Stranger Things 5 Episode 8 Review – “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up”

There was never going to be an easy way to end Stranger Things, the series that kickstarted Netflix’s existence as a fledgling streaming service, and became a global phenomenon that spanned the next decade. As Stranger Things grew bigger in Stranger Things 3 and became downright bloated in Stranger Things 4, it morphed from a small-scale story full of practical effects and young performers to a massive, corporate blockbuster, its internal conflicts and character arcs lost to CGI spectacle and an incredibly unnecessary amount of narrative convolution. As a result, Stranger Things 5 was a product of its own becoming in that way, trying to marry its unwieldly narratives and sci-fi logic to an incredibly creaky, strained central story with an remarkably evocative, though ultimately two-dimensional, antagonist, in a two “volumes” of episodes that ranged from mildly entertaining to maddeningly repetitive – and, in some cases, downright pandering.

“Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up”, in that sense, is not just the Duffer Brothers scrambling to bring its many pieces to a satisfying close – but also creators trying to wrangle back the heart and soul of its story in the eleventh hour. And it makes a valiant effort, one that makes for an entertaining, propulsive and even occasionally (and surprisingly) reflective two-hour series finale – one that certainly doesn’t take a lot of squinting to see its massive glaring holes and disappointing dangling threads, but does just enough to remind the audience, and itself, where its heart truly lies, the appropriately messy, unsatisfyingly satisfying final episode this series deserved.

It takes a long road down a short path to get there, though; with so much legwork (both theoretical, emotional, and physical) taken care of in “Chapter Six: Escape from Camazoz” and “Chapter Seven: The Bridge”, the first hour of “The Rightside Up” plays out about exactly as expected. Everyone in the Upside Down climbs the tower, the Abyss starts to fall into the Upside Down, and Eleven and Max make their way through Vecna’s memories for the final showdown; to borrow a phrase from Mr. Clarke, it’s all going “pretty goddamn swell” in the early going – to the point it becomes obvious there’s another big shoe to drop, though I’ll give “The Rightside Up” some credit for holding that final card a bit longer into the finale than expected.

Where it falters pretty hard is in its transition from transferring all of the potential energy it built up into something kinetic; the beginning of act two falls victim to the show’s worst habits, from entirely nonsensical choices (Eleven and Kali jack into Max’s mind while she’s just sitting in the middle of the hospital – and they don’t tell Vickie that part of the plan???!) to some that are evocative, but ultimately convenient (how does Vecna get into Hopper’s mind, in order to fake him out and make him think he’s shot and killed El while she’s in the tank?).

By the time Jonathan and Steve are making nice and Murray is setting up shop in the Cum Dimension (I know it’s not its own dimension… but it’s so visually distinct from anything else, I think the name still fits), one can feel the encumbrance of the show’s deeper mythology, which it revisits as it reveals the true origins of Henry – and as many have predicted over the past few years, that Vecna is really a vessel of The Mind Flayer, a supernatural, exo-terrestrial horror (one that very, very slightly evokes Love, Death + Robot’s season one entry, “Beyond the Aquila Rift”, if you squint hard enough), which everyone fights in the second act’s big showdown between the party (the full party, as we’re reminded) and the Mind Flayer, while Vecna and Eleven have their final showdown inside of the Mind Flayer.

Once again, I give the finale credit here; it doesn’t overstay its welcome with the Vecna/Eleven fight (I mean, how many times can they raise their hands at each other menacingly), and captures an incredible sense of scale and horror when it reveals the Mind Flayer’s true, enormous form in the Abyss. This fight could’ve easily lasted twenty minutes (especially if mind realms came into play) and forced itself to bend and/or break all of the rules and strands of plot it imposed on itself along the way. One could criticize for how quickly and relatively effortlessly the final battle goes for the party (the reveal of Vecna’s source of powers, as the original vessel of The Mind Flayer, is also woefully undercooked), but as the third act slowly begins to reveal its larger themes, its attempts at finding poignancy are not through easy plot devices like death, but more challenging themes, those about maturing and leaving your childhood behind, about how how the onset of change and farewells go hand in hand in bittersweet, reflective ways.

“The Rightside Up” also doesn’t cop out at the last minute and let Henry fall privy to the 11th hour attempt Will makes to try and save his corrupted soul. As Henry explains, once he let the Mind Flayer in, he became a symbiotic part of it, welcoming it into himself as he retreated from the world, and his hatred of humanity became fueled by his experiences in Hawkins Lab. He welcomed the corruption into himself, taking it on himself to resolve what he saw as a broken world – while one can definitely criticize the lack of development behind Henry’s hatred of the world (season four doesn’t do it – The First Shadow might, but again, why do we keep referencing a play that was shown in two cities that nobody has seen?), it makes him a great vessel (sorry) for an otherworldly horror that doesn’t need an emotional motivation. Evil is because it is and always will be; things designed to consume will always seek to do so, and for once in its goddamn life, Stranger Things doesn’t get too bogged down in details on its way to the ultimate defeat of Vecna and the Mind Flayer (though that lack of detail certainly isn’t a strength across the entirety of “The Rightside Up”, especially in its final moments).

Of course, no victory can be absolute – and just as everyone relaxes and celebrates, the enigma known as Dr. Kay and what’s left of her men (the others being brutally killed be Eleven in an semi-successful attempt to save Kali) arrive, arrest everyone in front of Eleven, and leave her with no choice except to accept the fate Kali designed for them both, leaving everyone to watch as she is swept away in the Upside Down as it collapses, a final act of sacrifice in her attempt to save Mike, Hopper and everyone she learned to love and end the cycle of violence and pain brought by Brenner and his successors.

Unlike the reveal of Vecna’s origin story, the end of Eleven’s story is one that earned by the series; as Hopper pointed out earlier in the episode, Eleven’s life has been nothing but abuse, manipulation, and fear, her increased connection to humanity only putting more and more people in harm’s way. Whether she viewed it in the same light as Kali did, Eleven felt the rejection of the world around her – and like any teen with the potential to make a dramatic, shortsighted decision, the re-emergence of Dr. Kay and the military pushes her to leave herself on the other side of the collapsing interdimensional gate, as it closed for the final time.

From there, “The Rightside Up” pushes forward eighteen months, and uses a brief return of Rockin’ Robin to the radio to set the stage for its final moments, set against the backdrop of the party’s high school graduation and subsequent final D&D game. And its here where Stranger Things predictably takes its victory laps, running the gamut from unnecessary (Joyce and Hopper’s engagement scene at Enzo’s a cheesy bit for a relationship nobody was really that invested in) to incredibly heartfelt and emotionally aspirational (Jonathan, Nancy, Robin, and Steve sharing their hopes and dreams over beers on top of the radio station, making plans that will most likely never come to fruition).

And after a graduation scene where Dustin, the class valedictorian, channels a bit of Eddie’s spirit still living inside him, Stranger Things ends where it began: in the Wheeler basement, with the party (and Max) playing their final D&D campaign, complete with its own final twist, where the party steals victory from the clutches of defeat one last time (though they turned down an invitation to a graduation party to play D&D, which means they all lost, on some level). As they sit and wonder how the game could just end, Mike reflects on the stories that won’t end – which, again, range from touching images of Dustin studying at college, Max and Lucas at the movies, to corny shit like Will meeting up with a dude at a bar and touching his forearm suggestively gay-ly.

Amidst that, he tells a story of the party’s mage; and in a moment, Stranger Things indulges itself in one potential final twist, as Mike narrates the images of Eleven at the Upside Down entrance, revealing that it was a mirage by Kali at the final moments, given Eleven the chance to escape and find a life of peace all to her own. Like the “futures” of other members of the party, we see a brief glimpse of Eleven climbing a mountain to an idyllic town with all the waterfalls she ever wanted (but probably not many Eggos), and finally finding a life of peace for herself. But, as “The Rightside Up” reminds us, these endings are only suggestions, projections of Mike’s hopes and wishes for his friends, stories that make the resolution of their childhood sting just a little bit less (before cutting to credits, Mike watches Holly, Derek, and her friends run downstairs to start their own D&D campaign).

It’s a surprisingly touching final moment for Stranger Things, and an oddly perfect way to end a messy, lumbering finale full of big moments, big emotions – and of course, some incredibly big glaring plot holes. Even forgetting things from previous seasons (like the Russians?) that were completely dropped in season five, “The Rightside Up” is so busy, it dumps entire characters like Vickie, Mr. Clarke, and Murray in the middle of the finale, never to be seen again (seriously… did the government just vanish Vickie off the face of the earth???) as it ponders the future of its main cast. Again, there was really no way for Stranger Things to satisfy everyone – and in a post-Game of Thrones age, there’s certainly a conversation to be had about the theory that “The Rightside Up” plays it incredibly safe in its attempts to not alienate its entire audience with any bold decision or big, divisive deaths.

But as an attempt to re-marry the show’s massive, dimension-hopping story with the smaller, character-based arcs of Stranger Things and Stranger Things 2, “The Rightside Up” does a pretty solid job of bringing everything to a close in ways that are satisfying, if a bit limited by the cascade of creative decisions that put it in such a challenging corner in its final season. As a whole, Stranger Things 5 is an absolute hot mess of television, capable of incredible dramatic highs but often allowing hamster wheeling and theory-crafting itself into near-oblivion, an unrecognizable husk of its former self mostly riding on audience goodwill as it set up the many, many pieces of its series finale.

(which again, requires knowledge of a play that was only shown in two cities, one of the most asinine creative metatextual decisions a show has ever made).

Whether one finds Eleven’s ending to be ambiguous or not really doesn’t matter; where the moment shines is how it captures a young mind’s optimism – and a reminder that after all they’ve been through, the Loser’s Club is still able to feel hope. There’s no denying the incredibly flawed path it takes to get there, of course; but in its final act, Stranger Things manages to finds its way back to its heart, which is really the only place any series should end.

Add up all the pieces, and “The Rightside Up” can understandably feel a bit stunted; given how big the series had become, and how many hours it spent building to its final showdown, there was no perfect ending for Stranger Things to find in the course of a two-hour finale. But as a final showdown with its otherworldly horror with a surprisingly developed epilogue, Stranger Things ended with its heart still intact and in the right place; for whatever faults and holes one can pick in its larger narrative (of which there are many, more to still discuss in the observations below!), “The Rightside Up” is a properly magnanimous send off for one of the defining series of television’s Great Streaming Era, and a well-earned victory lap for the Loser’s Club and their chosen family.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

• Boy, Eleven making Burn Face Military Guy shoot himself in the head is quite a dark moment for her (right after she snaps eight or nine necks in a row). There’s really no way to write a peaceful, quiet happy ending for a character capable of that kind of violence, which is one of many reasons I respect the ending chosen for her here.
  
• It never makes it clear whether the kids found their way through the exit or not… they just kind of wake up and vomit black smoke inside the dead Mind Flayer corpse, which is certainly an underwhelming way to resolve that bit of tension.
  
• Will tells Mike he “needed to find his own way”… he was literally led to coming out by fear of Vecna and encouragement by Robin, this kid has had his hand held the entire way through the series.
  
• I really can’t believe we just leave Vickie at the radio station, never to be seen again. Lesbian erasure!
  
• Yes, Eleven pulling Mike into her mind void and basically slowing time so they can talk is a big stretch of the show’s own internal logic, but… it’s fine, I’m not going to make a big deal of it.
  
• Boy, Max has shockingly little to do in this finale… also, I’m still a tiny bit annoyed the series ends and she has no lasting effects from the Vecna attack. But hey – we didn’t have to hear “Running Up That Hill” ONCE this episode!
  
• Holly putting a few good shots in on Henry with the fire pick – good on ya, Holly. (also, your mom’s scars are friggin’ badass).
  
• Murray spends the entire episode in the Cum Dimension, which is a strange choice. He does huck a bomb at a helicopter though, so not a totally useless last appearance for the conspriacy theorist turned deliverer of lame punchlines.
  
• Wait… Derek is stronger than Henry’s Vecna arm? Again, just leaving it!
  
• Look, I am the biggest Prince fan on the planet, so I’m glad to see “When Doves Cry” and “Purple Rain” appear in anything. Does it work in the context of where it’s been used? …. Hurts to say it, but it kind of doesn’t. Better than when “Landslide” made an appearance, though.
  
• Steve has the best ending, hoping for his future wife and to keep his old friends, even as his eyes can’t see past the horizon of Hawkins into another, larger life for himself. What a sweet man, and a strong resolution to the best character arc of the series.
  
• Boy, Joyce really goes to town and gets out her anger for being sidelined for two seasons on Vecna’s throat. Well done, Mrs. Byers!
  
• Ted’s alive! Nobody cares, but hey there’s Ted!
  
• “Bit of a Belushi thing, if he was in a Hughes film.” Dustin, always trying a bit too hard.
  
• Jonathan’s movie idea sounds terrible, but boy, he’s going to love American Psycho when it comes out in about a decade.
  
• Joyce and Hopper make vague plans to move to Montauk; if they move there around 1990-1991, I’ll be there catching my first fish as a child.
  
• Boy, this show really undercuts how challenging life is going to be for Will. The most navel-gazing, underwhelming element of the series.
  
• Also, the final shot of Will being him crying like a little bitch is incredibly fitting for his presence this season.
  
• I am surprised there weren’t more explicit throwbacks to “Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”, but I’m not complaining.
  
• Fuck you, Suzie! (I guess?)
  
• Seriously, none of the adults are ever going to mention their connections to Henry? Ugh, whatever, the less we need to reference The First Shadow the better. (How did they not release a performance of that on streaming? Absolutely insane decision).
  
• Mike becomes a writer, because of course one of them would be a Duffer brothers insert at some point.
  
• Steve also teaching sex ed is such a hilarious bit.
  
• And that brings us to the end of Stranger Things, a show I’ve watched for a decade, started reviewing six years ago, and wrote over 50,000 words about the final two months of 2025. It has been a awesome, frustrating, entertaining ride – and while I didn’t always love Stranger Things, it certainly feels weird starting 2026 in a post-ST world. Regardless, whether you hopped on during season three reviews at the old Sound on Sight (RIP), or joined over the past few months, let me know what you thought of the finale in the comments below – and thank you for reading!