The Stranger Things Plotholes That Will Haunt Us Forever After The Finale

Written by Chris Snellgrove | Published 45 seconds ago

the Strange things It ended 2025 with more of a whimper than a bang, giving us a very divisive series finale that fans can’t stop arguing about. Although there were a lot of things wrong with this final episode, what I found most distracting was that it was riddled with bizarre plot holes that threatened to turn this epic, action-packed episode into a disappointing farce.

If you don’t believe it (and don’t mind some… Serious spoilers), go grab a slice of Surfer Boy Pizza and keep reading to find out the worst Strange things The series’ final events that will haunt us forever!

Why did the army let our heroes go?

After we have Strange things The heroes defeat Vecna ​​and the Mindflayer (more on that in a bit), and escape the Upside Down only to be captured by the military. All hope seems lost, and then the unthinkable happens: Eleven stays behind as the Upside Down explodes (unless you believe Mike’s theory that she survived). The young girl’s goal with this self-sacrifice was to ensure that the government would never be able to continue its terrifying research without access to the Upside Down or her supernatural blood.

This is all well and good, but then something crazy happens. The army lets everyone go! Keep in mind that these are the characters who have killed a lot of military soldiers and caused massive damage to federal buildings, plus they are the only ones whose knowledge and experience can help the government get anything useful out of their years of experimentation. However, the military (including Dr. Kay, whose origins are never explained) suddenly becomes unwell when they let everyone go into a filthy hole meant to give… Strange things Happy ending.

How did Hopper get his old job back?

Part of the series’ aforementioned happy ending is that Hopper (who was surprisingly unfazed by Eleven’s apparent deaths) gets his old job back as Hawkins’ police chief. He even leverages this job and an old friend’s influence to get a new, higher-paying police job where he and Joyce (now that they’re engaged) can move closer to where her children go to school. It’s all sweet and sentimental, but this Strange things The conclusion never answers a basic question: How did Hopper get his old job back?

As far as anyone in the community (including fellow police officers) knows, Hopper has already been dead since the end of Season 3. If they knew anything about his recent activities, they knew that he was spending his time breaking laws, killing soldiers, and raising a fugitive from the government. Factor in the fact that he was drunk and barely did his job in Season 1, and it doesn’t make any sense at all that he would be able to work in law enforcement again, let alone hold two different police chief jobs in no time!

Where were all the demogorgons?

Part of what he made Strange things The very exciting series finale (at least, on paper) has our heroes taking the fight to Vecna ​​and the Mindflayer by entering the Abyss armed to the teeth. There, they faced a surprisingly easy battle. Despite Vecna ​​being stronger than ever and the Mindflayer being a divine being from the universe, they were defeated by an oversized Scooby gang. Naturally, the battle is made easier by the absence of the Demogorgon, and the fact that they are nowhere to be found makes no sense at all.

In case you haven’t followed the show’s tangled lore, the Demogorgon lives in the Abyss (as depicted in the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow) and enter the real world through portals in the Upside Down. In theory, it should absolutely be a cliff Crawl With these guys (who were the most popular villains from the beginning), but they’re completely absent. Some fans have theorized that Vecna ​​absorbed them all to enhance his own power, but there are two problems with this theory: 1) it doesn’t make sense to destroy your army when your enemies get close, and 2) this, like so many other things, is never explained on screen!

Sorry, Duffer Brothers: if fans have to come up with their own answers, that’s a sure sign your writing was really bad.

Why are Vecna ​​and the Mind Flayer so weak?

Perhaps the most confusing thing about… Strange things The series finale is that the two Big Bads were just that Amazingly weak. Vecna ​​should be stronger than ever now, but he can’t even succeed in pulling Holly away from a foul-mouthed fat kid. Later, Eleven proves to be a very easy target in their final battle, although he put up a much stronger fight during the showdown in the Season 4 finale (keep in mind that he was supposed to be much less powerful at the time).

Meanwhile, the Mindflayer is defeated by a combination of flamethrower, shotguns, torches, and catapults. It wouldn’t have been so insulting if it had been earlier Strange things The sightings did not prove that little fellows like the Demogorgon were more or less bulletproof. Suddenly, the Mind Flayer became much weaker than his minions, just like Vecna ​​(who is also a Bulletproof Man) suddenly became vulnerable to a middle-aged woman swinging an axe.

Hopefully someone at Netflix is ​​taking notes here: when you make the main villains insanely weak in the final battle, it’s harder for us to beat the bad guys or Seriously heroes.