re: Stranger Things Season 5 Discussion Thread - All Episodes Released - Finale Spoilers

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And was Lucas firing off water ballons?


I was wondering what he was shooting too. It was like green ooze. I was thinking maybe gasoline to enhance the flame throwers.

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I thought it was pretty clear it was balloons filled with gas or lighter fluid or something. All Mike had was a flare gun, so Lucas threw the accelerant, and Mike shot the flare at it to ignite.

My main gripes are:
1. the unnecessary shoe-horning of the gay character. As others have said, it's not just the existence of a gay character, but it just seems so trivial in the context of the world/universe being on the verge of collapse. Not realistic that everybody would take time out of their doomsday prep to sit and listen to Will's confession. And for the viewer, we've all been watchign 5 seasons of build-up for the final show-down with the main villains...nobody wants a detour for this shite. So anti-climatic. It doesn't help that there's overall fatigue with all movies/shows these days that force a DEI character/plot that doesn't fit. I just finished Ted Lasso a few weeks ago and the whole episode about the side character's coming out was the same thing... not a problem that he happens to be gay - the problem is that we detoured from the main characters and plot to develop this side character's sexuality that NOBODY cares about and it did nothing to advance the show (At least it did nothing that merited an entire episode).

2. Overuse of "GD." I don't really have a visceral reaction to that word like some religious folks do. If it's used in the right context, fine. But it became noticeable how overused it was. I don't mind cursing at all, but when it gets plugged into casual dialogue that doesn't call for it, it gets distracting. They had little kid characters who hadn't cussed the whole series suddenly cussing like sailors. It was just so odd.

3. As everyone else said, the epilogue was comically long. We paused after the final show-down and couldn't believe we weren't even halfway through the finale. The rooftop scene with the older kids was completely useless. I couldn't wait for that scene to be over. Besides Steve, it was all of the most unlikeable characters in the show who all grew up to be even bigger douches than they already were.

4. They should have used all the wasted airtime on Will's gay storyline and the absurdly long epilogue to spend more time on plot-centric stuff. Where did the space rock come from? How did Mind-flayer corrupt Henry? What was the end-game for merging earth with the Abyss? Is there any depth to Mindflayer at all besides being a big shadow/spider monster? What was the military's goal with the experiments? It seems like every kid they experimented on went sideways and they couldn't contain it, yet they keep trying for more.

Also, this one's minor, but to add an observation nobody else has pointed out yet: how did little Linda Hamilton's character slam/pin that soldier into a wall? He's got like a foot and a half and 100 pounds on her at least Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a fictional show with monsters and space travel, but the little things can still be believable. It just takes me out of the moment.

Part of the messaging

Survived the upside down only to meet his fate in a gay bar in the late 80's

Not everyone worked