5 Biggest Unanswered Questions After The Stranger Things Series Finale

This article contains major spoilers for the finale of "Stranger Things."

Being the biggest streaming show in the world comes with a lot of pressure, and there was simply no way the Duffer Brothers were ever going to wrap up "Stranger Things" and satisfy everybody. But the show's final episode proved to be more divisive than even they likely expected. Some found the "Stranger Things" finale to be almost perfect, while others felt it copped out with the most obvious character deaths possible. Then, there are the lingering questions that were bound to accompany the end of the series.

Unfortunately, "Stranger Things" fans have been left with perhaps more burning questions than they'd anticipated. For five seasons, viewers have waited for answers, and while the finale certainly provided its fair share, it is sort of surprising just how many things were elided, overlooked, or unaddressed entirely. Despite a full 40-minute epilogue section designed to tie up loose ends, the finale failed to account for some pretty major aspects of the story. Whole characters just seemed to disappear, and logical inconsistencies are just never explained, all of which continued an unfortunate "Stranger Things" trend of not really explaining what is inarguably one of the most convoluted, lore-rich plots in all of TV. Heck, you had to have seen the stage-play spin-off to understand a lot of what happened in "Stranger Things" season 5.

For now, it doesn't look like we'll be getting any official answers to our lingering questions about the show. What we can do, however, is round up every thread "Stranger Things" left hanging in the hope that the Duffer Brothers eventually address each and every one of them.

For five seasons, "Stranger Things" has showcased an array of hideous monsters that have terrorized the residents of Hawkins, Indiana. These eldritch beasts hail from the Abyss, the alternate dimension overseen by the Mind Flayer and his stooge, Henry Creel/Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), and were unleashed into the Upside Down before making their way through various portals to rain hell on Hawkins. For the first three seasons, several of these monsters constituted the main villains of the show.

The Demogorgon is the most obvious example. This wretched hellspawn was the main antagonist of season 1 and has remained a mainstay of the series ever since. Meanwhile, Demodogs have been responsible for some of the most tragic deaths in the show, killing off Sean Astin's Bob Newby in season 2, while Demobats finished off Joseph Quinn's Eddie Munson in season 4. All of which is to say that the monsters of the Abyss have been a huge factor in the Hawkins kids' war against the Upside Down and ultimately Vecna. But in the finale, they were nowhere to be seen.

After being terrified of portals to the Upside Down and the horrors that lay on the other side for five seasons, our heroes spent the finale casually traveling through portals, completely unbothered by the thought of any Demogorgons or Demodogs confronting them on their mission. That climb to the top of the radio tower seemed like the perfect opportunity for a horde of Demobats to strike, but nobody seemed to be worried about it. It turns out, they needn't have worried, as none of these monsters were in evidence for the finale. Why? We don't know, but we demand answers.

With season 5, "Stranger Things" tapped an '80s icon in the form of Linda Hamilton to play the villainous Dr. Kay. This cold, calculating military leader was determined to finish the work started by Matthew Modine's Dr. Martin Brenner and kidnapped Linnea Berthelsen's Kali Prasad as part of her deranged project. Having Hamilton as part of the show was a big deal, and surely had fans of the "Terminator" movies excited. Unfortunately, season 5 didn't really have room for Dr. Kay, who, throughout all eight episodes, just sort of scowled at people and got in the way, giving viewers the sense that she wasn't really all that integral to the story after all.

That view was only galvanized when, in the finale, she simply disappears after Eleven dies. When Millie Bobby Brown's character seemingly sacrifices herself to prevent any more of Dr. Kay's twisted experiments, the doctor simply looks on in horror. Neither she nor her soldiers attempts to grab Eleven, but that's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that once the episode flashes forward 18 months, there's absolutely no mention of Dr. Kay or the military.

It's bad enough that the military has been somewhat of a secondary antagonist for the series from the outset, only for them to seemingly disappear altogether after the events of the finale. It's also more than a little perplexing that the military seemingly just let all the kids go after Eleven died. But there's also the fact that "Stranger Things" introduced Dr. Kay as played by a screen legend and simply didn't do much with her. Are Kay and her soldiers being saved for a spin-off? Perhaps, but we surely deserved a little more by way of explanation.

One of the oddest things about the epilogue in the "Stranger Things" finale was the lack of any updates on Brett Gelman's Murray Bauman or Amybeth McNulty's Vickie Dunne. Like Dr. Kay, both characters seem to have evaporated along with the Upside Down, as there's absolutely no mention of either once Eleven sacrifices herself and the episode flashes forward.

Making things even more confusing is the fact that Vickie was Robin Buckley's (Maya Hawke) girlfriend, and season 5 had seen the pair form an even tighter bond after Vickie realizes her beau isn't actually crazy and that the Upside Down is very real. In the last moments of the finale, we even see Robin sitting with the rest of the gang and resolving to meet up regularly while Vickie is nowhere in sight. We don't get any hints as to what happened to the character or her and Robin's relationship.

Then, there's Murray, who was instrumental in the mission to kill Vecna and save Earth. If it weren't for him lobbing an explosive at a military helicopter, Eleven, Kali, and Jim Hopper (David Harbour) would have died at the hands of Lieutenant Akers (Alex Breaux) and his soldiers. He also kept the whole team updated from his vantage point atop the Hawkins lab and was a big part of this and previous seasons in general. What happened to old Murray? According to the finale, absolutely nothing. He's not featured in the epilogue section at all, and like Vickie, doesn't even get a mention. Matt Duffer didn't exactly shed any light on things when he was asked about the character during a Netflix interview and simply said, "I think Murray's doing his own weird stuff."

One of the biggest reveals in "Stranger Things" season 5 — perhaps even "Stranger Things" history — is that Noah Schnapp's Will Byers has psychic and telekinetic powers. This development was big enough that it was used as the grand finale of season 5, Vol. 1, and treated with the appropriate reverence by other characters and fans alike. In the following episodes, we witnessed Will writhe in pain as he struggled to control his unique abilities, which would only work when close to Vecna or other members of the hivemind, such as Demogorgons and Demodogs. At times, this struggle seemed all-consuming for the youngster, and in a more metaphorical sense, added weight to his story as an allegory for coming out (which eventually just became a straight-up story about coming out).

Then came the final showdown between the Hawkins kids and Vecna, in which many surely expected much of the tension to come from Will being able to feel Vecna's pain. How were the group going to defeat Jamie Campbell Bowers' villain and ensure their friend didn't endure extreme pain, or worse, death, in the process? Well, by simply ignoring that little snag completely. 

In the finale, Will uses his powers to see through Vecna's eyes and is clearly still tapped into the hivemind, at the top of which sits the Mind Flayer. He's also previously used that same ability to control Vecna's movements and save Max (Sadie Sink) from his clutches. During the final battle though, the group absolutely decimates the Mind Flayer, Eleven impales Vecna on a giant spike, and Will's own mom hacks away at Vecna's neck with an axe, all while Will seems to be in great spirits.

"Stranger Things" fans are furious at the fate of Eleven, and it's not too hard to see why. The Duffer Brothers seemed to want to have things both ways: killing off the character in what was supposed to be a heroic sacrifice before suggesting that she actually survived. If any character deserved a happy ending, it was Eleven, but instead she either perished needlessly after enduring five seasons of torture and tragedy, or is wandering around somewhere completely isolated from everyone she cares about.

Needless to say, it wasn't quite the happy ending many fans were hoping for, but the ambiguity of it all made things worse. Initially, Eleven appears to die when she remains in the Upside Down as it collapses, but later, Mike suggests she actually escaped. The key here was the military's use of frequency weapons, which typically block Eleven's abilities. These weapons were seemingly in use at the time of Eleven's apparent death, which would mean she couldn't have used her powers to join Mike in the void, even though that's what she did before finally perishing. As Mike explains in the finale, this suggests it was actually Kali using her powers to project an image of Eleven in the Upside Down to fool the military and everyone else into thinking she was sacrificing herself.

That's all well and good, but after five seasons, most viewers would surely have preferred a definitive answer here. Eleven was supposed to be the protagonist of "Stranger Things" before the show became bloated with far too many characters, and she deserved a more final send-off. Let's hope that a "Stranger Things" spin-off clears this one up for good.