Commentary: ‘Stranger Things’ Had To Have A Long Epilogue
by Frank Martin
Audiences should be familiar with finales containing an epilogue. It is a scene or a sequence of scenes that wrap up the entire story and put a nice bow on things to see the characters off. In films, epilogues tend to happen quickly as a two-hour movie can’t devote a lot of screen time to something that happens after the climax (Ed. Note: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the notable exception). However, television series tend to have longer epilogues because they have a much longer accumulated runtime and can afford to take its time wrapping things up. In the case of Stranger Things, its finale had an epilogue that was nearly an hour long — half of the entire episode!
Eighteen months after defeating Vecna (Jamie ), Mike (Finn Wolfhard) struggles to move on following Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) sacrifice. This all occurs around the kids’ high school graduation, where valedictorian Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) gives a riveting speech about rejecting conformity. Meanwhile, Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Steve (Joe Keery), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Robin (Maya Hawke) discuss how their lives have taken them in separate directions while also promising to spend more time together. The series ultimately ends with Mike hosting one final Dungeons & Dragons campaign for his friends before passing the torch on to the next generation.
After five seasons of epic storytelling, Stranger Things has become a very wide-ranging story with a lot of characters. Giving all of them room to breathe in an ending requires time. Each season is essentially looked at as its own standalone film. With that mindset, the runtime for this “film” is extremely long. By that calculation, devoting an hour to an epilogue that wraps up the story in a satisfying way isn’t that long of a time. It fits perfectly with the hours of intense story that came before it. It just goes to show that the longer a story is, the longer it’s epilogue will also have to be.
Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.
