The heart of ‘Stranger Things’ is still beating strong

I’ll say it right away: I got a shiver. Not so much for the obligatory tax of the battle with the monster, but for that long, declared farewell, at times even shameless in its desire to make us stay a little longer. Maybe it’s because I was actually in the Wheeler basement, I saw the table on which Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will play Dungeons & DragonsI walked next to the mismatched chairs, touched the crochet blanket on the padded sofa, saw the black and white TV and the walkie talkie with which Mike spoke to Eleven. And that’s where the series can only return, to that feeling that the world outside may explode, but not down there. In that refuge you play, you resist, you make an emotional pact, even with the spectator. “The end of all our explorations will be to arrive where we started and know that place for the first time,” wrote TS Eliot. Same story, same place, one last campaign before everyone does what they have to do: grow up, separate, move on.

The beauty of the ending of Stranger Things it’s that it doesn’t necessarily want to go out with a bang, nor does it try to reinvent television: in its linearity it chooses to end where it all began, with the awareness that only time can give. It’s not a shock ending, it’s not a Russian roulette plot twistnor is it a moral lesson disguised as an epic. We had written (Who) That ST he never lost his heart. It all just depended on how hard he decided to make him hit. Answer: very strong, at least for what really matters.

The first part of the episode serves to close the sci-fi practice in the Abyss, with the showdown that must take place, by contract and by tradition. Works? Enough. Could it have gone better? Yes, without being too much of a purist. The elimination of Vecna ​​is definitely too quick and easy, but who knows how much they spent to create the whole spectacle, it couldn’t have lasted longer than that. The truth about Henry Creel and his connection to the Mind Flayer was already canon, no real surprise, but a sensational performance by Jamie Campbell Bower that manages a small miracle: making you feel sorry for Henry while wishing for Vecna ​​to be definitively destroyed. Pathos is absent until Winona Ryder goes into “mother saves the world” mode to the Mr. Mr. Mr. Marr. Heavesley is a battaglia to Hogwarts (children, your).

The point, however, is another. Because, once again, it comes back D&D. The Duffers have always said it: Stranger Things it is built like a match. And even the final showdown respects its spirit: no hero wins alone, evil is not fought only with strength and the only real weapon is to remain a company until the end. It’s not a question of rules, but of grammar. The entire finale is a campaign played to the hilt, with everyone around the same table.

On the other hand, ST it was never really a series about the Upside Down, or Vecna, or interdimensional portals. Rather, a story of friendships that are born before you understand who you are, and which for this very reason mark you forever. So how beautiful Will & Mike BFF, the speech Ruuuooohulu of Dustin (hearts for Gaten Matarazzo), his storyline with Steve (hearts also for Joe Keery), the drink on the roof of the radio and, obviously, that last game. There is a certain irony in this conclusion: after seasons in which Stranger Things has been accused of living on nostalgia, here nostalgia stops being aesthetic and becomes feeling. No crutch, no cunning, but just a way to look back without getting stuck. The flashbacks — of Eleven (pre Botox) and Hopper, of Mike and Will, of everything they have (have) been — are not automatic fan service: they are a reminder. “This is why you loved them.” It is a paracula technique, but also profoundly effective.

The second part of the finale, the one that we will really remember, in fact allows itself the luxury of slowing down, uses all the time it has to give meaning to the emotional trajectories rather than the narrative ones. Consequences matter more than battles. Choices more than powers. Not everything is perfect, not everything is very elegant, but almost everyone gets the farewell they deserved. And above all, no one is sacrificed on the altar of the twist at any cost. They tried to give us a heart attack with Steve, it’s true, but the Duffers care too much about their characters. And so do we.

The ultimate meaning lies in acceptance: accepting other people’s choices even when they don’t coincide with yours (Mike! And what a pleasure to see Finn Wolfhard again), accepting that not all stories end as you would like, that you can’t stop time, but you can decide how to go through it. And once again D&D definitive key: telling stories to make sense of what happened and to imagine what will be. Choosing to believe something even when you don’t have proof (or maybe you do, who knows). Stories are what bring people together – this was said by another infamous ending that had decidedly less luck (yes, we always go back to Game of Thronesas we will inevitably return here from now on). AND Stranger Things he takes it literally. The circle truly comes full circle when the campaign notebooks return to the shelf. Not because everything is over, but because now it can start again for someone else, for a new generation coming down the stairs. The manual is there, the rules are learned by playing. We can be heroes, just for one day. Even just in the basement of the house.