With an end looming, buried truths surface, alliances fracture, and the true nature of the Upside Down reshapes everything the characters thought they knew.
To call Stranger Things a puzzle-box show would be reductive. It’s a horror, it’s a pastiche, it’s a coming-of-age tale. But in its final instalment of three episodes before the New Year’s Day finale, the puzzle of it all comes into sharp relief, and it becomes all the more impressive that the Duffer Brothers sustained momentum while giving away so little. How on earth have so many of us been watching this for a decade and tolerated not knowing what the hell the Upside Down actually was until now?
Suffice it to say, that is not information this review will go into any detail about, but answers come thick and fast over these three episodes. And even though they are exposition-heavy, they deliver it with a charm that evokes artistic integrity rather than a streaming-service algorithm. Vol. 2 of this final season does feel boxed-in, being the penultimate dump of episodes before the finale, and much of it is committed to characters staring off into the middle-distance and delivering what seem like farewell speeches ahead of a presumably bloody conclusion. It remains to be seen whether Stranger Things sticks the landing and whether we end up with a final televisual beat that’s as good as what came before, but at this point, the chess pieces are all in place to pull off something magnificent.
The reappearance of some characters who were previously out for the count is an utter joy.
To raise the stakes and ground the terror, we have a lot of Vecna, and a lot of his motives, which, despite Jamie Campbell Bower’s consistently captivating performance, don’t boil down to much beyond him being a sadist. There’s an imbalance of screen time within the large ensemble, with Robin (Maya Hawke), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Hopper (David Harbour) being underserved, while the admittedly wonderful Sadie Sink’s Max and newcomer Nell Fisher’s Holly dominate. Meanwhile, the reappearance of some characters who were previously out for the count is an utter joy. At times, one tires of all the near-misses when it comes to fatalities and the pivots towards wrapping up romantic beats rather than major plot points, but with an eye on the episode count, it’s clear why total resolution is still a way off.
And while there’s a monologue or two delivered in search of emotional apexes that don’t quite land, if there is a dry eye in the house by the conclusion of Volume 2, then an optometrist should be urgently consulted. Its pre-final act is more concerned with setting up a big splashy battle, but after a build-up this long, to do anything else would be a disservice to this puzzle. Some solutions should be savoured, and so far, this one is delicious.
A measured and often moving penultimate chapter that reveals long-awaited answers, deepens character stakes, and carefully positions the board for a finale that now feels both inevitable and emotionally earned.
