I went to the Stranger Things finale in theaters and the strangest thing happened

The parking lot was packed. This is the first strange thing.

A little background. Almost all malls are struggling now, but Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, is somewhat comatose. like dissidentThe once-bustling complex is mostly a boarded-up ghost town, half of which is slated for demolition, Dan McQuaid, a lifelong fan of Pennsylvania and malls, wrote in his fond recollection of the mall. There are only two real reasons to go there: the well-equipped Barnes & Noble and the AMC movie Theater.

People go there to attend the movies. It is one of only three theaters in the Philadelphia area with an IMAX screen, making it a destination for fans of the prestigious format. I’m there often in my job as a critic, and I’m used to the IMAX auditorium being completely packed. Parking outside the theater at 8pm on New Year’s Eve, the night of the show Stranger Things 5: The EndHowever, it was on another level. The concession line was overwhelming (tickets were free, but to reserve a spot, guests purchased a $20 concession coupon), and the wait for snacks was more complicated than popcorn, soda, and candy. The energy was contagious. It was the busiest theater I had seen since the Barbenheimer.

This was worrying. I knew that intellectually Strange things It was a big deal. Netflix, which is notoriously ambiguous but quite ruthless in pruning shows that don’t meet any metrics it doesn’t share, has always treated the show as if it were its own show. Avengers or star wars. Regular PR blasts tout all sorts of impressive stats, new episodes cause the service to crash, and actors and icons appear in ads and brand deals that no other show on Netflix gets. Season 4 put Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” back on the charts, one of many nostalgic hits that the show has brought back with a bang. Even in the elusive world of data flow, it’s clear Strange things It has a large audience and remains a phenomenon even if subsequent seasons are not as critical favorites as the first. It can be much more difficult feel this.

There are many possible reasons: an increasingly fractured internet, the diffuse and organized nature of online fandom, Netflix’s strategy of killing conversation, and long gaps between seasons that have killed off any sense of momentum. There’s also the show itself. analysis Strange things Not that difficult. The show has always meant what it said in one form or another. There was no mystery to suggest that its characters wouldn’t solve, no clue that the show’s creators wouldn’t talk about (either themselves or through the show), and its narrative was almost completely uninterested in the world outside of Hawkins, Indiana. Even “Upside Down,” the show’s other-dimensional horror world, is so barren and empty that the final season declares its true nature as a bridge rather than a place, connecting our world to the actual home of the show’s supernatural horrors. (And other surprisingly barren landscapes.)

In practice, this makes Strange things View it feel Complex, but very easy to follow. Which also makes it the kind of show that all kinds of people watch together. Maybe even go out to a dead mall on New Year’s Eve.

Second weird thing: According to the woman who checked my ticket, this was the busiest she’d seen this theater since Black Friday 2024 weekend. The second wrestler and evil Both were shown for the first time. At the time, she remembers being told that the theater staff expected 8,000 people a day. On this night, expect a crowd of 1,000 people one hour.

I saw entire families, many of them wearing their pajamas. Friends young and old. Lots of couples. There were Hellfire Club t-shirts, Demogorgon crowns, and buckets of popcorn (purchased previously from Target). Everyone was taking group selfies, or posting photos or Instagram clips showing how crowded the concession area was. It’s New Year’s Eve, and everyone is celebrating with a ball.

Behind me in the concession line I met a woman named Gia who came with her daughters. They’ve been watching together since the first season in 2016 and love that the show is exciting, “with a lot of things happening.” They told me they were nervous at the end, “afraid people would die.”

There was a lot of that kind of talk. I heard someone say they thought Dustin was going to die, despite Steve’s efforts to save him. In the bathroom just before showtime, one teen lamented how long it took his little brother to wash his hands. He said: “I swear to God.” “If I miss a minute of this I’m going to kill myself.”

I met a couple, Adam and Tiffany, who drove an hour to get there. They were recently engaged and in their late 20s and early 30s, and started watching Strange things Individually, as teenagers, before they started watching together. (He said it was season three, she said it was season four.)

“I love the nostalgia it brings me, even though I didn’t grow up in the 1980s,” Adam said. He grew up watching at and FoolsHe feels drawn to the era despite his young age. I also like the government conspiracy elements. “The first season was really mainstream, with the MK Ultra stuff that I shot. People didn’t know about it and it was a great way to introduce people to it. I really enjoy that attitude that the first season took and kind of continues, especially in the final season – the government doesn’t always have your best interest in mind.”

Tiffany, for her part, feels like, “We’ve come to know and love all the characters, you know? I’m not ready to cry tonight.”

I must admit that I was constantly surprised by all of this. I’ve grown accustomed to the asynchronous way in which most modern entertainment is enjoyed and discussed—often apologetically, with everyone triangulating how much shows they’ve seen and can talk about. Sports are among the only reliable collective experiences we get in front of our screens. Television as the characters on Strange things It was a communal experience, in shared living spaces where the screen struggled for the attention of the world around it. TV as well Strange things It has been experienced almost privately by fans and can be watched on phone, laptop or TV as per your convenience.

One last weird thing: Even for me, A.J Strange things Hate, watching the finale to a packed house was honestly unbelievable. The audience cheers early and often: when fan-favorite Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) is saved from plummeting to his doom by rival Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton); When new fan-favorite character Derek Turnbow (Jake Connelly) gives villain Vecna ​​the finger with a “Suck my fat one!” catchphrase; When Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) stares down the massive arachnid Mind Flayer in the decisive final battle. When a character is thought to be dead, a chorus of gasps makes its way across the room.

There is sincerity to Strange things This contradicts the cynicism of its marketers and imitators. The Duffer brothers are keen imitators and are happy to share their bedsheet, but they’ve always been open about what they mean Strange things. Despite all the discordant things they put into it as the show grows in every possible way, jumping from one genre to another often nonsensically, it remains a coming-of-age story about all the ways one can grow up.

It’s the secret weapon of the show, it’s not just about the four of them D&D-Children play as they grow older, but their older siblings are on the cusp of adulthood or their parents have fallen into bad patterns and had to do some of the growing up themselves. In this final season, the show moved closer to its time, introducing younger siblings about to face the things the original four did; Caring for them is their last step towards maturity.

Strange thingsThe relentless focus on nostalgia can make it easy to forget the present in which it was broadcast, and what it must have been like to grow up in that time. If you’re a kid watching, you were a kid watching when Donald Trump was first elected, when COVID-19 tore the world out from under you, when social media allowed our worst horrors to go straight into your pocket. Your character is upside down.

“Life has been so unfair to you, so cruel,” Jim Hopper (David Harbour) tells his surrogate daughter early in the finale, when Eleven is committed to dying in her fight against Vecna ​​because she believes she doesn’t belong in the world anymore. He tells her to fight to imagine a life beyond horror. “I know you don’t think you can have any of this. But I promise we will find a way to make it real. You will find a way to make it real, because you have to. Because you deserve it.”

It’s a line that collapses the fourth wall, escaping from Hawkins/Upside Down in this movie-fueled vision of 1987 to crash straight into the final moments of 2025. The room full of fans, young and old, here with their families and partners and friends, taking selfies and hollering and hollering, haven’t just spent 10 years with characters on TV who feel like friends. They’ve grown up, and watched each other grow up, in hell. Children, youth and adults Strange things They’ve been through hell with them. A ridiculous and illogical nightmare show that, in some ways, makes them unrecognizable from what they were 10 years ago, the way bookish Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) is now a gun-wielding monster killer.

Marking the end of that journey in a theater full of people who were with you? What a way to close out a year. What a nice note to start a new one, returning to the world with all your fellow fans, and searching for the right side up.