stranger things finale review rotten tomatoes

The Stranger Things series finale is being received as a mixed, often polarizing ending that sits near the bottom of the show’s Rotten Tomatoes history, especially on the audience side. Critics are more “decent but underwhelming” than outright hostile, while a vocal slice of fans is pushing scores down with harsh reviews.

Rotten Tomatoes snapshot

The big context behind “stranger things finale review rotten tomatoes ” is that Season 5 has landed the worst or near‑worst ratings of the series on the platform so far.

• Critics:
  • Reports point to a critics’ Tomatometer around the mid‑50s for Season 5, making it the lowest‑rated season by reviewers.

* Many reviews call the season **ambitious but uneven** , praising performances and emotional beats while criticizing pacing, bloat, and an underwhelming resolution to the Upside Down storyline.

• Audience:
  • Fan‑driven scores have fallen sharply, with coverage noting a drop from the 70s down into the mid‑50s due to negative user submissions.

* Some users label Season 5 “cinematic garbage,” citing chaotic plotting, weak stakes, and hollow character work, which drags the average down despite many positive ratings.

Table: Season 5 vs earlier seasons (Rotten Tomatoes trend)

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Season	Critics score trend	Audience score trend	General critical vibe
Season 1	Low–mid 90s (very high).	High audience acclaim.	“Lightning in a bottle,” tight and nostalgic.
Season 2	~90% range, still strong.	High, just under S1.	Seen as a strong follow‑up with deeper emotion.
Season 3	Low–mid 80s.	Noticeably lower, more mixed.	Fun, loud, but more chaotic and less subtle.
Season 4	High 80s.	Mid–high 80s.	Darker, more horror‑driven and ambitious, but bloated.
Season 5 (final)	Mid‑50s, lowest so far.	Mid‑50s fan score after a steep drop.	Ambitious, emotional, but divisive and underwhelming in payoff.

What critics are actually saying

Professional reactions to the finale cluster around “good enough to be affecting, not good enough to be great.”

• Positives:
  • Many reviews highlight the scale of the last episodes, the emotional closure for the core cast, and strong performances, especially from the younger actors and from the main villain.

* Some critics argue the final two hours retroactively make the season feel more satisfying, even if the road to get there is messy.

• Negatives:
  • Multiple outlets describe the finale as underwhelming , emphasizing unanswered questions and a resolution that does not fully pay off years of mythology.

* Common complaints: overlong runtime, too much epilogue‑style nostalgia, and plotting that feels safe, with little genuine danger to the main cast.

One article explicitly frames Season 5 as having “fallen victim to the Game of Thrones effect”: huge expectations, complex lore, and an ending many see as not matching the build‑up.

Fan reaction and “review bombing”

The forum discussion angle (“latest news”, “forum discussion”, “trending topic”) is all about how split the fandom is and whether the Rotten Tomatoes score reflects real consensus or coordinated downvoting.

• Evidence of review bombing:
  • Entertainment press notes that recent episodes dragged the audience score from the 70s to about 56% , explicitly attributing the plunge to waves of negative user reviews.

* Social posts and coverage point out that Season 5 has the lowest critical rating and that the audience score dipped quickly after late‑season episodes dropped, a classic pattern for backlash campaigns.

• Counter‑arguments:
  • On Reddit and other forums, some users insist this is not organized bombing but genuine disappointment, pointing to mixed user scores on IMDb and other platforms rather than a total collapse.

* People argue that calling all criticism “review bombing” dismisses legitimate frustrations about pacing, stakes, and character arcs.

On r/television, a widely discussed thread titled along the lines of “finale was good, stop review bombing” argues that the last episode is a solid, if flawed , conclusion, not a disaster deserving 1/10 dogpiles. Many commenters in that thread acknowledge issues but push back against extreme negativity and comparison to notorious endings like Game of Thrones.

Main praise vs main complaints

For a “Quick Scoop” on what viewers are actually saying, most reactions fall into a few repeat themes across reviews, social posts, and forum debates.

Most‑cited positives

• Emotional payoffs:
  • Fans and critics highlight heartfelt reunions, closing character beats, and full‑circle moments tying back to early seasons.

• Performances:
  • The main villain (Vecna / Jamie Campbell Bower) and the core ensemble are often praised even by detractors of the story.

• Spectacle:
  • The finale delivers big‑scale set pieces, high production value, and a sense of event TV that many still describe as thrilling or at least visually impressive.

Most‑cited negatives

• Weak stakes and “too safe” storytelling:
  • A common complaint is that the supposed climactic battle feels short and tension‑free, with few or no meaningful character deaths, making the outcome feel predetermined.

• Pacing and bloat:
  • Viewers describe a rushed central confrontation followed by an overly long, nostalgia‑heavy epilogue, with some saying the final hour drags even more than the extended ending of Return of the King.

• Underused or mishandled villains:
  • The Mind Flayer and the larger Upside Down mythology are seen by some as oddly sidelined or too easily resolved, turning what once felt like an existential threat into a subplot.

• Tone shift and over‑drama:
  • Several fans note that a large portion of Season 5 leans into interpersonal drama and emotional scenes at the expense of tight plotting, leaving only a small fraction of episodes feeling genuinely suspenseful.

Is the finale “good” or “bad”?

From the current mix of Rotten Tomatoes scores, critic write‑ups, and active forum threads , the emerging consensus is:

• Not a catastrophe:
  • Most mainstream critics and many fans view the finale as acceptable to decent: emotional, sometimes moving, but structurally flawed and far from the show’s best work.

• Clearly divisive:
  • The gap between nostalgic defenders and disappointed critics/fans is large, which explains the mid‑50s scores rather than either glowing praise or total collapse.

• Overshadowed by expectations:
  • Years of hype, long runtimes, and layered mythology set a bar that the ending struggles to clear, leading to a feeling that Stranger Things “overstayed its welcome” for some viewers.

So, in Rotten Tomatoes terms, the stranger things finale review rotten tomatoes story is that the final season is officially the weakest‑rated of the series, with solid but imperfect critic reception and a heavily contested audience score affected by both genuine disappointment and likely review‑bomb behavior.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.