Yes, You Have to Let It Linger

I dearly loved the first four seasons of Stranger Things. Now that we've seen how it ends, I think the fifth season had all the necessary elements to deliver a rousing finale. However, telling a good story is a lot like cooking: having all the right ingredients does not guarantee that your dish is going to be tasty.

Here's one storytelling decision that would have vastly improved the finale in my not-so-humble opinion: cut the epilogue.

The last forty minutes or so offer an extended survey of the main cast's future. It's probably what every Stranger Things fan thought they wanted: a chance to peer into "what's next," a taste of "happily ever after." We don't just want to see the monster defeated. We want to know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that our beloved characters get to live the lives they've always wanted.

Sometimes, though, we're better off not getting what we want.

One of my favorite poems is "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning. It's a thirty-four-stanza poem that, at first blush, feels a few stanzas too short. When we meet the poem's narrator, we discover that he's been looking for this mythical "Dark Tower" for years. He describes his trials, the deep disillusion of his disappointing search, and then his elation at finally locating it.

But Browning's surprising turn is this: we readers don't get to accompany Roland into the tower. We've been eagerly anticipating the moment where we step through its doors with him and learn why the Dark Tower has been worth searching for all this time. Instead, Roland bids us adieu, blowing a "slug-horn" and declaring "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came" (a quote from King Lear, which inspired Browning's poem).

I was furious the first time I read this poem. Why had I persevered through thirty-four stanzas of archaic English? Take me inside the tower, dammit!

Of course, that's precisely the effect Browning was going for. His ending is a commentary on our tendency to focus on the destination, when the journey is what actually matters. And the longer I sat with that ending's lack of fulfillment, the more I loved it.

So often, authors want to neatly resolve every trace of dramatic tension within their work. Browning, on the other hand, offers his readers a gift that extends beyond the text. Some things are resolved—Roland's found the tower, after all—but other things are left to linger. Those lingerings leave an ache, but oh what a good ache it is.

That's what I wish I felt at the end of Stranger Things. I didn't need to see Dustin's valedictorian speech. I didn't need to watch Hopper propose to Joyce. I definitely didn't need to learn what Steve, Robin, Jonathan, and Nancy are up to in their grown-up lives. The Duffers chose to let nothing linger, leaving us viewers with a much poorer experience than we might have otherwise had.