Fishy Geek Blog

@itswhatyougive pointed out an incredible observation when i asked if fans expected s5 to be the last season. a huge indication for why s5 would be the last chapter of the series was because of how s4 used the main theme in the final scenes of the season. i had never considered this before!

i talked about this a while ago but usually st uses the main theme for the credits in the season's final episode. the series has 100% used pre-existing songs in the credits for other episodes during the season. like "hazy shade of winter" in 1x02 or "we'll meet again" in 3x04. stuff like that. but the s4 finale is the only season that doesn't play the main theme during the credits. it was a very strange creative decision.

i said that "spellbound" was the song hanging in between s4&5. as in it could have been foreshadowing.

but also it was like basically my song before going into s5 lol. i listened to it for months before the season, so i looked for any easter eggs about it. i was so happy that they were spinning will around in the trailers 😆 imagine how i felt when he also heard laughter while he was spinning

right after s5 ended, i was pretty mad that they "didn't follow through" on that. but i'm pretty sure they did now. now i interpret that to have been foreshadowing lol.

but it's so cool to look at how music was used in s4. they played the main theme in the finale just like any other season. but it wasn't during the credits, it was over the last few scenes.

reality definitely ended here ↓

and then this is how we went into s5 ↓

I got chills when the ACTUAL SHOW THEME started playing in the s4 finale. It was so incredibly meta (Will and I both got goosies at the same time). It felt like "Oh shit, it's all been building up to this moment!!"

So when S5 started like no big deal, uncanny valley sitcom shenanigans, I was very confused.

But ☝️there's one more piece to back up your theory!!

I was so impressed by that finale moment, not just because of the meta, but the way they had created an extended version with a swelling orchestra that added to the tension of those last moments in a way that didn't even need words.

I kept hoping they would release this version on the soundtrack, and they finally did release it after S5 as part of a collection called Stranger Things- The Orchestral Cues (but still only digital!! why do they hate money!!!) Beautiful works, highly recommend.

But I only found the track by accident, because it was actually named something else:

INVERTED 👀👀👀👀

i said that what's going on in s5 is like a view master caught between two slides. that the characters are in the real world but also the upside down in some way.

i think the finale of s4 is a big clue for when this happens and how it works. the smoke from the curse gates (which is a lot like the mind flayer) rose up into the clouds and then the spores started falling like snow. it's a lot like what happens to will at the end of s1 and into s2. he's both in the real world and the upside down. i don't think it's a situation like his true sight but maybe that's a clue for us to see what's happening in s5

edit: aha i found it 😆 i said it here "It’s still unclear to me how Camazotz got blended with the real world enough that Max's second escape seemed to work, but I have an idea that season 5 doesn’t take place entirely within a false reality. The characters were only partially in a dreamworld like a Viewmaster caught between two slides. Camazotz might be the first representation of this underlying narrative. The dreamworld comes in waves. The portal out of Camazotz is real one moment and fake the next. Some events happened while others were completely imagined. Maybe one day it’ll click and I can write a real theory on that, but for now, that’s all I have."

Like, first, Erica!!!! She got a NOTHING ending!! She was a part of the team. A part of their DnD group! She fucking helped them win that game at hellfire club. She's come with ideas and helped them achieve things for their plans. She's Lucas' freaking little sister!! She deserves a proper ending!!

And don't get me started on Lucas. I understand that if CG is real, then that was the point of his "happy ending" being that way in the epilogue, because he will hopefully get a better, more fulfilling ending, and also possibly because Max may be dead 😬 But still. If you know about the storyline for the VR game that Paul Ditcher oversaw, they tell you Lucas has a fear of not being known for anything other than his relationship and not for any of his own accomplishments. And then that's what they fucking did. A young black man only having a "He settled down with his gorgeous white girlfriend and lived happily in this small racist town for the rest of their lives 🥰" storyline. That is a HORRIBLE ending!!! He deserved way more too. At least for Dustin he got to go to a prestigious school in his "ending".

Like, I get this is possibly the entire point, that none of it was real and this was the fake ending where their fears do basically come true to an extent but in a way that is disguised as happy. But the fact that they are possibly making people wait a year or longer (if CG is real!! cause I obv get doubt from time to time though i still very much believe in it) to see what really happened. Like, regardless what they did was cruel to an extent and poorly thought out IMO. What they did basically mainly affected multiple minority characters/groups in the end and then just left it. I do not think this is genius commentary or anything because we never get TRUE real hints that anyone can see, that it is not over and that there is more coming.

Like I get that is practical advice, but people should not have to fucking do that. They should not have to train themselves around not sounding like AI, when AI only sounds like that BECAUSE it was trained on them.

From Ky on TikTok. Let me know if you want her full tag name and I’ll put it on here. So much going on right now. 🤯

the end of season 4 speeds up to the scouring of the shire 💀 the shire/hawkins is burning, already? more like, this is the vision that Sam/Frodo or Mike/Will are given by Galadriel/Kali of Hawkins/the Shire in ruin. season 5 then ends like book 5 when Pippin/El has his/her fake-out death. We still have some ways to go, including Will's/Frodo's fakeout death (aka Mike/Sam fighting Shelob/Mindflayer and saving Will/Frodo), and other important moments