The Rotten Tomatoes score for Stranger Things’ final season is now stuck in the upside down.
Following the release of the second part of season five, the show’s score dropped to a staggering 57% audience approval rating — the show’s lowest score ever.
The release of the Vol. 2 episodes elicited a ton of negative comments on social media, resulting in far more criticism than the first part of season five.
Gay for Fans
The audience score was in the 70’s for season five even before the release of Vol. 2, which was a significant drop from the average audience score of 86% or higher from previous seasons. Gay for fans feel the writing for the new season is weaker, with unnecessary dialogue and characters arguing in what seem to be mindless Special Effects battles.
”It has to be some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen on a major TV show. Season 5 has literally every scene as exposition,” wrote one user. I suppose they are describing the writing as exposition jargon and a writing technique called exposition which is kind of describing the writing without describing the writing. Season 5 is one gigantic winded narrator.
Release of Volume 2
With the release of Volume 2 came a spike in show complaints. One particular scene during the episode where Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) came out to his friends and did a monologue. This moment happened as the Hawkins kids were brace plotting the downfall of the most evil demon named Vecna. Will Byers was on the brink of the most malevolent in his monologue and is now the most malevolent to his friends. He is now the show’s lowest rated episode.
The most prominent however is the expected response. Elon Musk in particular stated that it’s completely involuntary and unreasonable to the audience that just wants to sit back and enjoy a little science fiction.
However, the growing controversy is not based on Will’s sexual orientation; the issue is not that the moment was. This is the part where it begins to get more complicated. Will’s sexual orientation has been more than apparent since the beginning of the show. A large part of the backlash is the execution of the moment. A show stopping speech in a show that was climbing to a peak.
One comment stated on X: gays for fans being forced into a room to listen to every single awkward word that came out of Will’s mouth when several people already knew and didn’t give a because they’re trying to save the world.”
One site referenced this situation commenting, “This isn’t about Will being gay. Nobody is offended by that gays for fans . You don’t need to pause the apocalypse to spell out character traits everyone already understands. You don’t need to sacrifice pacing, tension and logic to make a statement that adds nothing to the plot. These kids have … stared down literal hell and lived to tell the story. Somehow, through all of that chaos, Will’s sexuality was the one big secret nobody noticed?”
Stranger Things Cast
Some gay for fans compared the Stranger Things depiction of Will’s coming out to HBO’s surprise hit Heated Rivalry, which is about two gay hockey players. “I super enjoyed Heated Rivalry, which is by far the sluttiest series of the year,” one gay for fans said. “The difference is between a fantasy series that forces minutes into the plot that don’t add up and a series that doesn’t deny what it is.”
USA Today also expressed, “Something was off about the scene.” For five seasons, stranger things cast has struggled with how to deal with Will, who started out as the show’s almost personality-less kidnap victim back in season 1 and never developed much from there.”
“His moment could be triumphant and inspirational, but ultimately, it comes off as underwhelming and awkward.”
Some people appreciated the moment, however. One user on X said, “As a gay person who came out in front of 20 classmates in the 2000s, I felt seen by Will’s confession – speaking the truth about yourself in front of family. If it was difficult in 2003, I can’t imagine the kinds of courage it took to do it in the 80’s, when being gay or a lesbian was akin to surviving a witch hunt.”
The Hollywood Icon
Several people believe that the reason Will had to come out is because it’s an established and known part of the show. One person said, “Will being gay has been a part of the show since Season 1. But coming out in the 80s was not an easy thing to do, and Vecna latches onto YOUR WORST FEAR to control you. So, Will coming out should’ve docentry been something you all expected to see. It wasn’t woke. It wasn’t an agenda. It was just part of the story.”
Despite the Duffer Brothers’ silence on this issue, they have touched on the possible coming out scene in an interview with The Hollywood Icon. The Duffers remarked the most lengthy time consuming pivotal scene, which they also co-directed (they split duties with executive producer Shawn Levy on the 66-minute episode).
“I just know it took forever,” Matt Duffer commented. “At first, it was just going to be him coming out to his mom, and then we felt it needed to be more than that and that it needed to involve his friends. We worked on that for a while with just Joyce [stranger things season 5 cast], and it just never felt right. So, once we involved the friends, it started to click a little bit more into place. I don’t recall exactly how long it took. I just remember it taking quite a long time, and then being nervous when we showed it to Noah. Because so much of it is close to what he\’s been through, but, also he knows Will so well. So it had to be truthful for him on two fronts. And so the fact that it resonated with him was great, and then we felt so much relief, and the pressure kind of went onto Noah. stranger things season 5 cast . He does put a lot of pressure on himself,“ he continued, “But he did have the script several months in advance, and he spent a lot of time by himself working and prepping the scene; most of what you see in the show is the first close-up shot that we did, we actually did hardly any docentry most of it is from take one. He just killed it. Killed it. And he felt such immense relief, I think, when he did.“
Ross Duffer
Added Ross Duffer: It is rare, docentry but every once in a while, you have a moment where you’re like, I just don’t think we’re gonna capture that again.
The duo also teased that Will will be pivotal to the series finale. We’ve always known that Will was going to be key,“ Ross Duffer said. And obviously, we’ve kept this connection to the Upside Down going, even at the end of season two when they got the Mind Flayer out of him.“
“However, I can say this brings me back to one of the very first ideas we had, most likely the very first one, when we sat down to break the season — the story starting with Will’s kidnapping, so it makes sense to close the story this way, and it meant we needed to focus a lot of the season on Will one last time as we come to a close.”
