The Grapevine

Holy.

Fucking.

Shit.

It had me fucking gripping the seat in stress, and had me fucking at the edge of my seat for the beautiful romance. Oh my god. This movie has emotionally impacted me in a way no other movie ever has.

Ryan & Naim? Best horror couple ever. Hands down. I love them. Favourite ever.

Most ROMANTIC heartbreaking soul catching heart fluttering movie I’ve ever seen.

But also, it was the most HORRIFIC stress inducing “please get away oh my god oh my god is he going to do it” terrifying seat gripping movie I’ve ever seen.

Best movie of all fucking time.

You heard me right.

BEST FUCKING MOVIE OF ALL TIME.

Naim and Ryan are my two favourite characters in media EVER. I STAND FOR THE RIGHTS OF MY BABIES OH MY GOD MY BABIES MY BABIES

rating: 3/5 ⭐️

i genuinely fell in love with stranger things the summer before sixth grade, and what it’s turned into now that i’m 20 and it’s over feels like a completely different show. it’s plot hole after plot hole, nothing actually gets addressed, and so many endings are left weirdly ambiguous, which is something the duffers said they would never do. the final battle straight up looked like a rushed shitty marvel knockoff. like i’m sorry but the green screen work was ass

as much as i don’t support noah schnapp, the humiliation ritual they put him through with will’s sexuality and by extension noah’s feels incredibly sinister. on top of that we get zero real closure, just the implication that robin and vickie broke up, so not a single queer character actually finds love. noah has said that if he hadn’t pushed for a scene to close out will’s arc with mike and have mike acknowledge his coming out, it wouldn’t have happened at all and even then that 30 second scene still felt humiliating.

i was satisfied with the endings for will, dustin, lucas, and max, other than the fact that will is the only one who explicitly never experiences romance + lucas, one of the only black characters, not having an arc outside of his relationship. i’m really happy about jonathan, steve, and nancy too, but most of all joyce and hopper. their epilogue moment genuinely felt full circle and was probably the most emotionally honest part of the finale.

but el’s ending is heartbreaking in the worst way. they say the viewer can believe whatever they want, but i genuinely believe she’s dead. what mike says at the very end is a fantasy he’s using to cope with her death. the message her whole arc sends is that after all the tragedy she went through, she can only end the cycle of abuse if she killed herself, not to persist and challenge it. okay, cool i guess! the acting and chemistry between millie and finn before el sacrifices herself is negative zero. the use of purple rain during this scene was incredibly tone deaf. i don’t understand why they kept their relationship ambiguous all season just to kill her anyway. and their only other female main character is brought back just to die again.

building off that, mike somehow gets one of the bleakest endings despite not dying. it’s implied he doesn’t go to college, becomes a writer, and stays in hawkins writing about his childhood. he’s stuck mourning el for the rest of his life. the costuming is clearly intentional too, slowly turning him into the man he never wanted to become: his father. we even see him put his dnd binder away for the last time and he lingers, brushing will’s binder with his finger. in mike’s fantasy ending for will, will finds a boyfriend who looks eerily similar to mike himself. for a show about nonconformity, mike ends up conforming, and he’ll spend the rest of his life miserable and alone paying for it. i hate that for him.

this show will always hold a special place in my heart. i don’t think i’ll be able to rewatch it because im so disappointed that it’s ruined the magic for me, and that’s devastating. i liked the finale at first, but the more i sat with it the more the shitty parts piled up. you can tell volume 2 and the finale were written during/after the writers strike. the homophobia, racism, and misogyny in the writing is so blatant and if i truly rated it with full honesty, the number of stars would probably be lower

this is the last chapter of my childhood im closing out. goodbye stranger things