Spoilers for season 5 of Stranger Things to follow. You have been warned.
As readers and viewers of fiction, we are not against the death of fictional characters. Over the years, I have experienced the death of many a beloved fictional character. There was Beth in Little Women, Finnick and Prim from The Hunger Games, Cecelia and Robbie in Atonement. I cried, I mourned, I accepted. This is because the narratives built and laid out helped me accept these deaths as an essential part of the story. Beth’s death was a key part of Jo’s character arc, while Finnick and Prim’s deaths were cruel consequences of the revolution.
What separates Eleven’s death from the aforementioned ones is that the narrative does not lay the groundwork for us to accept her death. From seasons 1 to 4, El has developed from a supernatural, mythic entity to a human girl. The show gave her a family, a love interest, and the promise of a future away from the control of the military. We even get a moment where Hopper basically articulates all the reasons El has to live, but then she dies anyway. I can understand her dying in the midst of battle, maybe when she’s taking on Vecna, but El choosing death deliberately? This I cannot understand.
What makes this choice even more baffling is that every other main character survives. Hopper and Max survive their almost-deaths because the creators couldn’t bear to kill them. There is no cost or consequence for anyone but El – even Ted and Karen Wheeler survive the demogorgons. El’s choice speaks of despair and giving up, which is not how we see her character. She’s persevered through all odds only to just decide she’s done fighting when she’s almost home-free?
But then there’s Mike’s theory, of how maybe El and Kali worked together to fake El’s death so she could begin again somewhere else. Of course we want to believe, however, it feels a little implausible that El would not find some way to check in on Mike given the events of season 2. So it ends with Mike in depression, forever mourning El, never moving forward, while the others moved on so easily. Besides the brief reactions of Dustin, Lucas and Max as they spot El in the Upside Down, we never see them actually grieve her. Help us feel her loss in the world, not just from Mike but everyone else. Let us see the moments immediately after her choice, so that catharsis can be achieved as we weep with everyone else. Instead we get a zombified Mike and Hopper asking him to understand and accept El’s choice when Hopper himself didn’t accept it anyway!
Mike’s greatest fear has always been losing El, and it happens in the most tragic way possible. Why does every other main character get to be happy, while it’s doom and gloom for Mileven? If season 5 had focused more on El as the main character, brought us inside her mind a little more, maybe we could have accepted that this is goodbye. Instead she is sidelined for most of the season, with most of her involvement only because of her powers. Why did the show let us see her as human, only to rebrand her as a weapon and a burden to all the people she loves?
Season 5 does not conclude neatly as well. So many plotlines dropped, as well as the emergence of contrivances that don’t make a lick of sense. What happened between Vickie and Robin, are they even still together? Why did the demogorgons not show up while the Mind Flayer was being attacked? How did Nancy suddenly become Rambo and be okay with killing people? Why does the Mind Flayer like the cold when Dimension X is a desert? How is El able to wear the wetsuit for such extended periods of time and not feel uncomfortable? It’s truly perplexing stuff.
There were certainly good moments. I liked the rooftop scene with Robin, Steve, Nancy and Jonathan. It feels true to real life, and how friendships that used to mean so much might be difficult to hang on to as life goes on. I’m glad Joyce and Hopper got their happy ending, and that Max and Lucas got to keep their movie date. I was also happy that they didn’t attempt to give Vecna a redemption arc, and it was a treat to see Jamie Campbell Bower strut his acting chops all season long.
But everything else is ultimately unsatisfactory. They wanted a bittersweet ending, but tragedy has to feel earned, not forced. Season 5 at times reminds us of what the show could achieve at its peak, when the characters were treated lovingly and not as mere fodder for plot contrivances. I accepted every single previous death in Stranger Things because the narrative prepared me for it. Not El – she deserved better than just a what-if fantasy conjured by Mike.
Maybe all is forgiven if we get a spin-off movie where she is alive. That’s all I can believe in at the moment.
