show loves an exploding helicopter. We obviously got a big exploding helicopter in season four. Here's another one. Thought this was decent payoff for Murray's season long smuggler obsession with. Not everyone gets a moment. But grenades specifically.
- [113:44]
B
Yeah, everyone gets a moment in the finale. Right? Joyce gets to chop off fna's head. Blah blah. Murray to blow up a helicopter. Love this for him.
- [113:50]
A
Good for him.
- [113:50]
B
Yeah. Hop picks up 11 and just ditches K in the hallway.
- [113:55]
A
So bad. This is so bad.
- [113:58]
B
Tell me, tell me, Hop Defender, how you felt in this moment. No, no.
- [114:02]
A
Hop. Someone who is drawn to magnetically pulled toward Hopper as though a hole has been blown into the ball of the upside down. And I am being sucked into space as I being sucked toward him.
- [114:16]
B
That is.
- [114:16]
A
That is how I feel about Hopper. There's something about him that is inescapable to this Was so, so such a tough one for my guy Hop. Of course, we've been primed for something even worse because he made his, like, I'll kill. I'll kill her, as we discussed, is very concerning. Yeah, I'll just. I'll just kill her. Leaving her. Did he go back because Elle sent him? He did, and it didn't take much convincing. He did go back, and I was.
- [114:45]
B
Very glad that that happened. But I also believe that Hop, who's a big, strong guy, could have big. Both of those small women up.
- [114:52]
A
There is no question that he could have lifted that boat. And he was just like.
- [114:57]
B
He was just like, bye. Okay, so Akers comes in. He's got a gun at Kali. I did, like, this final moment between Kali and Hop where they, like, silently agree, we're not going to give up. L. So kill me.
- [115:13]
A
Yes.
- [115:13]
B
And Hop's like, oh, I was planning to do it anyway. So he's saving me a bullet. Right? So. But because of Murray's work with the helicopter and Elle fighting against the hedgehog, she shows up in time to make a curs blow his own brains out. Which sometimes when Elle kills people, I'm like, this one. I was like, okay, I hated this character. This is fine for me.
- [115:36]
A
I thought this was so dark.
- [115:39]
B
Like, she.
- [115:39]
A
Because we know.
- [115:40]
B
Very, very dark.
- [115:41]
A
She snaps all the necks. Her signature move. Her face, extra relish.
- [115:46]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [115:47]
A
Forcing him to draw the gun, too.
- [115:49]
B
I was okay with it, but I. But I hear you, because I was like, is this okay? And then I was like, I'm okay with it. But it. I did have a moment where I.
- [115:55]
A
Was, like, cracked a lot of necks and exploded a lot of brains and eyeballs. It's not like this is the first time we've seen 11 do something very dark and very violent. But it was like, boy, okay.
- [116:06]
B
It was a lot. Okay, but too late for Kali, right? She's got. Been. Got gut shot. And then the camera follows Hop out into the hallway. So we have plausible deniability for Mike's story at the end that maybe we do not see Kali die here. Right. And when he comes back, the implication is that she's dead and whether or not she's just, like, sort of playing dead or it's illusion, magic or whatever it is like that. So I would. I mean, we've been dancing around it. Whatever. I will just say I believe this. I believe. I choose to believe.
- [116:36]
A
I choose to believe same.
- [116:37]
B
Mike's story makes a lot of sense to me. It's something. It also happens to corroborate a prediction I had. So that's always fun for me. Yeah. But I choose to believe. So I. I believe that. That we are out with Hopper in the hallway so we don't see Kali die here so that we can get Mike's story later.
- [116:57]
A
I think that's right. Yes. I'm excited to talk about. To talk about. Yeah.
- [117:01]
B
All the parts of that. And actually, like, whether or not not it's true. I actually love that it exists. I love. I love that. I think it's a great decision. Same 11 decides to Mario bounce her way up to the abyss.
- [117:13]
A
I also wrote Mario Black Jump. I also wrote that great stuff out of having seen that.
- [117:19]
B
I know, like, with the boing boing sound effects. I would have loved it. And essentially says goodbye to Hopper before she goes. This is her. This is her last conversation with Hopper.
- [117:29]
A
Because last one ever.
- [117:31]
B
He's not in the truck with them. Them. He doesn't talk to her, you know, once they get on the other side of the rift. So right when I was a kid, I'm going to read it, and then I'm going to tell you. Let you tell me how you feel about it. When I was a kid and you found me in the woods, I was scared. Really scared. And I didn't understand the world. I didn't understand people. You took me in, raised me, protected me. You became my dad. But I'm not a kid anymore. And I'm not Sarah. That's my favorite line. I'm not Sarah. Sarah. Yep. She didn't have a choice to make, but I do. And I need you to trust me to make the right choice. I need you to believe in me. And she hands him back Sarah's hair tie, which she's had on her wrist in season two. I. For all my hop feelings, whatever. I loved this. I thought this was really good. I have a choice to make. I need you to trust me to make the right choices. So she's like, I am. I am an empowered, activated person with my own thoughts and feelings and my own decisions, and I'm making this choice here. And like she has. If we choose to believe Mike's story, which I do, I believe she has already made the choice with Kali to do this illusion magic later. So she's not just talking about her choice to Mario bounce up to the abyss. She's talking about to leave. And so she's prepping him for the acceptance that he's going to have to come to in the ultimate decision she makes. And all of The. You know, I'm not Sarah. I'm not a fragile, vulnerable thing that you lost. I am a person who's making a choice. And I just really. I really liked all this. And I thought, Millie, Bobby Brown's performance here was really, really good.
- [119:14]
A
And.
- [119:16]
B
Yeah. So tell me. Tell me your thoughts on feelings about it.
- [119:19]
A
I also thought this was beautiful. Do you think if we had seen Elle jump on the Pandora floating rocks, the Mario blocks, like, would we. Would a mushroom have come out? Would we have gotten an extra life? Like, is that what happened? We got. We got like a green mushroom.
- [119:32]
B
She is a star, and she's. It's like as she, like, as she, like, jumps and tucks and rolls and, like, rips him down from inside the Mind Flayer. Yeah. Why not?
- [119:42]
A
Why didn't we get to see that?
- [119:43]
B
I don't.
- [119:43]
A
I don't understand it.
- [119:45]
B
I also thought this is a Sega property. This is a Sonic the Hedgehog property, not a Nintendo property.
- [119:51]
A
Fair. I also thought that this was great. The flashes of the footage, especially this really rich stretch for them in season two, the woods, the lessons in the cabin, hop dancing. It just sends a jolt through your heart to see that again in the context of this conversation and this moment. We talked about this when we covered episode four. Neither of us liked the hop death fake out, but we talked about how I was like. I was really like. Despite not appreciating the death fake out, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for 11 to scream dad. Like, for us to hear that for the first time. I thought, like, oh, my God, are we about to. Are we about to hear that this quieter.
- [120:37]
B
You became my dad?
- [120:38]
A
More personal utterance of that for the first time worked even better for me than it would have in that moment. I was really glad that they waited to give that to us here. I also was quite moved by the payoff of the bracelet. And I think it's not a rejection, right? It's not. What could be more last of us coded than this? Literally?
- [121:01]
B
I'm not your daughter. Yeah, exactly.
- [121:03]
A
It's not a cold or hurtful. I'm not her. It's this, I thought, very earnest and sincere reminder. You can love me like your kid, and I do love you like my dad, but you can't make the mistake of thinking I'm someone I'm not. You know, like, the respect that you owe me is to. To see who I am. And, like, I thought that that was so important for 11 to be able to really articulate in full to Hop here. It. It's, I think, especially.
- [121:31]
B
Sorry. Especially, like. Especially when you think about, like, a conversation she has with Mike in the void later, when she's like, you've always seen, you know, who I am. Part of that, to me, because I just choose to believe is her being like, you're gonna figure this out. Yeah, you're gonna. Because you know who I am.
- [121:47]
A
Yeah.
- [121:48]
B
You will understand what I'm actually doing here eventually. But also that just sort of like, you saw me and.
- [121:55]
A
And.
- [121:55]
B
And see. So to Hop here.
- [121:57]
A
See me.
- [121:58]
B
See who I am. I am. And. And this goes back to the email that we got from Nicole at the top. That we read at the top of the podcast, which is just sort of like, for people who feel unseen again and again and again, for people who feel like what they have to contribute is unacknowledged or. Or underappreciated, like, see me see we can be heroes sort of thing.
- [122:22]
A
I'm getting choked up. Like, she does give Hop the gift of, you became my dad, and he is. Her love for him is here, but this is like. Like, this is the fully realized version of the thing I was saying. We were, like, building toward where it's like, this is about her. Right. And it has to be. That's the only thing that would feel right, like, her appeal to him here, which is, I think, again, gentle and heartfelt. It. It. It's loving, but it's also, like, it's a loving challenge. Right? It's like, it's time to do the thing that you keep telling me you're gonna do. Believe in me. Trust me. Treat me the way that, you know I deserve to be treated and that you're just, like, you're afraid because you're afraid of losing me, but allowing me to do this thing. Love me for. For. For all of the. The things that make me who I am. And I think, like, it's Hop's opportunity to finally follow through in full, you know, to give Elle the thing that she deserves, which is, like, the opportunity to set her own course and to make the future that she wants to make, not the future that he or anybody else thinks that she should. So I thought this was great. Obviously crucial. There are a list of. Of final character beats and moments that they couldn't fuck up at the end. This is one of them.
- [123:32]
B
Hops goodbye. 11's goodbye to hop.
- [123:34]
A
11'S goodbye to hop. This is one of them. I think if this had not been executed well, it would have been pretty devastating.
- [123:39]
B
I agree. And, like, You, You. Even if you thought like, she's not going to make it or she's not, you know, like, we didn't know that this was the final scene that they were going to share together when watching it, even though it.
- [123:55]
A
It.
- [123:55]
B
What?
- [123:56]
A
Okay.
- [123:56]
B
What I liked about it is it kind of feels that way, but not in a way that like, sometimes can be like, annoyingly telegraphed where you're like, this is clearly the last conversation these two characters are going to have because it's so focused on, like, let me do this thing right now. You know what I mean? And so it's not like a goodbye, goodbye, goodbye until you find out. We, the viewers find out. It is the goodbye, goodbye. Okay.
- [124:18]
A
Yeah. Yeah. It's almost in some ways the opposite of like the, you know, like, there's no promise of a thing here that they're gonna share.
- [124:27]
B
Right.
- [124:28]
A
That's setting us up for being deprived of that. Yeah, it's. It was a very assured conversation and a strong performance from. From Millie here.
- [124:36]
B
Millie, Millie.
- [124:37]
A
Great stuff.
- [124:37]
B
All right. Vecna and Henry and 1. And Will and the Mind Flayer.
- [124:41]
A
Yeah.
- [124:42]
B
Could I have done all of the Henry stuff together? I could have, but why not take another opportunity to talk about Jamie Kippel Bower and what a legend he is? I think it's a story. I think Maxim Blatt, who is the young actor who they cast as Henry Cre, is also extremely good in this sequence. And Noah Shop is also here. Okay. So echoed across young Henry, adult Henry and Will, we get this like triple mirrored, like, flinch back with the hand moment. And which I'm choosing to believe is a Back to the future reference, but it doesn't have to be. But that is what I immediately thought of. Um, but I just watching Henry watch his young self and physically feel the things that happened to his young self was. Was so important. We're talking about Jamie quote about this in a second that I just thought was like, really amazing. Will makes this tearful, impassioned, direct to camera plea, which for me hit directly in the Childlike Empress Never Ending Story. Did you? Yeah. Okay, so in the Never Ending Story, if you've never seen it, towards the end of the film, the character, the Childlike Empress, is talking to the character Bastion, who's like, actually in a different world altogether, but she's truck, she goes. She breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the camera. And as part of that, I was rewatching that scene just to make sure that I wasn't like cuckoo bananas and feeling like A visual comp. But in that scene, she says to Atreyu, a different character, by the way, watch the Neverending Story if you never have. But she's talking about Bast, and she says, he doesn't understand that he's the one who has the power to stop it. He simply can't imagine that one little boy could be that important. And then. And then in the direct camera, she says, why don't you do what you dream, Bastion? And then later, Moon Child. Okay. But anyway, simply can't imagine that one little boy could be that important. Yeah, it's just like, this is Will. This is eleven. This is Henry. Like, Henry does have the power to stop this. But, like, when Henry. Henry. You know, and we get this flashback where. Where the rogue scientist. Oh, by the way, really quickly, the rogue scientist, again, he does not have a character name. Maybe he'll get one in the. In the spin off, but is played by an actor, Fred Kohler, who was on an 80s sitcom that I loved, Kate and Ally and had, like, I saw someone references somewhere. They're like, I wonder if they cast Fred Kohler because he was, like, one of the ultimate bull cut kids of the 80s. And I'm like, I wonder if that's true. Kate and Alley was a show that I absolutely loved, and I didn't recognize him from that, but I thought that was really fun. But anyway, like, you know, the scientist says, you must resist it. It will consume you. It will consume all. And then. And then little Henry just, like, poofs his mind into smoke. It's so good. It's so scary and good. Just, like, blinks him out of existence. And then, like, has this horrified reaction to it. And again, like, yeah, first shadow people kind of knew that this happened. And what happens to Henry, How Henry gets from that to torturing animals and spiders and jars and all the things that happened in season four is part of what Foreshadow is about. So, like, that story, more of that story exists on a stage show that many of us can't access, but it does exist and maybe will be filmed and put on Netflix someday or something like that. I don't know. But Will is saying things like, you were just a kid. A kid like me, and it used you. It used you to bring it here. You're like me, Henry, a vessel, but you can resist it. Help us fight. Don't let it win. Right. This very, like, Bastion. Do what you dream sort of thing. And then Henry gets this response, which you. Which we already alluded to. Right? It has never controlled me and I never control. Controlled it. Don't you see, William? I could have resisted it, but I chose to join it. It needs me and I need it. We are one chill stuffers. Chills great as the pain tree is, you know.
- [128:53]
A
Oh my God.
- [128:54]
B
Transforming. And I mean that in the 80s toy sense, like into the mind flare again. You and I weren't shocked by this because we talked a lot about how that thing looked like an upside down spider. But it. Yeah cool as execution of it. It was really, really cool. This lack of a face turn for Henry, which I. Which I want to hear your thoughts on in a second is really interesting, but I. Before we do that, I want to read this quote from Jamie, right? He says quote, and this is a. You know the. The Netflix blog site Tudum has like a lot of these. I really hate saying Tudum, but that's what it's called. The sound that anyway has a lot of great interviews. This is one that Jamie gave, right? And he says he finds a briefcase with a black rock that pours into his hand and changes everything. This is the line that come. It's the reason he lost his youth, his childhood, his love, his heart. Then Will comes into the mine and tells him he can resist. But Henry says, quote, no, it showed me that this world is broken. That man is. Man is broken. End quote. It was the first moment in season five. I truly felt human again and understood him. I felt like I've been wanting to protect him all this time because I felt like, like all the people just hate him. And it was in that moment that I was like, now you see. Now you see why I am. I loved this quote from Jamie. It really helps underline to me why his performance is so good. This like, effort he made to really, really understand absolutely. And empathize with Henry. This is something that people who play villains talk about all the time, where it's like you need to empathize with your character. Even if you're playing a horrible villain, you have to be on your character's side because there's no other way to perform that character if you're not doing that. So like Jamie taking that to the extreme, talking as he has in interviews, talking about going to watch for Shadow and like digging into Henry's story inside of that play. As you and I talked about in a previous podcast episode, Jamie showing up to perform in Foreshadow on Broadway. Like, just sort of like how inside of Henry Creel he has made his performance. Performance is so good. And then the fact that like it's too late for Henry.
- [131:05]
A
Yeah.
- [131:06]
B
Which again I was. I felt some predictions are right, some predictions are wrong. Hold your theories loosely. I felt so sure we were going to get a Henry fate that some shard of humanity in Henry would come through and. And push back against the Mind flayer. Which is this. Yeah. Thing that has possessed him. Which the stage show makes like a bit clearer. And now it is clear to people who watch the finale. So.
- [131:29]
A
Yeah.
- [131:29]
B
But this idea that like it wasn't controlling me. I wasn't controlling it. It's interesting watching a behind the scenes of the production designers talking about creating the Pain Tree and one of them said something like this is how Henry is puppeteering this structure. So him being sort of like you know, hooked into it as he was before 11 comes in and rips him down.
- [131:53]
A
Yeah.
- [131:53]
B
So like him in as the engine of this machine but it still goes after he' ripped out of it. So it's not really just like a puppeteering. It's a symbiotic relationship. It's like an I feed you, you feed me sort of thing. And it's just too late. We are one. Which is like a clever, great wordplay in terms of like the Henry Vna one thing. But I. I found this like a really satisfying mind flayer reveal and a really character rooted, enriching depth of understanding humanity inside of a monster moment inside of this story. Which is. I think some of the great heights of this episode are like this and then the epilogue and all of that has to do with character and emotion. So it really worked for me. I loved it.
- [132:42]
A
Same. I thought that this was spectacular to pan out of the scene for a minute and into the discussion around the finale and the interviews and what we've learned since the finale aired. I will say before returning to the scene, I don't know if. And I'm paraphrasing, the spin off is about the rock is like.
- [133:04]
B
Yeah.
- [133:04]
A
So interesting to me now. Will I be there on day one? Of course. I'm a little puzzled by this for a number of reasons, honestly. But like the. It's a new place, it's all new characters, it's a different mythology. But it's this rock that proved so crucial to the final moments of like the finale dimension.
- [133:24]
B
Oh, that's, you know what it's giving Caspar Dagger, honestly.
- [133:28]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [133:30]
B
But I think, I mean I understand the impulse because they really want, you know, in interviews before they revealed that it was this earlier in the season, people are like, can you allude to. And they're like, there's one scene in the finale that'll make it clear what the spin off is about. And then people are like, will we see any of these characters that are in the show right now? And he's basically. They were basically like, no, that's gonna be hard. We can't explain why. And to me, I was like, oh, prequel.
- [133:50]
A
So, like, they're doing a prequel.
- [133:51]
B
Prequel, essentially, because they do want, again, until Stranger Things gets rebooted in three years, they do want these stories of these characters to be done. And I kind of understand that because I think no matter what happens, they're handing it off. Right? They've, They've made a new lucrative deal. And while they're producing things for Netflix, they're not going to be the showrunners. And I don't think I can understand not wanting, like, the Steve Harrington show to not be one. Like, to not be one. You're running day to day, but the, the spooky, ooky Blackrock show, you're like, go with God and, and, and, and, and run with that mythology. You know what I mean?
- [134:26]
A
Like, yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah, I did like that we got the like, you know, the Montauk mentioned from Hopkin Joyce for a number of reasons, but that kind of wink to like the original idea for the show. And then you have a moment where you're like, is that gonna be the spin off? And then it's very clear from their comments, literally, I mean, literally, they're like, that will not be the spin off, but also it won't be these, these characters.
- [134:44]
B
So. Right, that's.
- [134:44]
A
It's. I'm, I'm curious to see where, where, where that all goes in terms of the rock itself and what happens with it. I did think the design was pretty cool. The kind of like the veining, the kind of like neon pink orange, like very like Rift gate. That's funny. Like visual.
- [135:02]
B
I was thinking of the rocks in Temple of Doom, you know, like the rocks that have the, like the scarring on them and the glowing aspect of it.
- [135:08]
A
Yeah, yeah. I thought that it was interesting to give us something that was like, visually distinct with this rock, but then had some kind of visual continuity with the rifts in terms of this idea of like, it's a different mythology but clearly connected in some way. Yeah, interesting. I thought that the way that it absorbed into not just into Henry, but specifically into the wound, the bullet wound, was really interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It makes you think it's like, would that have. Would it have claimed him? Like, does it need blood? Is it have. Like that you have participated in some violent moment? Like, what exactly is a preying upon something that's already inherent to who you are? Or some. A moment, a choice? Because obviously choice is so central. An action that unfolds the way that the tendency tendrils kind of when it like, constituted the tendrils, like the very like, veiny, wormy, like, look kind of makes its way into vine, like into his wound. That was all interesting. I thought that the flash of the. Before it had been shaped into the spider form. The kind of cloud, very, you know, smoky smoke monster that we had previously, you know, glimpsed. Obviously.
- [136:08]
B
I think the audio work on the, like, Find me sort of the multiple voices.
- [136:13]
A
There's a deep voice and then there's the kind of high, like, Hitch Child.
- [136:16]
B
Yeah.
- [136:16]
A
Yeah, that was really cool. It gave me kind of like Three Eyed Raven, like, look for me beneath the tree vibes, but, like, very ominous in more ominous form, obviously. Yeah, yeah. So that was interesting. And then I also loved the line you already read that you must resist it. It will consume you. It will consume all. Rogue scientist moment when we. When Henry's eyes widen in terror there. And then we flash and we see the mind flayer into us. The more familiar now spider form. That got my mind rac. In a fun way that I like. I'm like, did it show Henry? Like, is that there for us or for Henry? Is it showing Henry a shape that it. He will form it into in the future? Like, what kind of paradox stuff is happening there in a story about choice? And that's really interesting.
- [137:02]
B
The misery of the music.
- [137:03]
A
Yeah, exactly. I liked all that. That was interesting in terms of the lack of a face turn. Will's appeal, what Henry says. I thought this was really good and I really loved it. The performance is a huge part of that. But just thematically, in terms of what happened here, I think that the important thing, obviously we talked about this a lot heading into the finale, but, like, to me, what felt like it needed to happen was that the characters extend this opportunity to him. That the. That will or 11 or whomever make this plea to him, like, give him that try. Try for some remorse moment that felt like it needed to happen. And I. I'm glad it did. And that feels right to appeal to the humanity inside, to recognize, as we hear Will say, that Henry was a used, abused kid just like him. Just like Elle, all of that Needed to be there. I'm glad we got it. I. I really like that we got the, like. No, it showed me the truth. I chose to join it because I think there's a little bit of a. Especially in a show that is so drenched and rooted in, like, Star wars influences, et cetera, a little bit of a subverting, maybe our expectation of a redemption arc that I appreciate. But I think there's also just like. It felt really potent to me given how much of the finale for all the characters this was true, but particularly for 11. How much of the here at the end of all things centers on choice, that we get Henry's version of that. And it could have. Choice could have been. Could have gone in either way. But, like, because it was a choice, an active one, and we're hearing about how he thinks about the choices that he's made in the past, but then also he is making a choice again in the present, that. Yet another parallel that is also ultimately a divergence of there before. The graces you noted felt really, really right to me at the end. So I dug this. I really dug it.
- [138:50]
B
That Jamie Lamory says he lost his love, he lost his heart. It reminded me of one of my favorite fairy tales. It's actually my sister's favorite, but, like, sort of by association. A favorite of mine growing up was the Snow Queen, which is about, you know, these two friends, a boy and a girl. And. And the boy gets like, basically taken by the Snow Queen and she puts a shard of ice in his heart, and it eventually just sort of like numbs him to human emotion. And. And his friend has to like, basically melt the shard of ice in his heart to get him back. And so this idea that, like, this smoke monster lost. We love you always.
- [139:33]
A
Always.
- [139:34]
B
This shard invaded Henry and, and, and, and again, if you watch for Shadow, this is a process. It's not a. Like, he. He blew that scientist's brains out and then he's evil. It's like a slow corruption, essentially. And so like, that idea of like this shard inside of him that just eats his humanity out of him and there's still a little left enough for him to have this conversation of Henry. But most of him is been eaten up by the mind flare. He's been played. And I just thought it was very good. Okay, then we get the party versus the mind player. We've already talked about a lot of this, so I'm going to. I'm going to cut to the plan, which is Nancy, who is a Badass. But has very little legs. Is going to somehow outrun the Mind Flayer. Yeah. And bait it into a crevice while the rest of the party scale some. I would say quite sizable cliffs in the ma. In mere. Mere seconds. Mere minutes. Right.
- [140:36]
A
She started shooting also as bait before they had taken off trying to get in position.
- [140:42]
B
Here's what I do like. Nice symmetry with the Mind Flare Attack. And Star Court Mall. Like them having the sort of high ground around great stuff.
- [140:51]
A
Tossing fireworks. And here we've got Flame flowers and.
- [140:55]
B
Lucas back on slingshot duty. As it should be. Great hit points. Nice D and D DNA. And final attack. The flamethrower. He likes it. Cole Mallory wanted to see that flamethrower in action. And Jonathan delivered. Dustin and Steve gooping it up for Eddie.
- [141:16]
A
Yeah.
- [141:16]
B
Will gets to do his sorcerer pose one last time. I thought that was phenomenal. It still hits. I hope Noah uses it at parties for the rest of his life. I think it looks great. Two, three things I didn't like.
- [141:28]
A
Tell me I hate a crevice. Yeah. Abhor a crevice.
- [141:32]
B
And Nancy's in. In the mother of all crevices. It's tough. Tight spot. She is also pelting the Mind Flare with bullets etc when the kids are in there. And I just had some questions about that. Will said that is where he's keeping the kids. I saw it in my mind. So yeah, they know that the kids are in. In there and they're just absolutely peppering that thing with bullets etc. Etc. I just have no. Has no concern about that. Just some questions. So that's. That's where I sit on the I'm of two minds of this Mind Flayer plan here.
- [142:13]
A
Yeah. Same. I was very distracted with worrying about the kids inside of the Mind Flayer as our party was attacking it in every way possible. And I thought it was quite weird in general. I thought it's an action scene set piece and a visual set piece. This was like gobsmacking. I thought it looked great. The multiple like wide pans and sort of side profile shots that just really like you know the duffers have talked about how many video game influences are present here. And you can certainly feel that too. But there were multiple shots that really gave me in a great way like comic book splash page or like end game.
- [142:49]
B
You know 11 like flying up.
- [142:52]
A
Yes.
- [142:53]
B
So tiny. Tiny L from the side and then like the direct on the comic book splash page is. Is a great way to reference it.
- [143:01]
A
I.
- [143:01]
B
And I've said this on the podcast before, but I often think of it as like painted on the side of a van. Like, this is just like one of those just like visuals where it's just like, sick. And also. And I put this in the notes. I wonder if almost the entirety of the wig budget went to this VFX shot because it looks amazing and. And it helps me understand why. I don't know, the like, blue screen behind the needle at the beginning of the season looks stupid or whatever. I'm like, if they're saving their dollars for this moment, they spent them well. Because it looks fantastic.
- [143:30]
A
Yeah. I mean, this looks. I. This looks better than like a lot of movies look like. The effects here were incredible. I also was thinking of Starcourt Mall and I like that symmetry. I like that we found a way to call back to every season in some meaningful way here at the end. That was really fun. On the kids front being inside there was like, yeah, Nancy firing. But also like just all of the. We're burning this thing. When Elle ripped the hole, you think she's kind of gonna go for the mouth when she's jumping and then she rips the hole in the chest and jumps her. And I was like, that's fucking sick. And then as soon as she landed, she cut Vecna down. This is. This is sick.
- [144:04]
B
Into the tuck and roll. No quipping, just going.
- [144:08]
A
Incredible stuff. But I was like, what if a child had been plugged in in exactly that spot? Why is nobody worried about that? Very odd. However, it's clear the Gatorade is working. Win for Gatorade.
- [144:18]
B
What if she ripped through Thomas in order to get to the center of the mind?
- [144:23]
A
Listen for the crowd is like we needed to see more deaths. Should Thomas have been ripped in half? We're just here to ask questions. We're just here to ask questions.
- [144:32]
B
Inquiry. Like Nancy dropping out of school. We just want to get in our journalism work.
- [144:38]
A
Exactly.
- [144:38]
B
Who's on the ground reporting?
- [144:40]
A
Just asking some questions.
- [144:40]
B
Yeah.
- [144:41]
A
I thought that, you know, especially right after the. We. You know, the. The Henry, like we are. One moment. Oh, man. Again, the. The. The kind of counterweight to this is that the demo. The demo. The demos are not here. No demo. Not a. Not a demogorgon. A demodog. A demo bat. A demo. Anything in sight? It diminished some of the. We're building toward what we think is going to be this massive hive mind sequence at the end. In a way that I feel really. I will not stop thinking is odd and no one will convince me is Is not odd. However, I think the Mike reminding everyone, like the hive mind works in both ways. If we heard the. The mind flare, we hurt Vecna. L is fighting Vecna. That's hurting the mind flare. The payoff for the symbiosis in the final battle in that front of the connection between Vecna Vecna and the Mind Flayer was I guess, effectively battle and Vecna and Will. So that was fun. I like to toss some dirt into Vecna's face.
- [145:37]
B
We're all.
- [145:37]
A
Whenever a character does that, we're like, why don't more characters. Characters do that? You know.
- [145:42]
B
Will learning his lesson from last night.
- [145:44]
A
Don't.
- [145:44]
B
Don't go for the ankle. Go for the final. Rip the arm off.
- [145:48]
A
Still could have gone for the neck. But then what would Joyce have had to do in the. In the finale?
- [145:51]
B
Great point. A lot of people seem to be displeased with this as like a final battle sort of moment, that it happened too fast was too easy for them. Stuff like that. I don't really feel that way. I do kind of. Of wish the destruction of Henry had been a bit more psychologically pegged to Henry. Yeah. Instead it's pegged to Will's. I'm not afraid anymore. We're not afraid of you. Right. And we're cutting down. We are not afraid of you. And. And there are. There are ways in which this is like a good evolution of. Of the shame and terror and torment that Will and various others have been gripped with since season one. And they're shaking the that off and they're like, we can fight this. Right? We can be heroes. I'm not running anymore. All that sort of stuff. It might have been the delivery. I don't know. It just like I wanted a little bit more emotion or psychology or heart inside of. Of that. But everyone working together, everyone having a role to play. Except for Murray and Hop were just sitting in the lab, I guess, and Vicky and Max, who've got. Got at this point. But everyone having something to do, you know, that matters. Lucas saying, we're gonna need the party, the whole party, like at the beginning of the season. Like, that's really good stuff. I will unfortunately quote the labyrinth at you. Not for the last time. This is one of the iconic quotes from the Labyrinth, which I've quoted part of. But I'm just gonna give you the full one this time because we got the full never ending story. We're gonna give you the full labyrinth. Through dangers untold and hardships. Unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom is great. You have no power over me. And that being the like death blow to a villain is just sort of something that I just think is always going to hit for me. And I just want to shout out our listener Megan, who emailed and pointed out to us that this June is. Is the Labyrinth's 40th anniversary. Oh, and it's coming back to movie theaters. Just something to think about. I'm just asking questions. Just asking questions. It's the Labyrinth anniversary year. Is it time for you to experience David Bowie in a whole other dimension?
- [148:09]
A
It sounds like it. I. I have no follow up questions. It sounds like the answer to that is just an absolute yes.
- [148:13]
B
Did this feel like emotionally, thematically resonantly satisfying for you?
- [148:19]
A
I. I'm a little mixed on this as a final, final battle. I think again, the design, the execution of the effects, I thought that was really cool. I. I think I'm in a very similar. Similar place to. To it that you are. Like when Dustin and Steve, you know, basically pull a she slicing of she love. Like, you know, say that this is for Eddie, you son of a. I'm like, let's go. When we, you know, the poor Krev. But when like the Mind Flayers basically just looks like a dinosaur for a second poking now.
- [148:54]
B
Yeah.
- [148:55]
A
The way that the influences that mean so much, the Duffers bear fruit in the finale, I'm like, let's go. Right. That stuff's all really cool. I. I think that the. I'm not. I do think that they won a little too easily. And part of that is that the Demogorgons were not there. And that just doesn't make sense. Part of it is I'm like, I don't. I mean, yeah. Joyce chops his head off and we'll talk about that more in a second. And that was. That was cool and fun. But like, I don't know. I was thinking back a lot to like the. The attic fight, the Crail Mansion attic fight in season four and the damage that he took. And I think also there's like, you know, some of this is. It's. It sends you into a fun theory place where it's like, okay, Holly is freed. This is. And. And. And barfs up the particles and they escape when the other kids are freed. We'll talk about that more in a minute. As something that did really worked very beautifully. They're coughing up the particles. The particles are escaping. There's this interesting aspect of like the form of the Mind Flayer at this point has died, right?
- [149:52]
B
Like the.
- [149:52]
A
The beating heart, the pulsing heart has shriveled. They've not yet decapitated Vecna. So it's like when he dies, do the particles all die too? Or are the particles lingering on, anchoring the Mind Flayer, like to some form of life and also to a spin off like that. I don't know, like that. That. That's kind of interesting and I think not totally clear, but in a. I think maybe compelling to theorize about way.
- [150:18]
B
I think a question a lot of people have is about in terms of hive mind is like Will, like, why didn't Will die or whatever. I would have liked to have seen Will cough up some particles. That would have been satisfying to me for sure.
- [150:30]
A
Get some. Some questions at the end about all the hive mind stuff. In terms of what you're saying though, about the party, that part did work for me quite well. The fact that, that it is this pretty much full team up that, you know, of the people who are here in this location, everyone except Joyce is doing something. And Joyce's moment will come shortly. You know, we talked so much throughout our rewatch of like, we both love that moment in season one where Dustin calls back to the Bloodstone Pass lesson, right? Like, do you even remember what happened at the Bloodstone Pass? We couldn't agree on what path to take, so we split up the party and those trolls took us out one by one and it all went to ship and we were all disabled. So we stick together no matter what for the conclusion, the mechanics of the battle, the logistics of the battle. I have some questions and some. Some notes for that, like, thematic heft to hit us so hard at the end for it to be the team up of the party and everyone, whether it's a flare gun you fire into a wrist rocket grenade, gasoline balloon that someone threw, or you're using your superpowers or anything in between, everybody had a role to play and that's why they were able to. To do this. That the real edge that they have is their community is their party. That was great. And I liked it. I also really liked in the joy stretch that we're about to hit, I really liked that we flashed to a moment for every character, you know, that we see, like, as. Cause they're all watching this, except I.
- [152:03]
B
Think for Steven Robin, where I was like, must be nice to not have a traumatic flashback moment.
- [152:10]
A
One degree of removal and separation. You know, the like Joyce is taking. And I, I, you know, you with the wrong family. It's okay. Let's like Joyce is here for a reason.
- [152:23]
B
We're about to. Witch boy.
- [152:25]
A
You are. You're a witch boy. I know who you are. Was it giving me. How many strokes is it going to take? First Theon to chop Rodrick's head off. It was.
- [152:39]
B
But by the way, if she had done it in one blow, people have been like, oh, Joyce couldn't do it.
- [152:44]
A
Exactly. And it's what it did. First of all, it makes sense. But second of all, it allowed for everybody to really sit there and watch and let their blood loss seep into every root and fiber of their being. And for us to get the flashes. Holly flashes back to the Demogorgon. And Karen. Jonathan flashes back to Will being possessed in season two. And Lucas to Max and the attic in season four. And Nancy to Barb. So Barb was here at the end. Jump scare to see Barb here at the end.
- [153:12]
B
I've never been thinking of you more during the finale than when Barb showed up.
- [153:16]
A
Same. You know, we've got some Dustin and Eddie stuff in here. We have Mike losing Al in the season one finale. We have Elle saying to. To Henry, and you know he did not. Or Henry saying, you know he did not make me into this.
- [153:27]
B
You did.
- [153:27]
A
Papa the tank, the massacre. Will in the demo taking him in season one. Won the field in season two, hugging Joyce and crying. The fact that like this reminder of not just the. The reason everybody has. Because their loved ones have been imperiled in some way or harmed in some way, but like the. The personal toll, the way that Vecna had touched each of their lives and harmed them both individually and collectively. And like the toll and the mass, the sheer mass of that pain and that trauma. I thought that was effectively rendered at. At the end. I would have burned the body. Let me say this. Decapitating great. I would have burned every root and stem of that tree boy. Every single one. That tree boy.
- [154:06]
B
Well, the. They blew up the upside down. So in. In theory, he is on fire along with all those pregnant ladies.
- [154:12]
A
Doesn't that just separate the abyss and our dimension? The abyss is like, intact, right?
- [154:17]
B
But it's large. It's low.
- [154:21]
A
That's true. That's true.
- [154:23]
B
Okay, listen, I had something I wanted to say. Oh, what if they. In that montage where everyone's flashing to, you know, oh, it's Bob. Oh, it's Barb. Oh, it's Eddie. Blah, blah. What if Steve had flashed his Beamer? Getting sucked into the abyss?
- [154:39]
A
That would have been great. Or just a fight.
- [154:41]
B
The tri effect of bar Bob of the Beamer. We'll miss you forever.
- [154:47]
A
I did love seeing Bob again. I know.
- [154:50]
B
I agree. Bob is like the anti Barb for us. I think it's like.
- [154:55]
A
That's exactly right.
- [154:55]
B
Yeah, exactly right. I don't really need to get into the reason. They have their reasons why they picked Joyce to do this. There's some silliness and contrivances about it, but like, it's fine. Great. I do want to read this. Another Jamie quote about VNA's dying words. Right. He says as I'm coughing up this bile. Yes, I'm coughing, but the feeling I want to convey in the words that I'm trying to. To get out or just please don't bow says it was one more of the human moments playing Veca. So he talked about like being on that spike, you know, and he was like, yeah, Winona came in and we just talked about bands and we were just like hanging out, talking about musicians we like. But when it comes to like that, like that moment he was trying to convey, like, please don't via gurgles. And I just. I like that. All of us.
- [155:45]
A
Great for great work from Jamie, as always. I did. I got a kick out of this. And like, I have to say I admire and appreciate Vecna's flair for drama. The protracted, prolonged nature of the gurgle coughs. Be like, you all will look at me once more. God damn it. Gotta respect it.
- [156:03]
B
I know that for research for the Buffy Vampire Slayer TV show. Watch. You watch Buffy Vampire Slayer the movie. And that is one of my all time favorite. Paul Rubin's protracted Vampire Vampire Death. All very good. Okay, great stuff. Cue the Prince. Right?
- [156:23]
A
Yes.
- [156:23]
B
Dustin says the whole party that got me. Even though, like we're about to go through this whole thing with 11, him saying the whole party to Hopper.
- [156:31]
A
Yeah.
- [156:32]
B
Very emotional. Gaten's very good in that moment. Mallory, what did you think of Purple Rain? 1984 vinyl from 19D4, which so the duffers have talked about. This prince is tough to get for. We've never heard Purple Rain used as a needle drop in something. This is the first time it's being used. They were looking for an album. I guess I didn't understand when Robin and Mike were talking about this that they needed like a whole side of a disc. Right. I. I was thinking it was one track, but they wanted a whole album. And then so the duffers wanted something that started with a, quote, celebr Tory song and ended with a weighty track. And they came up with Purple Rain 1984. Which side a starts with Windows Cry and ends with Purple Rain. I'll say this. Here's my journey through this. And then they said the reason they were able to get the Prince tracks is because of what they did with Kate Bush and running up that hill. And they're just sort of like, they could get anything they want, essentially, at this point, because they're like, look what we did over there. We can do this for your sales with Purple Rain. And I will say this. I put Purple Rain on Spotify the other day, and then Spotify. The Spotify AI was like, do you want to listen to Windows cry? And now do you want to listen to Heroes by David Bowie? And not like, it just started doing the needle drops from the finale. So it gets it. But. But the. The Duffers picking this album side is when I will say this. When Doves Cry started, I was like, huh? Yeah. I was a little like, I love when does Cry. Great song, huh? But when we hit Purple Rain, I was just in shambles. It was absolutely incredible. Phenomenal.
- [158:17]
A
Yeah. I thought this was great. Inspired, Genuinely surprising. You know, we had speculated, like, what do we think we'll hear at the end? And maybe a number of different spots. But this would never have occurred to us for the reason you just mentioned. This is not a thing that really happens.
- [158:30]
B
Yeah.
- [158:30]
A
So that was fun, and that was cool. I think it. I guess it makes sense that they had to use an entire record, given that the part of the. One of the many pitfalls of the inanity of their plan is that it's like, drive their ass out. It's really got to get out of here before this place blows up. And we have absolutely no way to account for, like, someone maybe being there. What if. You know, what if Kay just been like, don't come through. Like, Evan, we need you. But everyone else, you stay in there.
- [158:55]
B
Because what were they expecting when they.
- [158:57]
A
Got back to that gate? I don't know.
- [159:00]
B
You know what it reminds me of is, is a movie that I love. Oftentimes when I say there's a movie I love, I am tacitly recommending it to listeners. In this case, I am not doing that.
- [159:10]
A
Okay.
- [159:12]
B
Because I don't think this is a good movie. But it's a movie I love, and it's a Hudson Hawk. And In Hudson Hawk, they have this thing where they time their robberies to a song. So they start singing the song while they're, like, sort of slowly under the breath while they're doing it. It's so they know how much time they have. You know, this is like a. We're going to do Swinging on a Star because that's how much time we have to do this robbery. And so I was thinking about that again. A great. A bad, great movie, Hudson Hawk. But, yeah, we've got one side of a record to get our asses out of. Out of Hawkins or out of the Upside Down. So, yeah.
- [159:52]
A
When everybody is. Before we hit the tire spikes, everyone's.
- [159:58]
B
Having a good time in the truck.
- [159:59]
A
Everyone's having a good time. I think that it's all just sunshine and gravy from here. Joyce and Will are cuddling. Robin telling Steve he smells great stuff. Nancy and Jonathan share a smile. Murray's goofing off. It's lovely. I think you noted this in your alley. This is my favorite moment of. This was because we had the great. When everybody pulls a kid out, freeze a kid in the mind. Flayer and Derek. Steve had this incredible moment. And Derek, who has been such a potty mouth and, like, you know, these. He's this tough, like, little exterior with his insults and everything. He was just so vulnerable and just, like, so grateful to be rescued and.
- [160:33]
B
Just Steve cleaning his glasses.
- [160:36]
A
Incredible, wonderful moment. We had previously heard Derek refer to Mike Wheeler as his best friend.
- [160:43]
B
I know.
- [160:43]
A
And so the way he waved at Mike and Mike was like. Like, that was just great. And it was funny and it was cute, but it. I actually thought it was just like, oh, our nerds are cool. They're the cool ones now.
- [160:57]
B
Mike's the Steve now.
- [160:58]
A
Yeah.
- [160:59]
B
Like, they're.
- [161:00]
A
They're the heroes. They're the ones that the younger kids want to emulate and, like, can't believe that they get to hang out with in the back of a truck. It's just.
- [161:05]
B
It was awesome. Delivery of that, like, wave back that, like, hi was extremely.
- [161:13]
A
All right.
- [161:13]
B
So then we hit the spikes. This completely unforeseen military obstruction as they exit the Upside down happens. And then L says goodbye. Or does she. When she got to. So this all really, really worked for me. This goodbye in the void really, really worked for me. Again, I watching this, I was like, this is not. This is not her death. And then there was a second, like, when everything closed down, I was like, maybe they did kill her. Like, okay, okay. Good job. Stranger things and then I think they didn't, but whatever. But no matter what, this goodbye is real. This is a real goodbye. And when Millie got to the part of her performance when she says, I need you to thank them for me, for being so kind to me and teaching me what it means to be a friend.
- [162:14]
A
Yeah. And Purple Rain is amazing.
- [162:20]
B
I was crying. I. I thought it was just so good. And the way they're just, like, desperately holding on to each other and. Yeah, it's just, you know, and this reiteration of choice, which we've been talking about this whole podcast episode, is just so good and, like, yeah, this, like, I need you to understand my choice. One day you will. You understand me better than anyone. You always have. From the day you've met, we've met, you've seen me, the real me. And then. Please don't leave me. Oh, please don't do this. I'll always be with you. I love you. Goodbye, Mike. And it's just like. And then she pushes him out. Someone made a diabolical Instagram reel that I got served of, like, all the times that Mike has lost. Eleven in every single season, you know, and. And especially the season one, which we flashback to when Mike is. When in the trauma of, like, what we've lost. Little Mike in the classroom, thinking that El is gone forever at the end of season one.
- [163:14]
A
Yeah.
- [163:15]
B
And his bewildered screaming, you know, connected to this moment of Finn, a tall, gangly man, just, like, also screaming in. Is just this absolutely sung for me. It's just incredibly good stuff. And really, just. I think. I actually think this is Millie's best performance.
- [163:35]
A
I agree.
- [163:36]
B
In a. Maybe ever, but in a very long time, for sure. You know, I just thought this was really good stuff. I agree.
- [163:42]
A
This destroyed me. I was sobbing. The two lines that. That you. You read the. What it means to be a friend and. And you always have. The real me just broke me. And I. I thought the performances from both of them were wonderful here. I think that. So obviously, like, what happens here, we'll talk about, you know, when we get to the I Choose to Believe stretch, we'll talk about this all more. But obviously, the fact that they're in the void, in this. In a mindscape here is like, how is this happening? If there are. It's, like, one of the bits of evidence that you could consider right. When. When exploring the cases. So there's that, You know, the bad babies know, like, the Forest Again chapter is, like, something that means a lot to me, and it's very emotional. This idea of a character making the sacrifice, you know, any of our characters who we love, a Harry, a Frodo, a Tony. Right. The list goes on and on and on. One of the things in the forest together I hit so hard is that when Harry doesn't go talk to Ron and Hermione one final time, you know, but then there's the turning of the stone and figures of a different sort. I just thought that this, like, choice to give this to Mike and 11, but to give this to Mike was like, I don't know. It really floored me. And it really hit so hard. And to hear the things that Eleven says and the. To see Mike emotion, you know, the real me idea like this through line across the entire series, the. The monster and the superhero. Mike always being the one who would help 11 see and embrace and believe the good inside and the worth inside. And then Mike, for his part, like, this was a big part of season four, but worrying that, you know, that that moment he has in season four where he's like, it's not fate. It's not destiny. It's just simple dumb luck. And one day she's going to realize that I'm just some random nerd that got lucky. Superman, like, landed on his doorstep. Like, the idea that Eleven doesn't need him. And for Eleven to make sure he understood that that wasn't true. And for the show to really, like, luxuriate in this idea of, like, but that's what found family is, right? It can be that dumb luck of whatever the circumstance is that brings you into somebody's life or them into yours. And then, like, you choose to carry about each other. Like, you choose to build something together. And sometimes you don't get to keep that. And I just thought this was, like, beautiful. And we have the. From Mike and the I love you and payoff of all of that. I just thought this was, like, really sad and really moving and really perfect for both of their characters and for their shared journey. And a great encapsulation also of just like something we've talked about a lot over the years of covering Stranger Things and just watching and thinking about Stranger Things things, which is, like, how big young love can feel, you know, like, when you have that person in your life for the first time who feels like the most important thing in the world to you and who opens up something new for you. And, like, of course it would feel devastating and terrifying to have to confront being without that. I just. It's what the show has always done so well and I really appreciated the number of ways that we got that in this moment here. And then, of course, throughout the epilogue, I just love this. It was very, very, very, very emotional. Then I immediately am like, why did Kay's army not like, arrest everybody? They just killed all those men. But before I started thinking about that and before I was like, is that a deep breath we hear? It sounded like a deep breath and the heartbeat and like, you know, your mind starts racing really quickly. But for a few minutes they're just being totally immersed in the emotion of 11 and Mike and their relationship together, I thought was. Was just lovely.
- [167:28]
B
I really agree, and I hate to put a damper on it by pointing out something that the Internet has been preoccupied with, which is when they blew up the Upside down. Did they blow up all those pregnant ladies who were in Kay's lab in the Upside Down? When the whole premise that like K is like, we need to end this so that this doesn't happen again, right. Do we care about these human incubators that are these actual living women who are in this lab? There's, there's a lot floating around that says the duffers, they convert, the women have died. But I can't find this quote anywhere. Like it's been posted everywhere. The duffers confirmed the women died, but like without a quote, without a source. So I have not been able to source this definitively. It doesn't ruin anything for me, but it's just sort of, it's. It's a tough question to be asking here in this moment of like, we'll never hurt these children and these women again. Just accept these women and then after that it'll be fine, you know, so.
- [168:40]
A
Absolutely horrifying to confront. Horrifying.
- [168:44]
B
I will keep my ears and eyes peels for a quote I can source from the duffers. Okay, then we have 45 minutes of epilogue, which is exactly what we deserve. We deserve this. 18 months later in the black screen. So we get Mike's devastated, one tear rolling down his face. Look as, as the. The gate closes and you can see the other side of the building, right? The gate is just like definitively closed. It's just a building now. Yep. Black. Cut to black in the non existent commercial break. And then after that, if we come back from black, someone is a bricklayer is putting bricks in into place, rebuilding. Right? But I swear to you, you can hear a heartbeat before you hear the higher pitch of the bricklay. You hear something lower and, and thumping. And the Netflix caption says rhythmic beating which starts before we. That caption happens before you hear the bricklaying sound and you see the bricklaying happen. So yes, that to me, I would choose to believe anyway.
- [169:55]
A
I choose to believe.
- [169:56]
B
But I heard a heartbeat.
- [169:58]
A
Same in.
- [169:59]
B
In that cut to black. So that's agreed.
- [170:02]
A
And there's like that really deep breath right before the. The heartbeat too. So I. Yeah, I. I agree to your point.
- [170:09]
B
I don't know why the whole entire group wasn't arrested by Dr. K and. And prosecuted for their. Their crimes. Perhaps they were saved by someone. We don't even know if Owens is alive. We don't know if they have any friends elsewhere in the government. We don't know the government. As the duffer said, an interview. The military kind of just lost interest and packed up and left town. That's what they said. Really genuinely, that is what they said.
- [170:29]
A
You know, I get that they're like, okay, well we were here for 11 and now 11's gone. So like the mission is done. But they. They would leave all those people who do you kill all those soldiers? That doesn't seem likely.
- [170:39]
B
Do you think? Think the party. Our pals, our friends pinned it all on Vicki and that's why we never see Vicki again.
- [170:47]
A
They were like in a barn. You will find the Turnbow family.
- [170:52]
B
Vicky put them there and their crimes are legion. Vicki and the Turnbows did it. Wow. Vicki and the Turnbows. I would listen to that band.
- [171:01]
A
Okay, I same.
- [171:02]
B
Our listener James says, I told my friends Dr. K had to fight a time traveling AI bot. Very funny. Great fun. Good fun, Matt. Our listener Matt asked who had the best new hairstyle 18 months from the final battle. There are so many changes and I can't wait to hear you discuss them. Excellent segue, Matt. Into the return of Rock and Robin.
- [171:21]
A
Rock and Robin.
- [171:23]
B
Maya Hawk gets to at last wear her natural hair. And dear God, does it look better than the wig they slapped on her all season? Looks great.
- [171:31]
A
Her hair looks.
- [171:31]
B
Looks great hair. Queen of the epilogue is Max Mayfield, obviously. And I watched a video of, and I should say head of the hair department, who is mar. Partnered with one of the duffers, has some of the best Instagrams you've ever seen. And there has been incredible wave work on this show. Like, really, really good stuff. Eddie forever an iconic look. There's just like a lot of great stuff. There were some rough looks looks this season, but I did watch her sort of like finger curl Sadie Sink's hair to give the Max Mayfield epilogue look. And I was just like, this Is this is just top tier from the hair department. Do you have a. Do you have a winner? Best hair in the epilogue?
- [172:18]
A
Probably Max, I think. Probably Max. I was floored by Nancy's epilogue hair.
- [172:24]
B
It's not great, Lauren. Nancy's headed into the 90s with. With a tough look, I would say.
- [172:31]
A
Thrilled to get, you know, one more Jimmy Fast Hands mention. Robin's like, my guy. Let me come in for a guest appearance.
- [172:37]
B
And Mallory's like, where is he?
- [172:39]
A
My favorite character. I'm waiting for the side journey log of Jimmy Fast Dan's. One day, maybe we get the Landslide.
- [172:46]
B
The Fleetwood Mac needle drop. That thrilled Mallory to her core. There's, of course, incredibly resonant lyrics here. Yes, I've been afraid of changing because I built my life around you Time it gets older, even children grow older. I'm getting older too.
- [172:58]
A
It just made me sob. And it was, like, paired with these great lines from Robin. You know, there's some of the humor. The Deborah Ringer Winger rasp, or, like, one more job. Will's bowl cut.
- [173:07]
B
I wonder how Maya felt. Read like, I would be so honored if the Duffer Brothers, like, described my voice as a Deborah Winger rasp. I'd be like, thank you.
- [173:17]
A
My God, what a time to be rockin Robin here. Back on the. Back on the mic. But like, like, you know, she's talking about what has changed, right? And like, no soldiers, no fences, no cameras. People are happy and smiling and going to the movies. Last Crusade playing at the Hawk. What?
- [173:34]
B
No greater sign of a utopia, as far as I'm concerned, than Indiana Jones. And the Last Crusade is playing. What a movie.
- [173:41]
A
What a movie. And it was like, even just fun to see the Hawk because we think back to season one and the graffiti, it just takes you. It ports you through, like, your. Your memories with the show again. But just, you know, the hair reminds.
- [173:50]
B
Me of the end of Back to the Future when it's like, you know, what's. What's playing at the movie theater?
- [173:55]
A
What's playing at the movie? I also just thought. And more so when. When, like, Hop goes to find Mike on the bench. But just in general, every shot that we got of the town center, it was so overtly, visually, like, mirrored to Back to the Future there. But just this idea, and especially paired with the Fleetwood Mac here of, like, you know, life's moving on, and that's beautiful. But it also can be really hard and really sad, or for some people, it can feel impossible. And we still have some stuff to work through on that Front. So I just loved that and I loved the way we got to learn what Steve was up to before we hear more later on the roof was that Robin had to do it. You know, Trishie's going for the indie sound effect and misses the bell.
- [174:32]
B
Yeah.
- [174:33]
A
And that was just like, you know, and it's just like he's got a good excuse and we get to see him coaching the Hawkins Middle team. I think Steve could have been coaching the high school team, but he wasn't. He's coaching the Cubs. He's coaching the middle school team. And what could be more perfect than our begrudging baby are still being with the kids. Just the best.
- [174:50]
B
It's got all his nuggets, little nuggets in the box. His. His coaching advice, which is no mental mistakes. Great stuff. Not like, no physical. No mental mistakes. We're. We're ship shape in our brain. Joe Kerry posting photos of. Of, you know, in. I think the caption is like, in coach, see we trust or whatever. Like, posting photos with the. With the kids, with the Cubs. I saw a video. I couldn't find it to link in our notes, but I saw a video of that photo shoot happening of him, the team photo with the Cubs. And then Joe Keery himself digs a camera out of his, like, jacket pocket and hands it to someone as if, like, I want my own photos of this moment, which is just like, really a lot to me. And then Jake Connelly. Dear Derek, Delightful. Derek himself posted photos that the MLB reposted on the MLB official Instagram. And there's one shot of Derek with, you know, his back to the camera and he's got his. It's turnbow number two on his jersey. And he's just like, pointing to the back of his jersey is just like, great stuff. Thomas is also on the team. Fucked Thomas. But he is there. He's not in the D and D party at the end, but he is on the Cubs. So I hope that Steve turns that kid around. Don't call Holly A. Don't call Holly A. Okay. Don't do it. You love Landslide.
- [176:11]
A
Yeah, I'm.
- [176:12]
B
I'm in agony. Choosing between Here comes your man from the Pixies as the cue to Max's intro versus the Sweet Jane needle drop that we get later. Which is just like, Cowboy Junkie is very important to me, but this is one of the best intros that a character's ever had anywhere. Max showing up, knowing it's Max because of the skateboard. But, like, camera pans up the White pinstripe pants, incredible. Incredible. The sleeveless op shirt, incredible. The hair, amazing. And Max and Lucas are fully grown up and definitely doing it. What do you think?
- [176:51]
A
Absolutely no question that these two are already.00, zero question. Lucas is like, you're looking super sexy right now. She's like, you're looking super dorky. They're good for them. I agree that first of all, we're not just like Max is not only standing and walking and out of the chair, but like the zoomer is back. Right?
- [177:10]
B
She's skating.
- [177:10]
A
Yeah, she's skating. The surfer energy of the fit like you're noting. It was all great. I do. I thought this was wonderful. I do have a question.
- [177:17]
B
How is Max graduating with the rest of the class when she was in a coma 20 months?
- [177:22]
A
I saw.
- [177:23]
B
I saw a great Instagram reel of some. Some guy was like, Max in her coma, committed to graduating class. And it's him like lying down, his eyes closed, like doing all of his homework at the same time. Listen, it's been 18 months. Summer school exists for a reason. I. And also. Okay, yeah, I don't have a lot of faith in the Hawkins school system. You know what I mean?
- [177:42]
A
Well, listen, I think this is really fair because obviously we know that Dustin is super smart. But I will say not too many years ago, our guy didn't know what the word presumptuous meant. And also then later had to have his girlfriend at the time, Susie, hack into the school computers to fix his Latin grade, which was so subpar. So I don't know that there was a of lot, lot of competition for who was going to in the class of 89. And so yeah, these are fair points. But I was. Surely Max will be in the audience not graduating.
- [178:08]
B
Yeah. It was interesting to me that Jonathan. Jonathan's going to nyu, which is something that, you know, Joyce screamed at Lonnie in season one, nyu. He's always wanted to go to nyu. Right? So like Jonathan's at nyu, Robinson Smith. These are great colleges. Dustin's going to school one hour away. With love and respect to the schools of. In the one hour away from Hawkins, Indiana. Where is he going? That is like, did he say an.
- [178:34]
A
Was it an hour or was it a day?
- [178:36]
B
I thought he said an hour.
- [178:38]
A
Okay. Cuz I.
- [178:38]
B
Did he say a day?
- [178:39]
A
I thought he said an hour too. So I was like saying to Adam, do we think he's a Hooer? Is he at Notre Dame? That's a very good school. But then when I thought he said, then I Thought he said, I'm a day away, and then that would open up any possibility.
- [178:52]
B
I think he's. I think he's an hour away. And that's why Steve can make frequent, like, little trips over to see him.
- [178:58]
A
Maybe he's a Notre Dame.
- [178:59]
B
Notre Dame.
- [178:59]
A
Great.
- [179:00]
B
Maybe he's a.
- [179:00]
A
Maybe he's. Could he be a Purdue? I mean, he could be. He could be in a number.
- [179:04]
B
Okay.
- [179:04]
A
A number of places, I think. I'm just.
- [179:07]
B
We'll talk about where kids go to college when we talk about Buffy season three, But I was just like, I can't wait.
- [179:13]
A
Where.
- [179:13]
B
Where is our valedictorian going? Okay. When Max and Lucas are making out. Not for the last time in this episode, Erica hits us with genuinely my all time favorite 80s phrase, which is gagging with a spoon. Something I said very often in the 80s. Not. Not in a way that was cool or effective, but boy, did I say it. Gag me with a spoon. All right. And then we get this photo montage harkening back to The Halloween season 2 taking photos of everyone in their Ghostbusters costumes. So cute. Mrs. Had. Henderson, I am so thrilled to see you. Same. I felt about Mrs. Henderson the way I expected to feel about Ted Wheeler. I felt that way about Ted Wheeler, but I really felt that way about Mrs. Henderson. This scene between Dustin and his mom is so cute. The like laughing and crying and I love you. And she. The vibe she's giving me here, and this is one of the highest compliments I can pay anyone, is Kathy Bates and Fried Green Tomatoes. I think there's something about the pink blazer that's just really giving that for me. I think she's so great here. And then at the graduation when she is just like cheering on Dustin when he has his anti establishment moment. Yes.
- [180:27]
A
Fantastic.
- [180:27]
B
Mrs. Anderson, you did a great job raising that kid. Great stuff.
- [180:31]
A
Thrilled to see her. We've missed her. We talked about how her absence was absolutely perplexing and frankly, kind of galling. And so this felt right. Thinking of the Halloween photos, the snowball photos, all of those moments, it's like this is what we've been missing. So I was so glad to get it here. I was thrilled.
- [180:46]
B
Gabe Matarazzo has confirmed in interviews that Dustin broke up with Susie during his quote, emo little jerk phase.
- [180:54]
A
This is tough.
- [180:55]
B
So that's what happened with Susie. In case anyone was wondering, Dustin broke up with her. We have been getting emails from people being like, you guys are dumb. Susie broke up with him in season four because of whatever Dustin Susie's dad did not want her dating it. But it's not that Susie broke up with Dustin in season four, but Dustin did break up with Susie, hopefully in a mature way, but probably not. Okay. They're kids. Jonathan directing Will's Graduation Day photo. Hopper being like, this is not the Godfather. Hopper's chief again. And they're all living in. Not Jonathan. He's at nyu. They're living in the cabin. Is that what's happening?
- [181:37]
A
That cabin? They might move to Montauk, but that cabin will still be standing. Cabin's not going anywhere.
- [181:44]
B
I don't understand. Okay. And then Karen tells Joyce that Mike is missing, but Hopper knows where to find him. He's on Lyra and Will's bench.
- [181:55]
A
About the same thing.
- [181:57]
B
God, I, I felt. I've never felt more confident that we would have the same thing in the notes as when I saw Mike sitting on this bench here. We've got that scene between Hop and Mike, which is just like a great evolution, of course, of, like, Hop and Mike, who have been. Who had a tough season three, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and have had some like, moments of connection. But this is just like a really important moment for Hopper, I would say more like Mike has a, has a sort of a beat here, and then of course, the beat at the graduation that helps him break through. Thanks. Thanks. Feedback on a microphone. You were very helpful. But, but what do you, you number one Hopper lover. What do you want to say about this, this Hopper speech to Mike? Something I really liked.
- [182:46]
A
Even I, even you. I loved this. Yeah. You know, what could be more perfect than Mike on a bench, given the Will and Lyra of it all. And this idea of these two young people whose, like, youth and experience was defined by how they felt about each other being separated by, by a veil. I thought we talked about the hair already after the time jump. I just will say of. Of all the kids, like seeing all the kids in the epilogue of all of them, Mike, and specifically Mike Finn on the bench here. How grown up he looked. Obviously we will get a moment in the finale where Karen basically, like, is reacting in the same way. And it's just like you're so, like, you're so grown up and it's. I was sobbing watching that. But it really hit me seeing him here, like, first of all, graduation. Very smart because the, the, the actors can finally be like, playing semi. More age appropriate roles.
- [183:36]
B
So that's. We're still in the 80s. Yeah.
- [183:38]
A
Yeah. But it did just really like the passage of Time so keenly and, and potently in terms of what Hopper says here, you know, and what, what Mike says first, like, you know, taking that, this promise of the three waterfalls and, and, and punishing himself, right? Like, it was childish. It was a fantasy plan. I should have had a real one. And, you know, you, you mentioned goodwill hunting last pod, right? So, like, we got a little, we.
- [184:10]
B
Got like, a little.
- [184:14]
A
But I think that Hopper being able to not only help Mike and reach out to Mike, I was also like, like you just mentioned thinking about their history. And, you know, I, I, I said this when we talked about, like, the end of season four, but the way that, like that little moment with Hop and Mike that you've grown, something about it at the end of season four just hit me so hard. And it would, like, this conversation here was like, that on steroids. And the way that Hopper was able with, like, you've got one road. Like, you keep blaming yourself for what happened, and then the other road and, and saying, like, I've been down that, that first road, and I don't recommend it. And as we just chronicled at length, not only today, but many other pods, like, Hopper is a character who has really struggled with seeing that there could be another road or with seeing it, but actually walking down it instead of just continuing to go back the same path time and time again, getting pulled back into it in a way that is like very, very great Gatsby boats, you know, born into the, into the past.
- [185:11]
B
Thinking about where we met Hopper in season one, where he was, like, taking pills and just sort of like, just, you know, again, there before the grace, like, how can we save Mike from something similar, you know? Yeah.
- [185:23]
A
Yeah. And, like, I think that for Hopper, a character who has been just so afraid to grieve and to lose, be able to help pull somebody out, not, not even pull somebody out of that pit of despair, but, like, show them that there's a ladder there that they can choose to climb, like, that they can make the trek out of it themselves. It's just, just felt really rewarding that he was able to take his own history of mistakes and help somebody else, like, avoid them, that you're not the curse. You don't have to be. Also, this isn't what Eleven would have wanted. And, like, other people get to make their own choices. And so, like, the fact that he was able to reach Mike and impact Mike in this way because of what Eleven taught him, like, that this is the gift that Elle gave to both of them was just, just so Lovely. So lovely.
- [186:10]
B
Dustin Henderson graduates. That's a 9200 and reference. Donna Martin graduates and Dustin Henderson graduates. I love these tangerine. These, like, creamsicle ugly ass graduation gowns that they have. I watched a video of the costume designer talking about how she fought the duffers. They wanted green. The colors were Hawkins High or orange and green. They wanted green. And she's like, you're not to be on a lawn. We should do the orange. It'll pop better. They had to, like, source the acetate to make all of these gowns and stuff like that. It's great stuff. Looks very cringey. I think we should end with these, like a cringy. I love the color orange, but this is like a shade of orange that is like, yes, kind of tough. Let's just run through who's in the audience really quickly.
- [186:52]
A
Great.
- [186:53]
B
For team Dustin, we've got Steven. I mean, there's overlap here, but let's just say team Dustin, we've got Steven Robin with Mrs. Henderson right behind them. Mr. Clark and his new BFF Murray are also sitting there in the audience cheering for Dustin. Team Mike, we've got, of course, Karen, Nancy, Holly. Holly's awful bangs. Mike's BFF Derek, who looks dapper in a vest in a bow tie. And Ted Wheeler.
- [187:20]
A
Thank God, thank God, thank God that the finale confirmed that Ted Wheeler was alive and well. How he managed to survive being completely abandoned by every person who knew him, I have no idea. But I'm thrilled that he made it.
- [187:32]
B
Absolutely eviscerated. Like, just. Yeah, the demogorgon attacked them and, like, we don't even see his scars. Right?
- [187:40]
A
Like, just wearing those.
- [187:42]
B
Karen's wearing those scars. Cara, you. You. You already mentioned that, like, Karen has this moment with Mike. I'm so proud of you. But in terms of, like, the sort of breakthrough of this is a moment that I. I guess I wish Joyce had had. Like, Joyce gets her, like, engagement scene with Hopper, but, like, Joyce isn't mom like Joyce in the finale. This is not Winona. This is a thought I had when Winanona writer did not have a line until 42 minutes into the finale. She used to be the unquestionable star of the show. Season one is the Winona Ryder show this season, you know, And I understand, like, what has happened in terms of, like, the. The kids growing and all this sort of stuff changing, but Joy's really not having a moment in the finale. She cuts the guy's head head off. She gets her proposal. That's great. But I don't feel like she has a mom moment that really, like, hits me the way that this Karen Wheeler moment does. Yeah. And of all the, like, we'll talk about the. The kids in the. In the final D and D scene and how, like, it's so clear that those actors were crying in character and also crying for themselves as, like, young actors who have gone through this. I felt that from Car Buono as well. And Carabuono has been such an incredible follow for me, like, on Instagram, in terms of, like, she's been posting all of these photos of these, like, small children who she feels like she's just, like, watched grow. And she has. And so when she says, I'm so proud of you to Mike, it also felt like, I'm so proud of you to Finn. And I just. I cried. I thought it was so good.
- [189:18]
A
I. I agree. I think the moments in the. In the epilogue where you can feel what this means to the people who were a part of it were quite.
- [189:24]
B
Quite impactful, quite potent. Team. Well, is Joyce, Hop and Jonathan.
- [189:29]
A
Yes. Jonathan. Filming Team Lucas.
- [189:32]
B
Team Lucas. We blow past his parents quickly, but they are there. And Mr. Sinclair is wearing a. A high quality Cosby cardigan, but they're seated right next to Dustin's mom. Erica's there looking super cute in a really fancy, like, 80s outfit. She's kind of team Dustin because she's in on this, you know, but she's. She's, you know, she's there for her brother. We'll get to the lack of Erica and the final, final moments in a second. Team Max.
- [190:02]
A
Yeah.
- [190:03]
B
Nobody. Max's mom remains gone. Has Max been living with Lucas in the Wheeler basement in Hopper's unplottable cabin? I don't know.
- [190:12]
A
I mean, it seems like Lucas.
- [190:13]
B
Right.
- [190:14]
A
Because when she's skating, she's like, outside of his house. Lucas is. Yeah.
- [190:18]
B
So the Sinclairs are chill and they're just letting Max.
- [190:21]
A
So they're definitely walking. Not that they wouldn't be on the otherwise, but they are definitely. Yeah, maybe Max's mom was like, surely there's no way that my child is ready to graduate after being in a coma for 20 months. So I don't need to attend this graduation. I will check in with the class of 90 and discuss this one, because is it possible that that's what happened?
- [190:42]
B
No. All right, before we move on to Dustin's speech, is there anything else you want to say about who's in attendance here or anything else? Just.
- [190:51]
A
Again, I was so happy to see Ted There are many. There are moments during Dustin's speech where we cut to audience members, like, juxtaposed against certain lines and certain messages that I thought was, like, very effective and very good.
- [191:04]
B
All right. And here we get Dustin's speech fulfilling Eddie's vision. Eddie in season four, episode one, right, says, I'm going to walk that stage next month. I'm going to look Principal Higgins dead in the eye, I'm going to flip him the bird, I'm going to snatch that diploma, and I'm going to run like hell out of here. And the callback to it's my year. He says, it's our year. And then we get the Iron Maiden needle drop homage to Eddie. I think I feel like Dustin lampshades the character's bad attitude in season five with. I've been pretty pissed off about it. Ted gives us a final, like, language and we, we deserve this. I think this is. I'm interested to hear what you, what you think of the speech. And as we've noted it, it does underline a lot of the found. You know, we do talked, we talked about this bit at the beginning, this idea that it underlines a lot of the, like, just core themes of this show.
- [191:57]
A
Yes.
- [191:59]
B
But I do want to shout out the, the overt Breakfast Club homage of, like, because we were so divided into the jocks, the nerds, the freaks. So in case for your pop culture education, you are not familiar with the Breakfast Club, it ends with an iconic letter to a principal. Dear Mr. Vernon, you see us as you want to see us in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. What we found the in out is that each of us, each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basket case and a princess and a criminal. Does that answer your question? So I loved all of this. It felt very like what Rob Mahoney likes to refer to as an in these divided times message. No free ads for Netflix, but the Hellfire Lives shirt is of course for sale on the website. Great merch, great messaging. Here's my only nitpick with this, which is like, given how much time we spend on Higgins, like, quivering, rage filled face, I kind of wish we had met him before this scene. Like, if Higgins had been a character that we had, like, spent more time with. Because this is, this is a time honored back to the future buff vampire slayer. Like, whatever. Like the, the, you know, the, the principal antagonist. And it's like he doesn't need to have been a main character, but it was, like, weird that he was like, so his, his anger is so central here when, like, we could have like, had him at the, in the first episode. Like, you know, Dustin's getting in trouble at school, bad attitude sort of thing. So. Yeah, yeah, anyway, that's agreed.
- [193:27]
A
And, and then never again after that because they're, they were not in school or any of the usual.
- [193:32]
B
That would have been the one opportunity.
- [193:35]
A
Yeah, I agree. I, I, I thought this was great. I, you know, I love Ted, Ted's little language bit. I loved Hop getting another Jesus Christ moment when they're D and D and Will and Lucas whooping when, when D and D is invoked, as mentioned already, Steve tearing up and then grasping Robin's hand when Dustin is saying, you know, I, I made new friends. I made friends who were never even supposed to be my friends. And it wasn't just me. I saw it happen to so many others. Holly and Derek, like, sharing a smile, looking at each other then was just so great. When you get to know people who are different from you, you begin to learn more about yourself. You change, you grow. I'm a better person now. I'm a better person because of them, because of my friends. Like, that is the show in miniature. And it is like the mission and thesis of the show to explore that and celebrate it. And so I thought obviously this was an appropriate thing to hear at the end. And I thought Dustin was, was a really poignant and comic and all of the emotions that we expect in the brew of Stranger Things, just really the perfect person to articulate and share this with the attendees at the graduation, but also the audience giving everyone their moment.
- [194:52]
B
In the finale, letting Murray blow up a helicopter, letting Joyce chop Vecna's head off, letting Steve wax poetic about Hawkins, which we're going to talk about in a second, all this sort of stuff like that. And then giving this, this is Dustin's moment. And it's like, really good gift for this character to have this really cool moment to honor Eddie, to be celebrated for his brain inside of, you know, this school setting, to get an approach from Stacy, who shunned him at the snowball on season two. And as Nancy predicted in season two, like, girls would, would come around on Dustin. And I don't know, I, I, I'm mostly liked this exchange with Stacy. I wish that Dustin had, like, been less, like, flustered and delighted and more like turning her down as like a sort of I don't need you moment. But he's a teenage boy, and so it's just sort of like, it is what it is.
- [195:49]
A
Like, oh my God, did Stacy just finally invite me to a party? And then I loved, of course, that Mike was like, I have an even better idea, I think in terms of the Eddie stuff with Higgins and the flipping the bird and the snatching the diploma and this is our year. I loved that Dustin found a way to incorporate Eddie so fully and to honor Eddie in this way because he didn't ultimately get to do that and walk the stage. And I love too that, like, you know, we talked about this in season four, Eddie's big speech, the conformity. We literally even hear screw conformity here, right? So the conformity speech, like the one. I love that scene. It's an instantly iconic scene. We've both celebrated a lot.
- [196:19]
B
Dragons and dragons.
- [196:21]
A
Dragons. My one note on that scene was always that, like, Eddie is doing a little bit of the thing that he's accusing the other people of doing, which is like, you're at that table, I'm at this table. We're not the same. And of course, Eddie also then grows out of that and like embraces a friendship he never thought he would have with Steve and with Nancy, et cetera. So it's like Dustin grew beyond the initial place we met Eddie, but also then we remember that Eddie did too. So that was all just really lovely. And I think like again, the Bloodstone Pass kid being the one to really say again, like in this coming of age show where these themes have been so core that embracing who you are embrace and like embracing who other people are too. Not only despite but because of the differences and finding that strength in friendship. The spy shack memories. The castle Byers. What's your Hellfire Club like? What's your party? Go find. It was just awesome. Loved it.
- [197:12]
B
We're at the roof of the radio station. The older kids are talking about what they're up to. We've already mentioned that Jonathan's at NYU making what to me sounds like a truly horrible student films. What the Duffer has said it was based on the student film that they made in college. So. So, okay, the consumer.
- [197:29]
A
It's a metaphor. The more she eats, the hungrier she gets. So good.
- [197:35]
B
Nancy, why did you drop out of Yale? Nancy has dropped out and is pursuing her journalism career. Robin, living her best life. Peasant blouse, overalls, going to Smith. She's going to love the 90s. Lilith Fair is going to welcome her with open arms. I'm excited for robin in the 90s.
- [197:54]
A
One more great singer too. If I a question about an std, he'd be the first person I'd come to when they find out Steve is teaching sex ed.
- [198:00]
B
This is what we come to. This is what we come to. Which is the, is the real genius of this show. It is right that Steve should stay in Hawkins, Indiana. But it is very deft the way that they have reframed this. Not as a peaked in high school, stuck here forever, you know, as he expressed sort of like when he was scooping ice cream, working at the video store, stuff like that. Like it's a, I love this place and I'm going to make this place better. And we have seen the way that he has taken care of the children on the show and we know that he is going to take care of them. This idea of him in this like again, I was getting strong probably because they said Friday Night Lights was an inspiration. But strong like Tim and Billy Riggins like you know, at the golden hour, clinking a beer and saying Texas forever. And the Friday Night Lights finale. But also, I mean, shout out Billy Riggins and his coaching career. But like, but like Coach Eric Taylor, Steve talking about wanting to find a girl and them teasing him and wanting to buy a house and all this sort of stuff like that. But like whenever I think about Coach Taylor, I think about this line from Tammy Taylor, his wife, incredible, incredible character. Connie Britton, you legend quote, you are a teacher first and you are a molder of men. Tammy says to coach Eric Taylor. And I always think, whenever I say Coach Taylor, Coach Eric Taylor in my head in parentheses, it's molder of men. Find it. And I think about.
- [199:33]
A
You know, I.
- [199:34]
B
Think about, I don't know, just a million different things. And so just thinking about Steve being that for the young children of, of Hawkins, gender aside, is just such an important thing. Being an educator is such an important thing. You can make fun of him for being a sex ed teacher, Robin, but like being an educator, being involved in kids lives, helping new generations grow up and it just absolutely shifts this idea of like stuck here. Failure peaked in high school and it's just sort of like doing something important, doing valuable work and doing something you're so good at. We've seen him be good at and, and just giving back to, to Hawkins in the Hawkins rebuild. I just thought was really, really beautiful. And most importantly in this scene, and this is something that I've seen even the haters of the finale really respond to is this promise that we'll meet every month in Philly and how every single person, maybe not the kids watching this, but every single person who's an adult watching this going, they're never going to do that. They're not going to do that. They're going to say that they're going to do that, and maybe they'll. Maybe they'll do it once, but they're not going to do it. And. And these friendships end and people drift, and that's okay. It's a thing that happens. But that hope of, like, we won't drift. We will keep it together. No one else. That. That trauma bond that Jonathan was referencing in his unpro proposal to Nancy, it was just sort of. It's referenced here again. No one else will understand what we went through.
- [201:00]
A
Yeah.
- [201:01]
B
And while that's true, I. I choose to believe that 11 is hiking in Iceland, but I do not believe that these young adults will be in touch. Maybe someone. Maybe Robin and Steve. Maybe, you know, like, maybe, but, like. But they won't. And I love that they, like, made that promise, and the duffers know, and we know that that's not a promise they're going to keep. And I. That's the. Exactly. Poignant, bittersweet, this is growing up kind of ending that we deserve here.
- [201:30]
A
Yeah. I really agree. Beautifully said. I thought the scene was lovely. The emotion. Again, another version of. You can feel that the performers are grieving the end of this chapter as well. You know, all of them crying and saying what they missed. It's like, I really love what you're saying about Steve, you know, ending up where he's supposed to be. And it feels like every one of them got their version of that. You know, I still have some notes on Nancy's journalistic practices, so I'm not sure that dropping out of Emerson to go work at the Herald, I don't know how that's going to go for her. I did think Robin's like, you became a Navy seal. Note was. Maybe it's worth thinking about if you're Nancy. But overall, just the emotion. And I love this idea of, like, for Steve, he's there, so he's surrounded all the time by reminders of these people who left. And that's painful and it's sad, but also for the people who aren't there, then it's this absence of a different sort. And, like, everybody has their own version of that thing when you move on. And, like, the way you put it, Drift apart is just. There's. There's an inevitability to it. I had the same response watching it. When they make this promise to each other, that's like, I Love that. They want to believe that that can happen, but you just. You just know that it won't. And, like, they're mourning a thing that's already ended and that they've lost. And they're also kind of. They're. They're pre. They're pre grieving like this. They're trying to hold on to something that you can't keep in your hands forever. And that's just. That's just true. And that's just how life goes. And it doesn't mean that they love each other any less. It's just, like, that's part of growing up.
- [202:51]
B
There's this line that I quote all the time from the Six Feet under finale, right? When Claire is trying to take a photo of her family, and her deceased brother sort of whispers in her ear, like, you can't take a photo of this. It's already gone. Every time I think about that, I just, like, I get really upset, you know? Yeah. You can't take a photo of this. It's already gone. Like, you can't. You can't recapture what we went through with Stranger Things. It's already over.
- [203:16]
A
Yeah.
- [203:17]
B
So. Yeah. I, I. I don't know that the scene. I thought that. I think everything that happens in the Wheeler basement is perfect. I don't know that. I thought this rooftop scene was, like, perfectly executed. Think there was, like, some inert spaces in it. But. But when I think about it, thinking about it makes me really emotional, and I. And I. I just thought that was really good. Hopper and Joyce finally go to Enzo's. Mallory, take it away.
- [203:42]
A
A lot has changed over the years. Hopper's ability to pronounce the name of any given wine. Not one of those things. So that's nice. There are some constants. I really liked hearing from Hopper say, you raised two beautiful boys and two incredible men.
- [203:58]
B
It healed something in me from the parenting conversation they had.
- [204:02]
A
Yeah. Yeah. You should be happy. You should be proud, like. And the way that, again, this was growth for him, because there's no, there's not. Not a. I didn't feel a twinge of envy there.
- [204:12]
B
Right.
- [204:12]
A
It's just joy and just pride, and that was really nice. I loved and appreciated, as I'm sure many Bob fans do. I think Bob was here with us because the Montauk plan is basically the main plan that we could move to a cabin and maintain plan. And I feel like. I like to think that Bob would be happy that they were maybe gonna.
- [204:28]
B
Go do this someday. I'm gonna take you to Enzo's. And I'm gonna make this pitch. It's gonna be us opening House of Reeds on a seaside town. And I'm like, we could hear. We could hear seagulls squawking.
- [204:37]
A
You could hear crashing. I. I feel like maybe nobody told Hopper that, yes, the salary is higher, but also the cost of living. Cost of living is a liar. But, you know, I hope it works out for them and just, yeah, the. Like you. Will you spend the rest of your life with a tired, grumpy, stubborn old man who loves you very much? Like, a little bit of that awareness that we need Hop to have. And just seeing how much Elle did really help him heal. Like, the way that he. He could have gone into this cocoon of misery and self flagellation and, you know, could have allowed his constant worry that. That fear gnawing at him that he would always, like, lead the people he loves to some sort of peril to. To stop him from ever sharing a life with somebody. But he didn't do that. And he's allowing himself to be happy, and because he's doing that, he's able to help others like Mike believe that they can do the same. And so, of course, I'm happy that Joyce and Hop are together and hopefully enjoying a very fruitful sex life. And I hope that they get to look at the ocean a lot in Montauk and that everybody's happy, but just for the. The growth. The growth that we see there. And, you know, we got. We got. He had planned. He done some planning. We hear at last out of James. I love that stuff. Okay.
- [205:43]
B
Same last. Last, but not least lease. And by that, I mean Pen.
- [205:48]
A
Yeah.
- [205:48]
B
Yeah. This is. This is the last section I want to believe is what I'm calling this section. Right. Shout out X Files. Okay. We end as we began. The beginning is the end. Establish the beginning.
- [206:00]
A
Yeah.
- [206:00]
B
Establishing shot on the Wheeler lawn sprinkler pan into the party playing DND in the basement. If you match up these shots, they're. You know, they match up, of course. No, Erica in the epilogue is a hot bummer for me. In this section of the epilogue, the Duffer brothers have said, obviously no one's concerned about Erica. She can take care of herself. She's got to go through high school now, but she's just so tough. But Lady Applejack not being involved in any of this is a bummer, I would say.
- [206:32]
A
I. So Adam was enraged by this. He was like, it is insane that Erica is not. Not there for this. He was. I Think a lot of people were, like, as you said, very pissed about this. I think I love Erica. As you know, she's one of my favorites. So I'm always happy to see her in a scene. I think that this group being the group that was in the scene, felt right, though, both because Erica has her own friends and her own party, but also, like, this specific experience. What l meant to all of them and what it means to move to this next phase of their life where they're all going to different places, is more specific to that smaller group.
- [207:06]
B
I did see someone suggest that she should be DMing the. The game for the. For Holly and the other kids or something like that. Like, is there some space for her.
- [207:15]
A
Or, you know, something more Erica in some capacity at the end? I obviously would have loved.
- [207:19]
B
Yes, yes.
- [207:20]
A
No question.
- [207:20]
B
All right. I will say Max really cracked me up, and I think she'd be very fun to play D and D with. And I think all the kids, and by kids, I mean they're adults, are on an entirely other level. Level in this scene.
- [207:32]
A
Agreed.
- [207:34]
B
We all the time mock the line from the Game of Thrones finale, what's more important than story? I think this is a great execution of what's more important than story? This is it. Done. Well, there's another lampshade moment, right, where Max says, comfort and happiness. Could you be more tried? I thought you were a master storyteller or something. Right. So this is the Duffer saying, like. Like, hey, you think a happy ending is boring? Well, you. There are. There are different ways to find comfort and happiness.
- [208:05]
A
So meta. So meta.
- [208:07]
B
So where are they now, the knight and the Zoomer? They retire from battle and they settle down in a small village. With each passing day, their love grows stronger, and we see Max and Lucas watching Ghost, which came out in 1990. So we do go to the 90s. I did not get my New Year's Eve rocking New Year's Eve with the Stranger Things crew, but that's okay. So Max and Lucas are watching Ghost, is what the Duffers have said. They are going to.
- [208:27]
A
So happy we got to see them at the movies. I'm so happy.
- [208:31]
B
The Bard, craving knowledge, makes his way to the Mages Guild of Enclave, where he spends his days in their vast library. Though deeply devoted to his studies, he still makes time for the occasional adventure. So Dustin goes to college and still adventures camps, perhaps with Steve.
- [208:44]
A
So I just love the. Steve has his rv.
- [208:48]
B
The Duffer said they wanted to show that Bromance is growing strong with Steve because They had a bumpy season five that.
- [208:53]
A
I'm. I'm grateful and you did that.
- [208:55]
B
Duffers. Just saying. Okay. As for Will the Wise, he travels far and long to the bustling city of Villachi. It's overwhelming at first, so very different from the village where he spent his youth. But it isn't long before he finds his place there. And with that deep happiness and acceptance, I don't think the Duffers have confirmed that Villachi is meaning Will is going to Milwaukee. But that is what people have inferred from this. And if I will say, even if that's what the Duffers planned, I think they will never cop to that now because people pointed out that in 1989 in Milwaukee was where Jeffrey Dahmer was hunting young gay men. So that is perhaps not where we should send Will Byers. But the closed cap is. It's Valaki. Like it's V A L A a K I. He's not saying Milwaukee there, but I think similar to digitally erasing the Under Armour logo from Holly's shirt, which they did in the last couple of weeks, they're just going to be like, Valaki is not Milwaukee. I don't know where you got that impression would be my guess.
- [209:59]
A
Oh, man.
- [210:00]
B
And the storyteller. What about him? And I'm sure you like me thought about. You've left out one of the chief characters, Sam Way the brave. I want to hear more about Sam.
- [210:10]
A
About Sam. Of course.
- [210:12]
B
The storyteller keeps telling stories, stories inspired by his friends. One day, he hopes their tales of grand adventure will spread far and wide across. Across the land so all can know of their bravery. Again, this is such a better version of Archmaester. Abras wrote A Song of Ice and Fire, which is awkwardly shoehorned. This idea that Mike wrote Stranger Things, which we get like sort of at the end of the credits. Like, I. I'm. I'm not mad about that concept. Mike becomes a writer. Some of our listeners wrote in saying they were thinking about Bill Bow and Frodo, you know, writing there and back again. Of course, last pages are for you. I was giving. Is giving really strong. Richard Dreyfus at the end of Stand By Me, which is. I rewatched that scene and I started crying because, you know, Standby Me. A definite inspiration. Definite inspiration. As well as the narrator at the end of the Sandlot, similarly. But Stand By Me. What you discover about Stand By Me at the end of that movie, I guess I don't want to spoil it. Is like, why this character has Been telling this story and it is. And, and this idea that his kids are asking him to come play and he's. And they're like, oh, he's lost in the store. And it's like, yeah, that's always what happens when he's writing, you know, and it's just like thinking about again, I don't want to spoil the. Understand by me, I guess, but like thinking about that and. And Mike with his little snapshot of 11 next to his typewriters as he becomes a writer is just very impactful. I really liked it a lot.
- [212:00]
A
I thought this was amazing. It's just amazing. The symmetry that you noted. Just what a perfect. What a perfect choice to end where we started. The idea too, just that the party hasn't died, you know, like so much of the tension and friction and the, the rifts that form in young friendships of like, do you think we were going to play forever? Like, yeah, I did. You know, and giving away the box, how does Erica get her first? Like, you know, so the fact that we are going to end on the closed door in the basement and this idea of childhood's end, right, of moving into the next phase of your life, but also the idea that like there is this preserved thing that is lasting and will always be important and precious, I just thought was really, really lovely. The glimpses that what Mike is saying about everybody. I thought that was all beautiful and the performances here were just amazing. I mean, I, I lost it when they all got up to put their binders away.
- [212:59]
B
Even though I believe the way killed me, the way that Gaten says it with like a, like, almost like a mischievous, like happy, like, I believe like a very like, clap, if you believe in fairies. Sort of like Peter Pan moment of like. We can all decide what this ending means for us. The Duffers have given a lot of interviews about this, right, and talked about 11 as representative of the magic of childhood, which I think is interesting is an imperfect idea because 11, unlike like say a Puff the Magic Dragon or a Peter Pan, like 11 is such a fully formed character in her own right and such a, you know, hop talking about all the things that happened to her and, And. And the life she gets to lead. So like to reduce her to sort of this like likey T or whatever, like this emblem of. Of. Of the magic of childhood is. It hits a slightly wrong note for me, but I really like this ending. It's. And it's deception ending. It's a wicked for good ending. It's the Dark Knight Rises. It's a ballad of songbirds and snakes, if you prefer. It's the leftovers in that you get to decide what the end of this story means. And it's a Captain America ending because this is, this is the Duffer Brothers quote that I, Matt, Matt Duffer said to them. What we really wanted to do was confront the reality of her, what her situation was after all of this and how she could look live a normal life. This idea of Captain America again until Avengers Doomsday goes back in time and just gets himself some of that life that he's been hearing so much about. You know what I mean? Like, and it. I know a lot of people don't like this ending and they feel like 11 is, is sort of punished and, and ostracized like that. She doesn't get like a full blown happy ending. She's away from everyone she loved. I see it. She just looks so happy. But of course that's in Mike's mind. But since I choose to believe, I choose to believe she looks so happy. She's there in pink and blue. A lot of people online have pointed out that this is like they were like Mike envisioning her in her season one color palette of pink and blue. I choose to believe this is an optimistic ending for 11 and I choose to believe that she made a choice that she is happy with things. End, childhood ends. And so Elle is a symbol of childhood magic for these other characters. I like less than just thinking about 11 and her choice and pursuing a happiness for herself and the pain that that brings for the people that she left behind. But also the hope and belief and storytelling magic that can come of thinking about her. One must imagine Sisyphus and 11 happy. And I think that that is just really strong, strong ending for this show.
- [215:57]
A
Yeah, I think there's a very hopeful, optimistic aspect to this undeniably as well for El, but also for the party sitting at that table talking about this thing, crying. Each of them saying in their own way, as you noted, like, I believe, I just believe. And the way that this ending in terms of Elle, but also just the idea of story writ large empowers us to choose what we believe is so perfect and so fitting and so apt for the story that we just watched. So I believe as well. I like you thought of. I love the list you're at their inception certainly came to mind in terms of I think like Inception. It will be something we're debating. You know, we the fandom are debating for. For some time. But what's so Interesting to me is.
- [216:39]
B
That I didn't Inception. I'm willing to have that argument and I'm willing to have the argument whatever, but this one I'm just sort of like, I'm just so sure and I just, I just believe and like that's not true of ins. I mean I, I believe I know what happened in Inception, but like you could probably persuade me the other way and I would, I would easily go there I think because my belief in what happened to 11 is so rooted in my, my need for these kids to be okay. Yeah. That it's, I'm sticking, going to stick faster to this, I believe than I would to like. Is Cobb okay? I care a little less. Honestly. Cobb has lived his life. Eleven is so young and she is so much sure.
- [217:19]
A
So yeah, I think that like the, the other thing I, I, I believe, I choose to believe we're, we're in the same place with this. I think that even either way if 11 died or if 11 left this all behind, either way hope and optimism still present. It's a sacrifice undeniably and it's her life in one form or another. And that is a kind of like central sacred aspect of a lot of these fantasy tales that we, that we love. And so it feels appropriate and we had kind of anticipated this in many forms over the years, but it feels appropriate that that was present in some way. And I think you know, never ending story in Lord of the Rings again were on my mind most throughout the finale. But specifically in this scene, I think like we you know, for a long time have been talking about the Frodo.
- [218:13]
B
The stories never end.
- [218:15]
A
The stories never end but you know, and just the like the Shire's been saved but not for me and all of it and how Lord of the Rings coded this was and obviously the over set up in, in chapter one of this season with Mike and Eleven talking on the roof about like well what usually happens and like is that gonna happen? You know, I think we had been primed so fully for this question of like well where will 11 sail? You know, like what is the undying land for 11? And I think that's such a lovely thing for Iceland. Iceland's group there for us to think about. And I think that you know, both in this conversation and this like, you know, I choose to believe aspect of it and then really also when we pan out, I loved the closing credits. These beautiful illustrations and all of the incorporation of all of the memories and then we pan out players manual and like the way that this heightens in this very Never Ending Story fashion, this idea that, like, we are the storytellers too, and we are in the story when we choose to be. And like I was thinking back to when we did our Tropes Course episode, when we did our Portal Worlds episode, our Rabbit Holes episode, and the quote, the quotes that we each shared, we had each picked a Never Ending Story quote to share in that episode, unsurprisingly, of course. And I think they're just perfect. Like they were so on my mind seeing that player's manual, the one that you had picked. This is from the text from the book. If you have never spent whole afternoons with burning ears and rumpled hair forgetting the world around you over a book, forgetting cold and hunger, if you have never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight because your father or mother or some other well meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early. If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so much, many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless. If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastion did next. And like, that was just so on my mind here, because that's what they're giving us when they sh.
- [220:40]
B
When they.
- [220:40]
A
When we hear Mike say these things and we hear the. The characters. Characters say I choose to believe. And we see them put their books on the shelf and we pan out and we are encouraged to think about this story, the show, but just the adventure more broadly as like, not just a story that's waiting for us that we can return to, but one that we participate in, right? One that we can be a part of. And part of that is thinking about what happened to El. But all of it, every aspect of the journey, I wonder, he said to himself, what's in a book while it's closed? Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet, and all kinds of adventures and deeds and battles, and sometimes there are storms at sea or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut up in a book. Of course, you have to read it to find out, but it's already There, that's the funny thing. And like that was, that was the, the other passage that, that you picked, I had picked for that episode. And like they're part of the same idea, right? And like that's what a great book is for us. And that's also what this show was at its best for us. And so ending in that spirit, I just thought was the, the, the perfect place to be. So I choose to believe. I.
- [221:57]
B
This is why. So like, this is why I think. Thank you so much for sharing that. I love you. When you cry, I cry. Talking about the communal aspect of watching this in the theater, I think what you're saying about like the way in which we get to be storytellers because we get to decide how, you know, in, in the classic 80s, choose your own adventure style. We get to decide how eleven's story ends. So we get to participate in the construction of this story. That's a beautiful idea. And then I also think that ties into the meta narrative of watching these young actors who we've watched grown up put their, literally put their characters on a shelf, take their binders. I saw a great behind the scenes video of the crew on the camera that's like through the cutout of the wall that's like filming them putting. And they're playing heroes on the set. So they were like playing the song. And so just like watching the camera crew watch them put their binders away and just like watching watching Sadie sink.
- [222:57]
A
Yeah.
- [222:57]
B
Walk up and Sadie is just, I think head and shoulders above the rest of the cast. They're all great. I think she's just honestly God tier and put Max on a shelf. And so. And watching Finn Wolfhard pause on the top step and look at the young kids coming down. Holly and not Thomas and Derek and etc. Etc. Come down to play D and D. And so like, yeah, the meta way in which those characters are saying. Those actors are saying goodbye, they're involved in it. It's their story too. It's our story, it's their story, it's everyone's story. It's wrapped up in who we've all been for the last decade. And that is really hard to find anymore at all in television in the streaming landscape that we occupied in the fractured of the monoculture, all that sort of stuff like that. So I just think it's really powerful. Powerful and like Ethan Hawke said, important and will remain important. And I'm really glad that this was. Last year was kind of a funky year for us, content wise. So we got to, like, really just dig into Stranger Things for, like, half the year, essentially, and I feel really lucky to have shared that with you. So I love you.
- [224:07]
A
I love you too, pal. I just love that Derek and Holly are playing D D and we've passed the torch to a new generation. Mike, watching them sit down, like, for us to have our version of that with the show is really, really cool. It's really cool. I'll miss it.
- [224:24]
B
Thank you, Mallory Rubin. Thank you to all of our thank you to all of our listeners who've been with us on the. On the rewatches or just whether or not you just, like, tuned in for the final season or whatever the case may be, thank you so much. Thank you on this epic, epic, and thank you for your patience on this finale pod. We really appreciate you again letting us have a holiday. Thank you to Carlos Joga for his epic work editing this chunky little episode. Thank you to our Powell for hurting cats all day every day for us. And thank you for jo me at dinner on the social. And we will see you later this week for Buffy, more teens graduating, Buffy the Vampire Slayer season three and and more and more and more for the rest of the year. All right, bye.