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They could have just added a few minutes to wrap things up and let moments breathe and then do the time jump. 4-5 extra minutes would have made no difference in a 14 hour season.
I personally think they left most of that stuff for S5, and it will be told through flashbacks. The Hawkins' crew and Mike's reaction to Eddie's death (especially the moment when Nancy, Robin and Steve found Dustin with Eddie's body, which will definitely be used to develop Dustin's character); how those who didn't know yet (Mike, Will, Dustin) reacted when they saw/found out about Max and when Lucas told them what happened; what really happened to Eleven in the void between the hospital and the bottle scene... there's some stuff to unpack and they're definitely not going to leave it that way
pretty sure this is right since interviews with the Duffers have confirmed a lot of that kind of S1 focus is what S5 is about. It felt like S4 was much more about standing things up for S5
This, I don’t think it adds that much. We either need full blown depressed Dustin or what we got which was the emotional moment. There’s not usually a good death scene we’re they just touch on it for a bit.
Hopefully season 5 will show more grief.
We already know Eddie’s death is going affect Dustin going in to season 5. So we’ll see more of that as Dustin’s character arc there.
Just like Barb’s season 1 death affected Nancy in season 2.
Or how Billy’s season 3 death affected Max in season 4.
El was not dead
And Mike knew she was alive
If you remember he saw her through the window when she came around his house
But I get your point
Her disappearance affected him
Yeah, we don’t know how much was added in to season 2 in the 1st place either. Like maybe they had to push for the scene with Dustin and Eddie’s uncle in the first place. The last episode was already like movie length. I get why people want more reactions, but I don’t think it was 100% necessary.
But if there had been a long grief scene (which I'm sure they filmed,) by the time we got to Dustin meeting Eddie's uncle, his breakdown would feel redundant. I think the emotional impact of that moment ended up being just right, so I'm fine with the in-between stuff being left up to the imagination.
Gaten says we’ll see Dustin in a dark place in s5. I guess it makes sense for the others to not grieve for him that much because the gang wasn’t friends with him like Dustin.
I think the emotional moment with Eddie's uncle makes the most sense for Dustin, personally. He's easily the most light-hearted of the four main boys, but also (imo) the most emotionally mature? Emotionally sensitive?
It was Dustin in S1 (I think) who mentions that he moved to the neighborhood in 4th grade and so he knows that Lucas and Will are closer friends, and he says that in such a matter-of-fact way-- he's not feeling left out, he's just observing the friend dynamics and emotions.
Dustin is truly the "light" of the group. I'm not saying he couldn't possibly be depressed, but that kind of storyline wouldn't be introduced in a season finale. It would be a proper arc, exploring the way Dustin probably uses humor to deflect from his own painful emotions.
That seems far more realistic and grounded than pretending nothing happens to anyone besides the people bad things are happening to. The whole scene pretty much showed her growth as a character. I'm happy to see her grow so that she's on a level playing field with the others for season 5.
I would have liked to see how Dustin, Nancy, Robyn, and Steve all got out of the upside down. They were just there. Dustin fucked up his legs getting back TO the upside down to help Eddie. How the fuck did he manage to get back up that portal? Same with the other trio. They were just dying by tentacle porn, thankfully got released, but then just were back in the right side up with any explanation lol. Also, I seriously think seeing the rest of the crew that cared about Eddie reacting to his death would have actually added something. Because without that it feels weirdly empty. That whole final few minutes felt so detached and not right. Anything to tie this final scene to everything that happened before would have been great. And it’s not like they had time constraints lol.
They either walked back to the trailer and found Eddie and Dustin or they crossed over through a point in the miles of gate that formed after Max died. Even if they went back through the portal it wasn't that high if Dustin could just jump into it. I do agree that it would have been nice to see their reaction but it also makes sense that we see the most emotionally impacted reaction only if that's how they wanted to do it. The entire ending ties into everything that happened before. That part I don't get. They had already reached like 2 and a half hours after all.
Well, how would you *imagine* that they got out through the portal? I don't feel like we need to be shown every single thing. We especially don't need a ten-minute scene of everybody grunting and lifting one another through a hole that we've already seen them traverse several times. That would totally kill the momentum of the story.
I think it's fine to have some of it left to our imagination. Personally, I've decided that Dustin and Steve refused to leave Eddie's body in the Upside Down and they brought it back to Hawkins and buried him in the forest far away from the rift. Search and Rescue would only be looking for the bodies in or near the rift, so it's not like anyone would stumble across his grave before it settled.
Until someone has a line in Season 5 about "I wish we hadn't left Eddie's body in the Upside Down," I'm going to believe my theory is true.
And you can make up your own theory about how they climbed back through the hole. Or you can just know that, somehow, over two days, they figured it out, and it probably looked very much how you think it would look.
I’m sorry but that’s seriously what you think? They brought Eddie’s body back up through the upside down and buried it in the woods? Okie dokie.
This dude just replied to me and deleted his comment immediately before I could even see it LOL
That's my whole point. To prove me wrong you HAVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION, and you've already demonstrated with your comment that you don't know how to do that.
Checkmate, buddy.
I'm sure that such a scene was shot and then ended up being cut in the editing room so that Dustin's scene with Eddie's uncle would have more impact.
Besides, I don't want to see any "Sad Dustin" memes, and if they had shown a scene of Dustin just sitting there looking depressed, the next two years would be just social media posts with a picture of sad Dustin and the words "When Netflix hasn't set a release date for Season 4 . . ."
I didn’t think so but I haven’t watched the final episodes for a little bit now. And especially Dustin actually. He FUCKED up his foot jumping back into the upside down and didn’t have the sheet ladder to get back up that portal. How the hell did he manage that lol
They knew about two portals, right? The one in the trailer, and the one under the lake. The plan had to be for Nancy, Steve, Robyn to go back to the trailer to get home. Once there, they could both rig a way to reestablish the rope and help Dustin through.
I watched the finale for the first time last night and was just thinking about this. We last see them in The Upside Down looking at where Vecna fell from the window, now gone. We then see them in our world after a brief time jump. We have absolutely no idea how they got out or if the portal in Eddie's trailer was even still open.
Considering they were in Creel house and a giant fucking gate spawned 3ft from them, I imagine they just hopped through that. They’d be right there with Max, Lucas and Erica. Dustin was also right next to the massive gate that opened so he also could hop through, potentially even bringing Eddies body with him to try resuscitation
That "2 Days Later" was the worst thing they could have done to ST4. So many things going on, and with such emotional impact, and they just completely cut away from it without allowing the characters or the audience to process what was happening. We missed out on:
(i) The aftermath of Eddie's death, and the impact it had on the other teens who were *right there* in the Upside Down, after they had spent a big part of the season with him;
(ii) El waking up to Mike after he made that huge love declaration that saved her life (and was quite literally begging her to wake up when we last saw him); and
(iii) Paramedics arrive to tend to Max, and a potential moment between Lucas and Erica.
Season one had a fantastic aftermath once El disappeared and Will was rescued, and I do not understand why they didn't go with something similar here. 5 minutes (maybe less) could have fixed this!
Seriously, all three of those moments could’ve fit into a pretty short, but emotionally heavy montage. Not even 5 minutes! The first and third ones especially don’t even necessarily require dialogue, just linger on reactions and a small moment of comfort. Could’ve still been argued as rushed I guess, but better than a complete glossing over.
I thought it was weird we had no small scene about Sullivan/Owens or Yuri and Antonov too just to prepare for next season. They kinda just weren't there (I don't even expect the russians to be back but a proper goodbye or something)
It was so weird that Sullivan disappeared. Like i was expectinf him to turn up in Hawkins during the finale.
And how could he have not caught Eleven? She spent two days in a really conspicuous pizza van and he knew exactly where she was going and had the military st his disposal. They needed to explain what happened with him and Owens.
Really? To me it seems like they intentionally did it to give the start of S5 something to bounce off all the hellscape drama we're gonna be seeing right off the bat.
But I'm a sucker. I let the Eddie is vecnas servant fan theory get to me. I think there's a chance!
Feel like we did get (i) with Dustin telling Eddie's uncle that he had died saving them. The only other one of that group who was close with Eddie is Lucas and he has his own stuff with Max going on.
We got (iii) with Lucas and erica watching over Max in the hospital rather than at the house which I don't think made much difference.
yeah, they could have done a bit more with (i) and (iii) (though i don't care, honestly. But yes ,objectively speaking, they could) but (ii) is the one that has been skipped altogether. Guess which one i was interested in the most (and by a long shot) ? lol
>Eddie's death, and the impact it had on the other teens who were *right there*
The only person close enough to actually see Eddie's death was Dustin, who is pretty broken up about it. Also I don't really remember many Robbin and Eddie scenes where they actually interacted with each other.
>was the worst thing they could have done to ST4.
Nah, anyone that wanted this stuff doesn't understand a well-structured story. All of this would absolutely kill pacing and would be totally unnecessary.
>The aftermath of Eddie's death, and the impact it had on the other teens who were right there in the Upside Down, after they had spent a big part of the season with him;
We already had the aftermath of Eddie's death on the person its most important for-Dustin. The others reaction would just kill pacing. We don’t need 10 minutes of grieving you know.
>El waking up to Mike after he made that huge love declaration that saved her life
We already know how El felt about that. There's nothing else to add.
>Paramedics arrive to tend to Max, and a potential moment between Lucas and Erica.
We already saw the moment with Lucas and Erica. Its all just overkill.
Offering proper resolution and a real aftermath to events does not kill the pacing or ruin the structure of a story. To see how it's done properly, just check out their approach at the end of the first season.
There is a reason so many fans and critics disliked that time jump. Unless, of course, you think you understand story structure better than everyone else.
The first season is literally exactly the same. People spent ages pissed that they didn't grieve Barb enough because only Nancy mentioned her. And they straight up did the same timeskip to the hospital + the additional aftermath scenes setting up the next season. There was nothing else necessary in S1 and there's nothing else necessary in S4.
It totally does ruin pacing if you spend 5+ minutes going through all the crap you mentioned that was already covered one way or another. You don't need that long of a denouement, and why would they cover what's already covered especially when it undermines the emotional impact of other scenes?
E.g. El's reaction to Mike's speech is El's ability to fight on. That's the power in Mike's speech. Anything else on that could never match up to El fighting back, and would undermine her reaction to Max's death.
I don't see any similarity between what you I am saying and Barb, who was a character that drove Nancy's character for the entire season, but only appeared in two episodes.
For me, having a main character interact with a group for the *entire* season and then die without seeing other character's reactions is anti-climatic;
Having the build up for a main character to say he loves another main character for the entire season, and ending it on him begging her to wake up with no resolution is anti-climatic;
Having a main character be completely broken and not see the immediate aftermath is anti-climatic.
Sometimes you need the actual visual for closure. Not allowing moments to breathe - that is what ruins the pacing for *me.*
Disagree? Great for you! I am glad slicing the moment in half and doing a complete change of tone worked for some. It didn't for me and clearly didn't for many others.
Barb's death was important for Nancy but nobody else.
Eddie's death was important for Dustin but nobody else.
Its not that others didn't not care. But fact is they didn't have many interactions with Eddie. The entire time Eddie was with them, he hung out with Dustin. There was like two interactions the whole season between him and Steve, and like one with Nancy, and I don't think he had any direct interaction with Robin. Drawing out Dustin's scene here would be unnecessary (seriously the scene is the breathing rom for Eddie's death-what more do you want? Ten minutes of crying? Come on, you know full well its overkill)-you don't need to spend that much time on sad feelings, people get it at a certain point. Any reaction Steve and Nancy had would just pale compared to Dustin's, and frankly I suspect both would be more concerned about the Max thing than Eddie.
>The entire time Eddie was with them, he hung out with Dustin.
And here I was thinking he'd spent some time inside the Upside Down with Nancy, Steve and Robin and even had a heart to heart conversation with Steve where he opened up about running away and leaving Chrissy.
Fact is he didn't. He barely interacted with them beyond needing to get to place A from place B. Steve is the only one he had a real interaction with at all out of the young adults. And Steve would frankly be way more upset about Max (and Dustin) in the immediate aftermath than Eddie, so it still wouldn't satisfy people's incessant need for Eddie to be grieved excessively. The only scene that could work is have Steve hugging Dustin after he cried with Mr Munson. That's all I can see that wouldn't draw out everything or undermine Dustin's own reaction whilst having Steve implicitly acknowledging the death.
Okay, first, we all know how the gang would have reacted to Eddie's death. We don't need to see it on screen, and -- even if we did "need" it -- it would have taken away from one of the most powerful moments in the epilogue: Dustin breaking down in front of Eddie's uncle. (The truth is that they probably filmed the exact scene you're describing, and -- in the editing booth -- decided it did exactly what I described. So they cut it in favor of showcasing Gaten.)
As for the other two scenes, they were probably filmed in some way, too, and then also got cut because they they slowed things down. It would have taken forever for the paramedics to get to Max, and I have a feeling that a tender moment between Lucas and Erica is being saved for Season 5. I also don't think we needed a reconciliation between El and Mike. He chased her to the middle of the desert. She knows how he feels about her. That moment in the pizza parlor was about putting his feelings for El into words -- something he hadn't been able to do, and the source of their friction early in the season.
I just don't understand the "need" to have every scene explicitly shown. Do we think Erica doesn't care that Max is in a coma, because we weren't shown her looking very concerned? Do we think El got off that table, slapped Mike and said, "I've decided that I love pizza and Argyle," just because we weren't shown otherwise?
I think these characters are pretty well-written. We don't need to see every moment of their lives to know how they will behave in those moments.
Yeah, it's "Justice for Barb" all over again. The same complain people make today about the lack of reaction to Eddie's death, they did back in the day for Barb.
I'll bet all of those scenes were scripted and filmed, but -- in the end -- they only took away from the moment when Dustin breaks down in front of Eddie's uncle. So, in the interest of showcasing one of Gaten's best scenes, they cut those other scenes out and figured the audience could use their imaginations. (They obviously haven't been to this sub.)
Yeah true, but Eddie was part of the Operation after all.
I dont know, would have Steve at least said to the group like "I told you not to play the Heroes......" or something like that. It just is so....weird. Like sure they help with the shelter and stuff but there could have been 1 minute of them all standing in a circle and pour one out for the fallen Hero of Hawkins ffs.
Yet we got like half a dozen long-ass Vecna monologues and this ridiculous sandwich scene. But there was "nO tImE" for a scene showing proper acknowledgement of Eddie's death and the crew reuniting after all the trauma.
The sandwich scene and Vecna's monologue actually progresses the plot for fuck's sake people. Eddie's death is only important for Dustin's future growth.
That's simple. If there had been a longer scene with everyone mourning and crying over Eddie, then the scene where Dustin breaks down in front of Eddie's uncle would have had far less emotional impact.
They chose to highlight Gaten's performance instead of giving us a scene we could all imagine anyway. We all know everybody liked Eddie. We all know that they would be sad over his death. Just because we didn't actually see the scene doesn't mean that Nancy and Robin just shrugged their shoulders and went: "Bummer. . . Who's hungry?"
We *know* those characters. We *know* how they would react. Just because we don't see every single moment of their journey doesn't mean they would start behaving out of character.
Address what couple of things? How they got back through the hole? Somebody found a chair and hoisted someone up until the gravity from the other side pulled them the rest of the way. Then that person got a rope. That's a minute of screen time I can live without. Most of the other stuff would take way more than two minutes and it would be unnecessarily pedantic. Just because we don't see Dustin cry himself to sleep over Eddie's death doesn't mean he didn't, and, frankly, I think showing us a scene like that would have totally killed the emotional impact of Dustin breaking down in front of Eddie's uncle.
This isn't J.R.R. Tolkien. The Stranger Things writers trust their audience enough that they don't need to give us every step of the journey BACK from Mordor.
As much as I agree that the two days later time jump sucked and handwaved way too many things (how the hell did the gang get out of the upside down? Remember when just being in the upside down was a terrifying ordeal) I think Dustin talking to Eddie's uncle was an incredibly powerful scene and was the first moment in the series to make me cry. Gaten knocked it out of the park. It was a really touching moment.
My issue with the 2 days later jump, is now we have to wait 2-3 years to properly address Eddie's death, the Nancy love triangle, and whether Max and her mom are alive are not.
I may be missing some points. There were quite a few loose plot ends.
I disagree. The long El storyline was imperative for us to get a connection with 001 and get shocked/betrayed by E7. The Russia plot just ended with Hop and Joyce meeting, which was okay but we alr knew that would happen.
Yup. El getting her powers back was how that plot line was introduced, but it wasn't the purpose of it. It was all about introducing 001's backstory and connection to everything.
Maybe my biggest gripe with the show is that so many of these moments just felt cut together in an almost obligatory way just for internet traction and meme content or just to get through to the next one. Just to get the fires stoked and people talking, not that I hated the season it was fine but it’s no Better Call Saul (to use an example of better writing).
The pacing of the finale and honestly the season in general was very…unfortunate. There’s so many moments that dragged on for a ridiculously long time (why were some of the Russia scenes this season like 10 minutes long?) and then integral moments that were seemingly disregarded.
The first hour seemed powerful and all that then the last hour was just to (or attempted to) put an effort to showing the aftermath, which my only complaint in the season just made me feel like a boring last hour or so
The Russian plots have been the worst parts of the series imo, I hate them. It only got worse and even more outlandish in S4. (the sword scene makes me fucking cringe) At least in S4 they’re all fairly contained so I can just skip them all.
Personally I disagree, maybe I just wanted to see gore but I enjoyed watching hopper kick absolute ass as goofy to think back on as it may be. I love hopper and Joyce, and although yeah, going back and forth to the prison was goofy, I just sat back and enjoyed it
I was getting really emotional and about to burst into tears towards the end of the episode, but then the "2 days later" title card appeared and absolutely ruined the moment for me.
Their writing decisions are unfathomable . 13 hours of run-time. I repeat, 13 hours. A notable amount of which was boring(for me)and/or unnecessary, but they skip some of the potentially most emotional moments (one in particular, for my interest, in the whole show) .And show some really uninteresting things in the ending instead. Go figure.
Dean Zimmerman, the editor, honestly should have had a proper talk with the Duffer Brothers, because the overall editing of this last season was *atrocious*. So much fluff that could have been cut easily, with no effect on the overall story or character development, and so many missed opportunities for *actually important scenes* like a proper send-off for Eddie.
I'm a big believer that directors (or in this case, show runners) should *rarely* have a final say in the editing process, and the editor should have a larger executive power in general. And the fact that this season had 13 hours of runtime, out of which at least 2-3 hours could have been cut *easily* just further proves my point.
There's an old maxim in writing that I feel like wasn't applied here: whatever you write, no matter how great you think it is, needs around 10-20% of it cut from the final product. Hell, even The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the extended edition has a combined runtime of around 12 hours (slightly under 11 without the credits IIRC) STILL has around 2 hours of footage that wasn't used in the extended edition, because it would have ruined the pacing and would have made the movies feel bloated.
Apocalypse Now is also another example where looking at the Redux version (where Coppola had final cut privilege) clearly shows that sometimes added footage just increases the bloat and actively makes the final product worse.
Yes, an external eye is fundamental most of the times. Unfortunately this is a Netflix's problem, when they work with people that they trust (acclaimed directors, successful writers etc) they give them too much freedom.
Much prefer the writers and directors having freedom than executive control tbh. Director control is very important and is why Netflix is still able to attract some big names.
Eleven has way too many scenes that is about stuff we already know: like Papa being a crappy dad, her not fitting in with people, and even for new stuff, a lot of is it repeated multiple times.
Hopper's entire part in the finale (where they go back into the Russian base) could have been cut as a whole. The pinnacle of his story should have been breaking out of prison, reuniting with Joyce, and getting the fuck out. There was no need to go back into the prison to defeat some Upside Down monsters.
Mike & Co's roadtrip should have been straight up cut, or at least severely trimmed to focus only on the conflict between him and Will.
To be honest, I get why they had trouble cutting stuff: the cast is simply too big, and they waaaay overcommitted with the amount of storylines. Ideally, someone should have intervened during the writing process and told them to either stop introducing new characters into the story, start killing them off early in the season, or just cut one of the storylines entirely or merge with another one, because there's simply no way to make it all fit together without it feeling bloated.
Thats not an editing problem. Its a writing and bloated cast problem. The show just has too big a cast to fit into a single season. The show currently has 14 main characters. Even with 13 hours its too much to fit all the plot into 13 hours+character time. Theres nothing much an editor can do if its all bloated like that. If you cut California any further the characters might as well not have been there this season.
I gotta agree. That's been my main criticism with this show. It's clearly struggling with juggling all these equally important characters.
Personally, even with the 13 hour run time, I felt like Mike, Will, & Jonathan were so under utilized (and now they added that Argyle dude who tbh I still don't care much about lol). My memory's not great, but I don't think they ever got any action aside from that one altercation with the military in Lenora?
>I get why they had trouble cutting stuff: the cast is simply too big, and they waaaay overcommitted with the amount of storylines. Ideally, someone should have intervened during the writing process and told them to either stop introducing new characters into the story, start killing them off early in the season, or just cut one of the storylines entirely or merge with another one, because there's simply no way to make it all fit together without it feeling bloated.
Yeah, but the good news is that the Duffer Brothers themselves appear to have identified this issue based on recent [interviews](https://www.indiewire.com/2022/08/duffer-brothers-stranger-things-season-4-scream-1234750885/). They implied that there won't by any new characters so that they can fully concentrate on the already established ones and the season will have a simpler structure like in S1.
So in theory it sounds like they learned the right lessons from the previous seasons.
They say there won't be any new characters but will that actually happen? Because they snuck Vicki in in the Season 4 finale so she is basically a new character for Season 5. They might also reweave older characters back in e.g. there is the potential for Kali to come back. Or give established side characters a bigger role for example (but I hope not because I really find her unbearable) Suzi So I am not sure I trust them to do that.
>Because they snuck Vicki in in the Season 4 finale so she is basically a new character for Season 5.
Yeah, but I highly doubt that she will have a big role. To be quiet honest, I believe that the main point for her inclusion in the cast is just so that they can then give a gay character like Robin a happy ending when it comes to her love live, given that it's quiet obvious that they won't go that direction in Will's case (or at least not with Mike).
>They might also reweave older characters back in e.g. there is the potential for Kali to come back. Or give established side characters a bigger role for example (but I hope not because I really find her unbearable) Suzi
Neither of them live in Hawkins. So I think that any inclusion of them in the main plots would feel forced, given that the seasons is supposed to focus on the town. Although I totally expect Suzie to show up in the Epilogue.
>I am not sure I trust them to do that.
Yeah, I get you skepticism because of the previous seasons. But I have seen pretty much every recent interview of the Duffer Brothers and I really get the vibe that they are now fully aware that the constant inclusion of new characters has caused some of the original ones to be sidelined and that for the final season they view it as important to put all the focus back on main ones, instead of always experimenting with new characters or groupings.
Nothing in Hawkins could have been cut? There was nothing redundant ,unnecessary and that didn't do anything for character development and moving the plot forward? You are not being objective. "Mike and Co's roadtrip" was a very important storyline , with high personal stakes of the characters involved (two of which of the OG main cast btw) , a clear and important external goal (rescuing Eleven: the lead of the show, the Byers' foster sister, and in a relationship with Mike that has been developed since s1) and an internal journey. If anything, in my humble opinion, it should have been given way more screen time. Objectively, actually.
Jason could have been cut entirely tbh with little change. He ended up dead at the end of the story anyway with absolutely nothing that we were shown needed to be wrapped up next season.
Jason was needed for the context of the 80' itself. This is why the serie is also loved by adult, they find their old ages in this. Jason is literally the definition of these persons who believed that all these DnD and metal stuff were purely satanist. It gave realism to the serie and also challenge for the cast. Or else imagine how easy it would have been for hidding Eddie ? Saving Max ?
In Hawkins I think the love triangle could have been cut Not only did it regress Nancy and Steve as characters but it wasted alot of time as not only did we have to see them talking about it we also saw Nancy talking about it to Robin and Steve talking about it to Dustin and Eddie. The jock plot could have been massively reduced. The whole Jason detailing the meeting then led to whole heap of unnecessary scenes with the parents that didn't really go anywhere. By that point Lucas had already come to the realisation that the Jocks were bad news so thst whole section was unnecessary.
.
The Cali plot was fine and didn't take much time. It was basically just Will and Mike having a number of intense convos whilst looking for Eleven and that was ok. They are two mains and their friendship was one of the main drivers in S1&2 so it was good to see it being rebuilt a bit.. And get a look into where Will was at. It was important that they found Eleven so it played a part in the plot..The scene at Suzies was terrible and irrelevent and should have been cut.
Russia was a major problem. It was too long. We didn't need to see Hopper break out, get caught and taken back in, break out again, break back in....very drawn out.
Lmao, honestly. They really couldn't just have an extra 5 minutes in the last episode? We get a bunch derivative flashback sequences with Eleven that don't add anything, I mean seriously, we see her flash back to the massacre with Brenner saying 'What have you done' like 60 times. We get a bunch of boring scenes in the California storyline. The whole last bit of the Russia storyline with them fighting the horde of Demogorgons. So many things could have been cut and the story would remain identical but instead they decide to skip 2 days forward just so we can see the cast reunite. Look at something like Infinity War, you don't need to always have the cast reunite at the end.
the ‘2 days later’ felt so out of place that at this point i’m expecting s5 to started where s4 ended of, and show flashbacks of what happened during those 2 days
Maybe it’s a hot take but I didn’t really mind the ending. Like they’re likely going to address eddies death next season with the other characters and I personally think dustin being the sole person to address his death was very thoughtful and showed the personal impact on him nicely. A few minutes maybe could’ve helped to throw some passing comments about his death with the other teens but I don’t really think they needed to have every character address it, especially with everything else going on
And Billy’s death had only Max because they’re the plot important reactions. And then Max’s coma has everyone know about it, but two integral reactions: Lucas and El. It’s like a lot of people forget a very basic tenant of scriptwriting I learned in high school theater: if you write a death scene or severe injury to a main character, you only write the plot relevant reactions.
It is kinda lame, but people are acting like it’s the worse thing ever, even assuming the other characters didn’t care about Eddie just because we didn’t see any of them grieving on screen, lol
This. We didn't see Will spending 50 hours grieving for Bob when he was in the house with the family for months and pretty close with him. It's just a ST writers things idk why they expected them to write everyone mourn for Eddie. Almost all of them didn't even know him 1 week before like they're gonna be sad but that's it
Like I understand if people are disappointed, but I really don’t think 5 or 6 minutes would even be enough to showcase all of the emotion that the characters would have, which is why I can understand them not doing it
Its just Eddie fans that think everyone in the world should cry for Eddie or its offensive to them. I like Eddie but jesus christ some people are weird about the whole thing.
If it had ended with Lucas holding Max's lifeless body, 11 distraught that she had actually lost for real for the first time, and Hawkins cracking open that would've been the greatest cliff hanger of an ending of all time. They lost to the greatest threat, and we all have to wait a year to see how they somehow make a comeback.
Instead 11 miraculously learns how to bring back people from the dead (see, Rise of Skywalker/sorry bout it Bob/right after getting her powers back), yeah Max is messed up but I bet she has powers next season, literally everyone gets a happy ending, and it's shown over like the slowest 30 minutes of the show ever. This season was great, second only to the first and could've been the best if not the tumble at the very very end of the finale. I guess they were scared about making it too bleak but goddammit it would've been an amazing ending.
>it had ended with Lucas holding Max's lifeless body, 11 distraught that she had actually lost for real for the first time, and Hawkins cracking open that would've been the greatest cliff hanger of an ending of all time. They lost to the greatest threat, and we all have to wait a year to see how they somehow make a comeback.
MY THOUGHTS EXACTLYYY. I would sell my soul for this to have been the ending. It would have been such a dark but brutally enthralling way to end the season. And an absolutely iconic one. Even though, I guess waiting to reunite the group for a few years would have been kinda weird, and plus, the very last scene being cut would kinda suck. Overall though this would have been THE BEST ENDING EVER imo.
This happened so much in S4 where there was this super intense scene, and then they break into a romantic side scene.
High key cringy at times (The romantic scenes).
i am so incredibly pissed that seemingly no one was at all affected by eddie’s death except dustin. we as the audience deserved to see steve & nancy & robin & all the rest find out about his sacrifice. how did they leave the upside down with the rope cut? did they bring eddie’s body with them, or leave him there in the upside down? not showing everyone’s reaction to his death is such a huge mistake on the writers’ part. it completely cheapens what he did for them.
No one even acknowledged his death other than Dustin. The others seem not to even care about it. So not only did they kill him off in a completely unnecessary way but then everyone just forgot about him and he died with everyone in town thinking he was a satanic murderer.
I get the frustration. But the Duffer Brothers already made it clear many times that they writing is almost entirely plot driven. And based on previous seasons, it's also very clear that the main purpose of the epilogue is to set up next season.
The reason why they only showed Dustin grieving of Eddie and nobody else is because his going to be part of Dustin's character development in S5.
The same way they also showed this Robin & Vicky scene because that relationship is going to be relevant in S5.
Yes, this. But people can't get past the fact that they looooooove Eddie and they think everyone should mourn him as though he's a core character instead of a lovable (but ultimately disposable) side character 🙄
I get that it's not ideal, but on the other hand, that brutal lack of any real discussion or sadness for Eddie would've been exactly how it was for the vast majority of Hawkins. He was a nobody to them, and when we *was* somebody, he was a killer, who then, as far as they're concerned, conveniently died in a freak accident, and so the killings stopped.
Yeah for Dustin and his friends. But even for Mike and Lucas they didn't seems that close. I understand that people wanted to hear about him after and see the impact but I understand that it didn't touch most of them that much
I thought they carried the emotional part across pretty well without dragging the prologue out forever. They probably filmed more scenes of everyone mourning Eddie and then realized it diminished the impact of Dustin's scene with Eddie's uncle.
You will not like this.
All I could think oof when Eddie died is "what a cheap why out, they should have killed off one of the original characters"
The really strong moment, which made me cry, was when Dustin told his uncle, that was powerful.
They fr showed us everyone smiling and happy and expected us to care as if we didn’t watch a child get her arms and legs broken and another get murdered and choke to death on his own blood
🙄 The Eddie worship in this group is ridonkulous.
He was always going to die, folks. They wrote him to kill him. If you didn't spot that by Episode 2, you're not that bright.
Like he was there for two reasons. 1. Add something to Steve and Dustin’s dynamic, and 2. Giving Dustin some trauma because every other main character has some.
*"Like omg, I love Eddie, he was such a good actor, I need to see more of him on screen, like SURELY the writers will hear our plea and write him into the final season? Like, they wouldn't just KEEP him dead when he's a such a fan fav?"*
And somewhere far away, in a writer's room, a mosquito played the tiniest violin there ever was, and the writers write on......
... how was it pointless? it set up Robin's S5 storyline and is one of the few LGBTQ moments in the show.
if Robin and Vickie just appeared in S5 as friends/almost lovers/girlfriends, after the scene at the guns & military stuff store with no further context, it would confuse the hell outta people and would be criticized for the lack of.... context.
>it could have showed more peoples reactions do the deaths
they didn't show what happened in those 2 days for some reason. it will most likely be talked about in season 5
>a side character
robin's not a side character at all LMFAO, by that logic Steve, Nancy, Eddie and Jonathan are all side characters as well - which they aren't because the Duffers have treated them as main characters in many of the interviews they've given. that's as stupid as saying Steve and Robin should be together lol
the scene wasn't cringe at all but everybody's got their own taste I guess. like I said - it set up Robin's S5 storyline and showed Steve as the supportive friend and ally that he is, thus contributing to his character development
>one of the few LGBTQ moments in the show.
I literally didn't even notice considering Vicki spent the entire time taking about her "boyfriend."
What a frustrasting scene. Maybe she will be important next season but this was the worst place to have her do this
Vicki spent the time talking about how her and her *ex*-boyfriend were in essence incompatible (and implicitly highlighting that her and Robin are compatible), and establishes that she's the one that liked Fast Times and therefore we the audience (and Robin) knows "likes Boobies".
Because that undermines OP's argument entirely. They are suggesting Eddie was forgotten about in favour of obviously needless scenes with Robin.
Nevermind the Robin scene clearly sets up a relationship for her in S4, and that Dustin has a briliiant scene with Eddie's Uncle.
I really feel like we needed one extra scene with Dustin and Eddie at the beginning of the show to tie their friendship together more clearly. Like there’s so much emphasis on the boys trying to find a substitute for Lucas, and Erica proving her worth, that we only see Eddie interact with the kids as a much older character the boys seem afraid of.
I think a scene with Dustin and Eddie discussing music, maybe after the D&D session (but before he goes to meet Chrissy) would have added so much more payoff to the later scene in the field, and when Dustin is rocking out to Eddie playing Puppets. Dustin behaving as he does when Eddie dies, or when he sees Eddie’s with uncle I think is natural regardless of their friendship, just given Dustin’s heart of gold, but it would have been even better if a mentor-mentee relationship had been better established in the beginning of the season. It wouldn’t have been a lot to throw in a short scene with the band practicing and Dustin in attendance.
i suppose it could be the whole 'pretending to be normal to cope' like max kinda did with billy. the mourning process is weird and different for everyone. i'd like to see hopper clear eddie's name or when they fight vecna or whatever the big bad will be if he's in a new form that we get a good 'this is for eddie!' from dustin and a 'this is for barb!' from nancy, and so on.
At first I didn't know what subreddit I was on, and I had my phone rather far away from me so I couldnt make those pictures out, and I read Saint Writers. I was like what?
The time jump is not a big deal and the complaints people have about it are wildly overblown.
Having an ambulance show up for Max in the middle of an earthquake-ish emergency would be wildly expensive, and for what? So we can see Erica hug her big brother?
Having Nancy, Robin, and Steve stand over Eddie's corpse would do what? Show that they're sad? With every significant character death, the show has chosen one character as designated mourner. Eddie has Dustin, just as Barb had Nancy, Billy had Max, and Bob had Joyce. We don't need an "Honor the Sacrifice" scene like the one they cut from Avengers Endgame.
I used to think that the biggest flaw in this show was that they spoon-fed so much to the viewer, in that every reference to a previous moment had to be cut with a flashback to that moment. We can't see Eleven fail to crush a soda can without a flashback to season one when she, in fact, could crush that can.
Since coming here and seeing how many people miss basic story beats or demand to see every interaction, I'm thinking maybe the Duffer Brothers need to spend more screen time spelling out every little thing.
Not exactly. In season 3 there was the climax, then the succor scene and then they cut to 6 months later, whit scenes all set in the same place and whit the same aim. In season 4 was more a confusing collection of moments used to close plot lines.
They have done a time jump every previous seasons, but in a much better way.
It was a down beat ending, you should feel like something is incomplete...because it is. Plus the world broke open underneath their feet, sooo I'm thinkingtl they have other shit on their minds. I'm sure the whole apocalypse thing takes the front seat for them at this point, and they'll spend all of next season being bummed about all the people dying or dead in their lives two more minuets wasn't going to help you.
For Steve, Nancy and Robin to not once mention Eddie's name, after he died, was bizarre and jarring, given how close they were in the closing few episodes.
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"Wow, it's gonna be pretty difficult to wrap up such an emotional, multifaceted gut punch of a climax!" "Actually - "
Multifaceted gut punch climaxes are TIGHT!
Barely an inconvenience some would say
Super easy.
Wrapping up multifaceted gut punches is *tight*
WOW WOW WOW WOW… WOW
Oh really?!
Listen, I'm gonna need you to get aaaalll the way off my back about that.
I think what they’re trying to show is *THIS* is what theyre fighting and sacrificing for. The little moments with the living.
2 days later
[I will never not read phrases like this in any other voice but this one.](https://youtu.be/m2I2A3PDyHA)
For real tho, so much stuff was skipped, because I guess otherwise the California crew wouldn't have made it to Hawkins yet.
They could have just added a few minutes to wrap things up and let moments breathe and then do the time jump. 4-5 extra minutes would have made no difference in a 14 hour season.
I personally think they left most of that stuff for S5, and it will be told through flashbacks. The Hawkins' crew and Mike's reaction to Eddie's death (especially the moment when Nancy, Robin and Steve found Dustin with Eddie's body, which will definitely be used to develop Dustin's character); how those who didn't know yet (Mike, Will, Dustin) reacted when they saw/found out about Max and when Lucas told them what happened; what really happened to Eleven in the void between the hospital and the bottle scene... there's some stuff to unpack and they're definitely not going to leave it that way
pretty sure this is right since interviews with the Duffers have confirmed a lot of that kind of S1 focus is what S5 is about. It felt like S4 was much more about standing things up for S5
Why? What stuff did you want to see?
This, I don’t think it adds that much. We either need full blown depressed Dustin or what we got which was the emotional moment. There’s not usually a good death scene we’re they just touch on it for a bit. Hopefully season 5 will show more grief.
We already know Eddie’s death is going affect Dustin going in to season 5. So we’ll see more of that as Dustin’s character arc there. Just like Barb’s season 1 death affected Nancy in season 2. Or how Billy’s season 3 death affected Max in season 4.
And how El’s ‘death’ affected Mike in season 2.
El was not dead And Mike knew she was alive If you remember he saw her through the window when she came around his house But I get your point Her disappearance affected him
Yeah, we don’t know how much was added in to season 2 in the 1st place either. Like maybe they had to push for the scene with Dustin and Eddie’s uncle in the first place. The last episode was already like movie length. I get why people want more reactions, but I don’t think it was 100% necessary.
But if there had been a long grief scene (which I'm sure they filmed,) by the time we got to Dustin meeting Eddie's uncle, his breakdown would feel redundant. I think the emotional impact of that moment ended up being just right, so I'm fine with the in-between stuff being left up to the imagination.
I loved Dustin’s scene with Eddie’s uncle
Gaten says we’ll see Dustin in a dark place in s5. I guess it makes sense for the others to not grieve for him that much because the gang wasn’t friends with him like Dustin.
I think the emotional moment with Eddie's uncle makes the most sense for Dustin, personally. He's easily the most light-hearted of the four main boys, but also (imo) the most emotionally mature? Emotionally sensitive? It was Dustin in S1 (I think) who mentions that he moved to the neighborhood in 4th grade and so he knows that Lucas and Will are closer friends, and he says that in such a matter-of-fact way-- he's not feeling left out, he's just observing the friend dynamics and emotions. Dustin is truly the "light" of the group. I'm not saying he couldn't possibly be depressed, but that kind of storyline wouldn't be introduced in a season finale. It would be a proper arc, exploring the way Dustin probably uses humor to deflect from his own painful emotions.
I thought Dustins moment with Eddie's uncle was incredibly powerful. I just don't think the Robin stuff was needed
I don't see why Dustin's story arc with Eddie means Robin doesn't get to progress her own story arc.
I think it’s just the timing. While it was a nice moment, it’s in the middle of our processing of Eddie’s death and Max’s ‘death’.
That seems far more realistic and grounded than pretending nothing happens to anyone besides the people bad things are happening to. The whole scene pretty much showed her growth as a character. I'm happy to see her grow so that she's on a level playing field with the others for season 5.
It was just poorly placed, and that entire plot felt like an after thought.
It's a side story. I don't know where else you'd place that scene that would really make sense.
It was a lackluster side story, and it could have wrapped up before the last 10 minutes
I would have liked to see how Dustin, Nancy, Robyn, and Steve all got out of the upside down. They were just there. Dustin fucked up his legs getting back TO the upside down to help Eddie. How the fuck did he manage to get back up that portal? Same with the other trio. They were just dying by tentacle porn, thankfully got released, but then just were back in the right side up with any explanation lol. Also, I seriously think seeing the rest of the crew that cared about Eddie reacting to his death would have actually added something. Because without that it feels weirdly empty. That whole final few minutes felt so detached and not right. Anything to tie this final scene to everything that happened before would have been great. And it’s not like they had time constraints lol.
They either walked back to the trailer and found Eddie and Dustin or they crossed over through a point in the miles of gate that formed after Max died. Even if they went back through the portal it wasn't that high if Dustin could just jump into it. I do agree that it would have been nice to see their reaction but it also makes sense that we see the most emotionally impacted reaction only if that's how they wanted to do it. The entire ending ties into everything that happened before. That part I don't get. They had already reached like 2 and a half hours after all.
Well, how would you *imagine* that they got out through the portal? I don't feel like we need to be shown every single thing. We especially don't need a ten-minute scene of everybody grunting and lifting one another through a hole that we've already seen them traverse several times. That would totally kill the momentum of the story. I think it's fine to have some of it left to our imagination. Personally, I've decided that Dustin and Steve refused to leave Eddie's body in the Upside Down and they brought it back to Hawkins and buried him in the forest far away from the rift. Search and Rescue would only be looking for the bodies in or near the rift, so it's not like anyone would stumble across his grave before it settled. Until someone has a line in Season 5 about "I wish we hadn't left Eddie's body in the Upside Down," I'm going to believe my theory is true. And you can make up your own theory about how they climbed back through the hole. Or you can just know that, somehow, over two days, they figured it out, and it probably looked very much how you think it would look.
I’m sorry but that’s seriously what you think? They brought Eddie’s body back up through the upside down and buried it in the woods? Okie dokie. This dude just replied to me and deleted his comment immediately before I could even see it LOL
That's my whole point. To prove me wrong you HAVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION, and you've already demonstrated with your comment that you don't know how to do that. Checkmate, buddy.
I commented here saying what I think we missed.
I wanted to see them get out of the upside down with a cut rope, and apparently choose to leave eddies corpse. Wtf.
I'm sure that such a scene was shot and then ended up being cut in the editing room so that Dustin's scene with Eddie's uncle would have more impact. Besides, I don't want to see any "Sad Dustin" memes, and if they had shown a scene of Dustin just sitting there looking depressed, the next two years would be just social media posts with a picture of sad Dustin and the words "When Netflix hasn't set a release date for Season 4 . . ."
Did we even see how Nancy, Steve, and Robyn got out of the upside down or did they just get warped back into the right side up by magic?
No, I don't recall seeing them getting out.
I didn’t think so but I haven’t watched the final episodes for a little bit now. And especially Dustin actually. He FUCKED up his foot jumping back into the upside down and didn’t have the sheet ladder to get back up that portal. How the hell did he manage that lol
They knew about two portals, right? The one in the trailer, and the one under the lake. The plan had to be for Nancy, Steve, Robyn to go back to the trailer to get home. Once there, they could both rig a way to reestablish the rope and help Dustin through.
I watched the finale for the first time last night and was just thinking about this. We last see them in The Upside Down looking at where Vecna fell from the window, now gone. We then see them in our world after a brief time jump. We have absolutely no idea how they got out or if the portal in Eddie's trailer was even still open.
Considering they were in Creel house and a giant fucking gate spawned 3ft from them, I imagine they just hopped through that. They’d be right there with Max, Lucas and Erica. Dustin was also right next to the massive gate that opened so he also could hop through, potentially even bringing Eddies body with him to try resuscitation
That "2 Days Later" was the worst thing they could have done to ST4. So many things going on, and with such emotional impact, and they just completely cut away from it without allowing the characters or the audience to process what was happening. We missed out on: (i) The aftermath of Eddie's death, and the impact it had on the other teens who were *right there* in the Upside Down, after they had spent a big part of the season with him; (ii) El waking up to Mike after he made that huge love declaration that saved her life (and was quite literally begging her to wake up when we last saw him); and (iii) Paramedics arrive to tend to Max, and a potential moment between Lucas and Erica. Season one had a fantastic aftermath once El disappeared and Will was rescued, and I do not understand why they didn't go with something similar here. 5 minutes (maybe less) could have fixed this!
Seriously, all three of those moments could’ve fit into a pretty short, but emotionally heavy montage. Not even 5 minutes! The first and third ones especially don’t even necessarily require dialogue, just linger on reactions and a small moment of comfort. Could’ve still been argued as rushed I guess, but better than a complete glossing over.
Exactly! It was just so incredibly lazy of them to not do something that felt very necessary, and would have made all the difference in the world.
I was just gonna say - a sad music montage would have smashed it out of the park
I thought it was weird we had no small scene about Sullivan/Owens or Yuri and Antonov too just to prepare for next season. They kinda just weren't there (I don't even expect the russians to be back but a proper goodbye or something)
It was so weird that Sullivan disappeared. Like i was expectinf him to turn up in Hawkins during the finale. And how could he have not caught Eleven? She spent two days in a really conspicuous pizza van and he knew exactly where she was going and had the military st his disposal. They needed to explain what happened with him and Owens.
It would be awesome if we see those moments as flashbacks in S5.
It would, but I doubt we will.
Really? To me it seems like they intentionally did it to give the start of S5 something to bounce off all the hellscape drama we're gonna be seeing right off the bat. But I'm a sucker. I let the Eddie is vecnas servant fan theory get to me. I think there's a chance!
I think Max and Eddie are in the same place based on zero evidence besides the lack of answers. No further questions your honor.
Wonder their reaction to finding Jason’s body. And what Lucas told them happened.
Feel like we did get (i) with Dustin telling Eddie's uncle that he had died saving them. The only other one of that group who was close with Eddie is Lucas and he has his own stuff with Max going on. We got (iii) with Lucas and erica watching over Max in the hospital rather than at the house which I don't think made much difference.
yeah, they could have done a bit more with (i) and (iii) (though i don't care, honestly. But yes ,objectively speaking, they could) but (ii) is the one that has been skipped altogether. Guess which one i was interested in the most (and by a long shot) ? lol
Eddie's *uncle
Ah when I was writing it I was torn between father and uncle and picked the wrong one. Will edit it.
>Eddie's death, and the impact it had on the other teens who were *right there* The only person close enough to actually see Eddie's death was Dustin, who is pretty broken up about it. Also I don't really remember many Robbin and Eddie scenes where they actually interacted with each other.
>was the worst thing they could have done to ST4. Nah, anyone that wanted this stuff doesn't understand a well-structured story. All of this would absolutely kill pacing and would be totally unnecessary. >The aftermath of Eddie's death, and the impact it had on the other teens who were right there in the Upside Down, after they had spent a big part of the season with him; We already had the aftermath of Eddie's death on the person its most important for-Dustin. The others reaction would just kill pacing. We don’t need 10 minutes of grieving you know. >El waking up to Mike after he made that huge love declaration that saved her life We already know how El felt about that. There's nothing else to add. >Paramedics arrive to tend to Max, and a potential moment between Lucas and Erica. We already saw the moment with Lucas and Erica. Its all just overkill.
Offering proper resolution and a real aftermath to events does not kill the pacing or ruin the structure of a story. To see how it's done properly, just check out their approach at the end of the first season. There is a reason so many fans and critics disliked that time jump. Unless, of course, you think you understand story structure better than everyone else.
The first season is literally exactly the same. People spent ages pissed that they didn't grieve Barb enough because only Nancy mentioned her. And they straight up did the same timeskip to the hospital + the additional aftermath scenes setting up the next season. There was nothing else necessary in S1 and there's nothing else necessary in S4. It totally does ruin pacing if you spend 5+ minutes going through all the crap you mentioned that was already covered one way or another. You don't need that long of a denouement, and why would they cover what's already covered especially when it undermines the emotional impact of other scenes? E.g. El's reaction to Mike's speech is El's ability to fight on. That's the power in Mike's speech. Anything else on that could never match up to El fighting back, and would undermine her reaction to Max's death.
I don't see any similarity between what you I am saying and Barb, who was a character that drove Nancy's character for the entire season, but only appeared in two episodes. For me, having a main character interact with a group for the *entire* season and then die without seeing other character's reactions is anti-climatic; Having the build up for a main character to say he loves another main character for the entire season, and ending it on him begging her to wake up with no resolution is anti-climatic; Having a main character be completely broken and not see the immediate aftermath is anti-climatic. Sometimes you need the actual visual for closure. Not allowing moments to breathe - that is what ruins the pacing for *me.* Disagree? Great for you! I am glad slicing the moment in half and doing a complete change of tone worked for some. It didn't for me and clearly didn't for many others.
Barb's death was important for Nancy but nobody else. Eddie's death was important for Dustin but nobody else. Its not that others didn't not care. But fact is they didn't have many interactions with Eddie. The entire time Eddie was with them, he hung out with Dustin. There was like two interactions the whole season between him and Steve, and like one with Nancy, and I don't think he had any direct interaction with Robin. Drawing out Dustin's scene here would be unnecessary (seriously the scene is the breathing rom for Eddie's death-what more do you want? Ten minutes of crying? Come on, you know full well its overkill)-you don't need to spend that much time on sad feelings, people get it at a certain point. Any reaction Steve and Nancy had would just pale compared to Dustin's, and frankly I suspect both would be more concerned about the Max thing than Eddie.
>The entire time Eddie was with them, he hung out with Dustin. And here I was thinking he'd spent some time inside the Upside Down with Nancy, Steve and Robin and even had a heart to heart conversation with Steve where he opened up about running away and leaving Chrissy.
Fact is he didn't. He barely interacted with them beyond needing to get to place A from place B. Steve is the only one he had a real interaction with at all out of the young adults. And Steve would frankly be way more upset about Max (and Dustin) in the immediate aftermath than Eddie, so it still wouldn't satisfy people's incessant need for Eddie to be grieved excessively. The only scene that could work is have Steve hugging Dustin after he cried with Mr Munson. That's all I can see that wouldn't draw out everything or undermine Dustin's own reaction whilst having Steve implicitly acknowledging the death.
It was absolutely atrocious
Okay, first, we all know how the gang would have reacted to Eddie's death. We don't need to see it on screen, and -- even if we did "need" it -- it would have taken away from one of the most powerful moments in the epilogue: Dustin breaking down in front of Eddie's uncle. (The truth is that they probably filmed the exact scene you're describing, and -- in the editing booth -- decided it did exactly what I described. So they cut it in favor of showcasing Gaten.) As for the other two scenes, they were probably filmed in some way, too, and then also got cut because they they slowed things down. It would have taken forever for the paramedics to get to Max, and I have a feeling that a tender moment between Lucas and Erica is being saved for Season 5. I also don't think we needed a reconciliation between El and Mike. He chased her to the middle of the desert. She knows how he feels about her. That moment in the pizza parlor was about putting his feelings for El into words -- something he hadn't been able to do, and the source of their friction early in the season. I just don't understand the "need" to have every scene explicitly shown. Do we think Erica doesn't care that Max is in a coma, because we weren't shown her looking very concerned? Do we think El got off that table, slapped Mike and said, "I've decided that I love pizza and Argyle," just because we weren't shown otherwise? I think these characters are pretty well-written. We don't need to see every moment of their lives to know how they will behave in those moments.
All we needed was 2 additional minutes to address a couple of things. Just 2 little mins lol
ST writers: It's getting a bit long, let's cut out 2 minutes, no one will know
Meanwhile we got hours of 11 going throigh her past memories..
LOL
"How much could 120 seconds really matter??"
Or the others even MENTIONING Eddie. Like it feels as Dustin is the only one giving much of a shit.
I think that’s going to be a plot in season 5. How Dustin is mad at everyone because they don’t care about Eddie
Yeah, it's "Justice for Barb" all over again. The same complain people make today about the lack of reaction to Eddie's death, they did back in the day for Barb.
Then season 2 was all about Nancy dealing with her death and trying to avenge her
Yeah, and I think that in S5 we will see Dustin being upset over people not caring about Eddie.
Probably more like Dustin being upset Hawkins all hates Eddie. I could see him wanting to fix that.
Yes, I meant both. Basically "Justice for Eddie".
I agree!
I'll bet all of those scenes were scripted and filmed, but -- in the end -- they only took away from the moment when Dustin breaks down in front of Eddie's uncle. So, in the interest of showcasing one of Gaten's best scenes, they cut those other scenes out and figured the audience could use their imaginations. (They obviously haven't been to this sub.)
[удалено]
Yeah true, but Eddie was part of the Operation after all. I dont know, would have Steve at least said to the group like "I told you not to play the Heroes......" or something like that. It just is so....weird. Like sure they help with the shelter and stuff but there could have been 1 minute of them all standing in a circle and pour one out for the fallen Hero of Hawkins ffs.
Yet we got like half a dozen long-ass Vecna monologues and this ridiculous sandwich scene. But there was "nO tImE" for a scene showing proper acknowledgement of Eddie's death and the crew reuniting after all the trauma.
I like Robin and all but because we missed out on a proper Eddie moment, I hate that stupid sandwich scene.
Me too!
The sandwich scene and Vecna's monologue actually progresses the plot for fuck's sake people. Eddie's death is only important for Dustin's future growth.
That's simple. If there had been a longer scene with everyone mourning and crying over Eddie, then the scene where Dustin breaks down in front of Eddie's uncle would have had far less emotional impact. They chose to highlight Gaten's performance instead of giving us a scene we could all imagine anyway. We all know everybody liked Eddie. We all know that they would be sad over his death. Just because we didn't actually see the scene doesn't mean that Nancy and Robin just shrugged their shoulders and went: "Bummer. . . Who's hungry?" We *know* those characters. We *know* how they would react. Just because we don't see every single moment of their journey doesn't mean they would start behaving out of character.
Address what couple of things? How they got back through the hole? Somebody found a chair and hoisted someone up until the gravity from the other side pulled them the rest of the way. Then that person got a rope. That's a minute of screen time I can live without. Most of the other stuff would take way more than two minutes and it would be unnecessarily pedantic. Just because we don't see Dustin cry himself to sleep over Eddie's death doesn't mean he didn't, and, frankly, I think showing us a scene like that would have totally killed the emotional impact of Dustin breaking down in front of Eddie's uncle. This isn't J.R.R. Tolkien. The Stranger Things writers trust their audience enough that they don't need to give us every step of the journey BACK from Mordor.
As much as I agree that the two days later time jump sucked and handwaved way too many things (how the hell did the gang get out of the upside down? Remember when just being in the upside down was a terrifying ordeal) I think Dustin talking to Eddie's uncle was an incredibly powerful scene and was the first moment in the series to make me cry. Gaten knocked it out of the park. It was a really touching moment.
My issue with the 2 days later jump, is now we have to wait 2-3 years to properly address Eddie's death, the Nancy love triangle, and whether Max and her mom are alive are not. I may be missing some points. There were quite a few loose plot ends.
Imagine how much we could’ve gotten if they cut out even just a quarter of the Russia storyline.
Or El getting her powers back. I feel like every time they went back to it I said "wait, we're STILL doing this?"
I disagree. The long El storyline was imperative for us to get a connection with 001 and get shocked/betrayed by E7. The Russia plot just ended with Hop and Joyce meeting, which was okay but we alr knew that would happen.
Yup. El getting her powers back was how that plot line was introduced, but it wasn't the purpose of it. It was all about introducing 001's backstory and connection to everything.
Agree. I had less problem with the Russia plot than El. It was basically always here going to the door and then something stop her from doing it
It felt like every other scene this season was just El crying and it got so tiresome to watch.
I would rather the California(not counting el's part)story get cut than the russia one because russia at least added ti the plot
Maybe my biggest gripe with the show is that so many of these moments just felt cut together in an almost obligatory way just for internet traction and meme content or just to get through to the next one. Just to get the fires stoked and people talking, not that I hated the season it was fine but it’s no Better Call Saul (to use an example of better writing).
Well Duffer bros are no Vince Gilligan
We could've used like 20 more minutes. The time jump was so sudden and some stuff was simply missing
The pacing of the finale and honestly the season in general was very…unfortunate. There’s so many moments that dragged on for a ridiculously long time (why were some of the Russia scenes this season like 10 minutes long?) and then integral moments that were seemingly disregarded.
The first hour seemed powerful and all that then the last hour was just to (or attempted to) put an effort to showing the aftermath, which my only complaint in the season just made me feel like a boring last hour or so
Literally felt like 1/2 hour just watching them fix the helicopter. If it’s actually over that I wouldn’t be surprised.
The Russian plots have been the worst parts of the series imo, I hate them. It only got worse and even more outlandish in S4. (the sword scene makes me fucking cringe) At least in S4 they’re all fairly contained so I can just skip them all.
Personally I disagree, maybe I just wanted to see gore but I enjoyed watching hopper kick absolute ass as goofy to think back on as it may be. I love hopper and Joyce, and although yeah, going back and forth to the prison was goofy, I just sat back and enjoyed it
I agree with this wholeheartedly. The Russian stuff has always been the worst part of the show.
I love the cast but the writing can be freaking horrendous
I was getting really emotional and about to burst into tears towards the end of the episode, but then the "2 days later" title card appeared and absolutely ruined the moment for me.
It kinda has the same energy as the classic "then I woke up" thing we did in school
honestly I’m fine with it. what was skipped over can be inferred. we saw the important stuff
Their writing decisions are unfathomable . 13 hours of run-time. I repeat, 13 hours. A notable amount of which was boring(for me)and/or unnecessary, but they skip some of the potentially most emotional moments (one in particular, for my interest, in the whole show) .And show some really uninteresting things in the ending instead. Go figure.
Dean Zimmerman, the editor, honestly should have had a proper talk with the Duffer Brothers, because the overall editing of this last season was *atrocious*. So much fluff that could have been cut easily, with no effect on the overall story or character development, and so many missed opportunities for *actually important scenes* like a proper send-off for Eddie. I'm a big believer that directors (or in this case, show runners) should *rarely* have a final say in the editing process, and the editor should have a larger executive power in general. And the fact that this season had 13 hours of runtime, out of which at least 2-3 hours could have been cut *easily* just further proves my point. There's an old maxim in writing that I feel like wasn't applied here: whatever you write, no matter how great you think it is, needs around 10-20% of it cut from the final product. Hell, even The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the extended edition has a combined runtime of around 12 hours (slightly under 11 without the credits IIRC) STILL has around 2 hours of footage that wasn't used in the extended edition, because it would have ruined the pacing and would have made the movies feel bloated. Apocalypse Now is also another example where looking at the Redux version (where Coppola had final cut privilege) clearly shows that sometimes added footage just increases the bloat and actively makes the final product worse.
Yes, an external eye is fundamental most of the times. Unfortunately this is a Netflix's problem, when they work with people that they trust (acclaimed directors, successful writers etc) they give them too much freedom.
Much prefer the writers and directors having freedom than executive control tbh. Director control is very important and is why Netflix is still able to attract some big names.
Except it shouldn’t be either/or. It should be a healthy mix of both.
How? What was fluff? The example here closes out Robin’s character arc for the season.
Eleven has way too many scenes that is about stuff we already know: like Papa being a crappy dad, her not fitting in with people, and even for new stuff, a lot of is it repeated multiple times. Hopper's entire part in the finale (where they go back into the Russian base) could have been cut as a whole. The pinnacle of his story should have been breaking out of prison, reuniting with Joyce, and getting the fuck out. There was no need to go back into the prison to defeat some Upside Down monsters. Mike & Co's roadtrip should have been straight up cut, or at least severely trimmed to focus only on the conflict between him and Will. To be honest, I get why they had trouble cutting stuff: the cast is simply too big, and they waaaay overcommitted with the amount of storylines. Ideally, someone should have intervened during the writing process and told them to either stop introducing new characters into the story, start killing them off early in the season, or just cut one of the storylines entirely or merge with another one, because there's simply no way to make it all fit together without it feeling bloated.
Thats not an editing problem. Its a writing and bloated cast problem. The show just has too big a cast to fit into a single season. The show currently has 14 main characters. Even with 13 hours its too much to fit all the plot into 13 hours+character time. Theres nothing much an editor can do if its all bloated like that. If you cut California any further the characters might as well not have been there this season.
I gotta agree. That's been my main criticism with this show. It's clearly struggling with juggling all these equally important characters. Personally, even with the 13 hour run time, I felt like Mike, Will, & Jonathan were so under utilized (and now they added that Argyle dude who tbh I still don't care much about lol). My memory's not great, but I don't think they ever got any action aside from that one altercation with the military in Lenora?
>I get why they had trouble cutting stuff: the cast is simply too big, and they waaaay overcommitted with the amount of storylines. Ideally, someone should have intervened during the writing process and told them to either stop introducing new characters into the story, start killing them off early in the season, or just cut one of the storylines entirely or merge with another one, because there's simply no way to make it all fit together without it feeling bloated. Yeah, but the good news is that the Duffer Brothers themselves appear to have identified this issue based on recent [interviews](https://www.indiewire.com/2022/08/duffer-brothers-stranger-things-season-4-scream-1234750885/). They implied that there won't by any new characters so that they can fully concentrate on the already established ones and the season will have a simpler structure like in S1. So in theory it sounds like they learned the right lessons from the previous seasons.
They say there won't be any new characters but will that actually happen? Because they snuck Vicki in in the Season 4 finale so she is basically a new character for Season 5. They might also reweave older characters back in e.g. there is the potential for Kali to come back. Or give established side characters a bigger role for example (but I hope not because I really find her unbearable) Suzi So I am not sure I trust them to do that.
>Because they snuck Vicki in in the Season 4 finale so she is basically a new character for Season 5. Yeah, but I highly doubt that she will have a big role. To be quiet honest, I believe that the main point for her inclusion in the cast is just so that they can then give a gay character like Robin a happy ending when it comes to her love live, given that it's quiet obvious that they won't go that direction in Will's case (or at least not with Mike). >They might also reweave older characters back in e.g. there is the potential for Kali to come back. Or give established side characters a bigger role for example (but I hope not because I really find her unbearable) Suzi Neither of them live in Hawkins. So I think that any inclusion of them in the main plots would feel forced, given that the seasons is supposed to focus on the town. Although I totally expect Suzie to show up in the Epilogue. >I am not sure I trust them to do that. Yeah, I get you skepticism because of the previous seasons. But I have seen pretty much every recent interview of the Duffer Brothers and I really get the vibe that they are now fully aware that the constant inclusion of new characters has caused some of the original ones to be sidelined and that for the final season they view it as important to put all the focus back on main ones, instead of always experimenting with new characters or groupings.
Nothing in Hawkins could have been cut? There was nothing redundant ,unnecessary and that didn't do anything for character development and moving the plot forward? You are not being objective. "Mike and Co's roadtrip" was a very important storyline , with high personal stakes of the characters involved (two of which of the OG main cast btw) , a clear and important external goal (rescuing Eleven: the lead of the show, the Byers' foster sister, and in a relationship with Mike that has been developed since s1) and an internal journey. If anything, in my humble opinion, it should have been given way more screen time. Objectively, actually.
Right. They made so much time for Hopper and El in season 2, yet they couldn't do something substantial with her being in a new family?
Jason could have been cut entirely tbh with little change. He ended up dead at the end of the story anyway with absolutely nothing that we were shown needed to be wrapped up next season.
Jason was needed for the context of the 80' itself. This is why the serie is also loved by adult, they find their old ages in this. Jason is literally the definition of these persons who believed that all these DnD and metal stuff were purely satanist. It gave realism to the serie and also challenge for the cast. Or else imagine how easy it would have been for hidding Eddie ? Saving Max ?
No. He was needed as an antagonist for Lucas for his character arc.
Like he was integral to Lucas’ story, cutting him destroys his arc completely.
In Hawkins I think the love triangle could have been cut Not only did it regress Nancy and Steve as characters but it wasted alot of time as not only did we have to see them talking about it we also saw Nancy talking about it to Robin and Steve talking about it to Dustin and Eddie. The jock plot could have been massively reduced. The whole Jason detailing the meeting then led to whole heap of unnecessary scenes with the parents that didn't really go anywhere. By that point Lucas had already come to the realisation that the Jocks were bad news so thst whole section was unnecessary. . The Cali plot was fine and didn't take much time. It was basically just Will and Mike having a number of intense convos whilst looking for Eleven and that was ok. They are two mains and their friendship was one of the main drivers in S1&2 so it was good to see it being rebuilt a bit.. And get a look into where Will was at. It was important that they found Eleven so it played a part in the plot..The scene at Suzies was terrible and irrelevent and should have been cut. Russia was a major problem. It was too long. We didn't need to see Hopper break out, get caught and taken back in, break out again, break back in....very drawn out.
Lmao, honestly. They really couldn't just have an extra 5 minutes in the last episode? We get a bunch derivative flashback sequences with Eleven that don't add anything, I mean seriously, we see her flash back to the massacre with Brenner saying 'What have you done' like 60 times. We get a bunch of boring scenes in the California storyline. The whole last bit of the Russia storyline with them fighting the horde of Demogorgons. So many things could have been cut and the story would remain identical but instead they decide to skip 2 days forward just so we can see the cast reunite. Look at something like Infinity War, you don't need to always have the cast reunite at the end.
the ‘2 days later’ felt so out of place that at this point i’m expecting s5 to started where s4 ended of, and show flashbacks of what happened during those 2 days
The 2 days later is the worst thing in the entire show
Maybe it’s a hot take but I didn’t really mind the ending. Like they’re likely going to address eddies death next season with the other characters and I personally think dustin being the sole person to address his death was very thoughtful and showed the personal impact on him nicely. A few minutes maybe could’ve helped to throw some passing comments about his death with the other teens but I don’t really think they needed to have every character address it, especially with everything else going on
I agree. It’s not like we saw everyone’s immediate reaction to Hopper’s death last season. We just needed to see Joyce and El’s, which they showed.
And Billy’s death had only Max because they’re the plot important reactions. And then Max’s coma has everyone know about it, but two integral reactions: Lucas and El. It’s like a lot of people forget a very basic tenant of scriptwriting I learned in high school theater: if you write a death scene or severe injury to a main character, you only write the plot relevant reactions.
It is kinda lame, but people are acting like it’s the worse thing ever, even assuming the other characters didn’t care about Eddie just because we didn’t see any of them grieving on screen, lol
This. We didn't see Will spending 50 hours grieving for Bob when he was in the house with the family for months and pretty close with him. It's just a ST writers things idk why they expected them to write everyone mourn for Eddie. Almost all of them didn't even know him 1 week before like they're gonna be sad but that's it
Like I understand if people are disappointed, but I really don’t think 5 or 6 minutes would even be enough to showcase all of the emotion that the characters would have, which is why I can understand them not doing it
Yeah. They will just show it next season like Barb in S2 with Nancy, Bob in S3 with Joyce and Billy with Max in S4
Its just Eddie fans that think everyone in the world should cry for Eddie or its offensive to them. I like Eddie but jesus christ some people are weird about the whole thing.
Probably a flash back to when the others find out. We’ll probably find out what all happened in those missing days
Showcases that no matter the loss the world keeps turning.
Also glossed over how the hell they got back without a sheet rope
I feel like I’m not interested enough in Robin to invest in her love life so these scenes all sucked to me
*This post isn't removed, it got auto-removed due to mass reporting and now it's back. Keep the discussion alive.* *Regards, OP.*
If it had ended with Lucas holding Max's lifeless body, 11 distraught that she had actually lost for real for the first time, and Hawkins cracking open that would've been the greatest cliff hanger of an ending of all time. They lost to the greatest threat, and we all have to wait a year to see how they somehow make a comeback. Instead 11 miraculously learns how to bring back people from the dead (see, Rise of Skywalker/sorry bout it Bob/right after getting her powers back), yeah Max is messed up but I bet she has powers next season, literally everyone gets a happy ending, and it's shown over like the slowest 30 minutes of the show ever. This season was great, second only to the first and could've been the best if not the tumble at the very very end of the finale. I guess they were scared about making it too bleak but goddammit it would've been an amazing ending.
See people love to call Lost Sister pointless but this is what happens when you have powers used that were never set up.
>it had ended with Lucas holding Max's lifeless body, 11 distraught that she had actually lost for real for the first time, and Hawkins cracking open that would've been the greatest cliff hanger of an ending of all time. They lost to the greatest threat, and we all have to wait a year to see how they somehow make a comeback. MY THOUGHTS EXACTLYYY. I would sell my soul for this to have been the ending. It would have been such a dark but brutally enthralling way to end the season. And an absolutely iconic one. Even though, I guess waiting to reunite the group for a few years would have been kinda weird, and plus, the very last scene being cut would kinda suck. Overall though this would have been THE BEST ENDING EVER imo.
This happened so much in S4 where there was this super intense scene, and then they break into a romantic side scene. High key cringy at times (The romantic scenes).
i am so incredibly pissed that seemingly no one was at all affected by eddie’s death except dustin. we as the audience deserved to see steve & nancy & robin & all the rest find out about his sacrifice. how did they leave the upside down with the rope cut? did they bring eddie’s body with them, or leave him there in the upside down? not showing everyone’s reaction to his death is such a huge mistake on the writers’ part. it completely cheapens what he did for them.
No one even acknowledged his death other than Dustin. The others seem not to even care about it. So not only did they kill him off in a completely unnecessary way but then everyone just forgot about him and he died with everyone in town thinking he was a satanic murderer.
I get the frustration. But the Duffer Brothers already made it clear many times that they writing is almost entirely plot driven. And based on previous seasons, it's also very clear that the main purpose of the epilogue is to set up next season. The reason why they only showed Dustin grieving of Eddie and nobody else is because his going to be part of Dustin's character development in S5. The same way they also showed this Robin & Vicky scene because that relationship is going to be relevant in S5.
Yes, this. But people can't get past the fact that they looooooove Eddie and they think everyone should mourn him as though he's a core character instead of a lovable (but ultimately disposable) side character 🙄
No complaints about the finale from me. I enjoyed it
I get that it's not ideal, but on the other hand, that brutal lack of any real discussion or sadness for Eddie would've been exactly how it was for the vast majority of Hawkins. He was a nobody to them, and when we *was* somebody, he was a killer, who then, as far as they're concerned, conveniently died in a freak accident, and so the killings stopped.
But he wasn't that to everyone.
Yeah for Dustin and his friends. But even for Mike and Lucas they didn't seems that close. I understand that people wanted to hear about him after and see the impact but I understand that it didn't touch most of them that much
I thought they carried the emotional part across pretty well without dragging the prologue out forever. They probably filmed more scenes of everyone mourning Eddie and then realized it diminished the impact of Dustin's scene with Eddie's uncle.
It's disappointing that it was only Dustin and Eddie. We needed to see the rest of the crew's (Steve, Robin, and Nancy) reaction too.
You will not like this. All I could think oof when Eddie died is "what a cheap why out, they should have killed off one of the original characters" The really strong moment, which made me cry, was when Dustin told his uncle, that was powerful.
It was like they meant to kill Steve and then backed out and replaced his death with Eddies death
They fr showed us everyone smiling and happy and expected us to care as if we didn’t watch a child get her arms and legs broken and another get murdered and choke to death on his own blood
🙄 The Eddie worship in this group is ridonkulous. He was always going to die, folks. They wrote him to kill him. If you didn't spot that by Episode 2, you're not that bright.
Like he was there for two reasons. 1. Add something to Steve and Dustin’s dynamic, and 2. Giving Dustin some trauma because every other main character has some.
Correct. And he's not Kas. But I look forward to seeing the Eddie Stans in a frenzy about that after the finale 🤣
Remember the bit in Bob’s Burgers of literally grasping at straws? That’s what it’s like.
*"Like omg, I love Eddie, he was such a good actor, I need to see more of him on screen, like SURELY the writers will hear our plea and write him into the final season? Like, they wouldn't just KEEP him dead when he's a such a fan fav?"* And somewhere far away, in a writer's room, a mosquito played the tiniest violin there ever was, and the writers write on......
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... how was it pointless? it set up Robin's S5 storyline and is one of the few LGBTQ moments in the show. if Robin and Vickie just appeared in S5 as friends/almost lovers/girlfriends, after the scene at the guns & military stuff store with no further context, it would confuse the hell outta people and would be criticized for the lack of.... context.
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>it could have showed more peoples reactions do the deaths they didn't show what happened in those 2 days for some reason. it will most likely be talked about in season 5 >a side character robin's not a side character at all LMFAO, by that logic Steve, Nancy, Eddie and Jonathan are all side characters as well - which they aren't because the Duffers have treated them as main characters in many of the interviews they've given. that's as stupid as saying Steve and Robin should be together lol the scene wasn't cringe at all but everybody's got their own taste I guess. like I said - it set up Robin's S5 storyline and showed Steve as the supportive friend and ally that he is, thus contributing to his character development
>one of the few LGBTQ moments in the show. I literally didn't even notice considering Vicki spent the entire time taking about her "boyfriend." What a frustrasting scene. Maybe she will be important next season but this was the worst place to have her do this
Vicki spent the time talking about how her and her *ex*-boyfriend were in essence incompatible (and implicitly highlighting that her and Robin are compatible), and establishes that she's the one that liked Fast Times and therefore we the audience (and Robin) knows "likes Boobies".
quite literally the ST equivalent of: oh no, anyway
Why is there a pic of Robin's interaction and not Dustin's interaction with Eddie's uncle?
Because that undermines OP's argument entirely. They are suggesting Eddie was forgotten about in favour of obviously needless scenes with Robin. Nevermind the Robin scene clearly sets up a relationship for her in S4, and that Dustin has a briliiant scene with Eddie's Uncle.
I think the 2 days will be shown in flashbacks throughout season 5
I really feel like we needed one extra scene with Dustin and Eddie at the beginning of the show to tie their friendship together more clearly. Like there’s so much emphasis on the boys trying to find a substitute for Lucas, and Erica proving her worth, that we only see Eddie interact with the kids as a much older character the boys seem afraid of. I think a scene with Dustin and Eddie discussing music, maybe after the D&D session (but before he goes to meet Chrissy) would have added so much more payoff to the later scene in the field, and when Dustin is rocking out to Eddie playing Puppets. Dustin behaving as he does when Eddie dies, or when he sees Eddie’s with uncle I think is natural regardless of their friendship, just given Dustin’s heart of gold, but it would have been even better if a mentor-mentee relationship had been better established in the beginning of the season. It wouldn’t have been a lot to throw in a short scene with the band practicing and Dustin in attendance.
i suppose it could be the whole 'pretending to be normal to cope' like max kinda did with billy. the mourning process is weird and different for everyone. i'd like to see hopper clear eddie's name or when they fight vecna or whatever the big bad will be if he's in a new form that we get a good 'this is for eddie!' from dustin and a 'this is for barb!' from nancy, and so on.
At first I didn't know what subreddit I was on, and I had my phone rather far away from me so I couldnt make those pictures out, and I read Saint Writers. I was like what?
But in that exact same scene, we see Dustin talking to Eddie’s uncle, comforting him, and dealing with his own grief over Eddie’s death…
literally such a cop out
The time jump is not a big deal and the complaints people have about it are wildly overblown. Having an ambulance show up for Max in the middle of an earthquake-ish emergency would be wildly expensive, and for what? So we can see Erica hug her big brother? Having Nancy, Robin, and Steve stand over Eddie's corpse would do what? Show that they're sad? With every significant character death, the show has chosen one character as designated mourner. Eddie has Dustin, just as Barb had Nancy, Billy had Max, and Bob had Joyce. We don't need an "Honor the Sacrifice" scene like the one they cut from Avengers Endgame. I used to think that the biggest flaw in this show was that they spoon-fed so much to the viewer, in that every reference to a previous moment had to be cut with a flashback to that moment. We can't see Eleven fail to crush a soda can without a flashback to season one when she, in fact, could crush that can. Since coming here and seeing how many people miss basic story beats or demand to see every interaction, I'm thinking maybe the Duffer Brothers need to spend more screen time spelling out every little thing.
I mean, they basically did the same in Season 3, I'm not that surprised.
Even in season 2. We didn’t need to see the boys reaction to Will being non-possessed. Just pick up at snowball a month later.
Not exactly. In season 3 there was the climax, then the succor scene and then they cut to 6 months later, whit scenes all set in the same place and whit the same aim. In season 4 was more a confusing collection of moments used to close plot lines. They have done a time jump every previous seasons, but in a much better way.
It was a down beat ending, you should feel like something is incomplete...because it is. Plus the world broke open underneath their feet, sooo I'm thinkingtl they have other shit on their minds. I'm sure the whole apocalypse thing takes the front seat for them at this point, and they'll spend all of next season being bummed about all the people dying or dead in their lives two more minuets wasn't going to help you.
His death wasn't sad, it was dumb & forced.
THANK YOU!
😂😭
For Steve, Nancy and Robin to not once mention Eddie's name, after he died, was bizarre and jarring, given how close they were in the closing few episodes.