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The key to Stranger Things 5's failure and how it SHOULD have ended

Ronald Off the Record

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Stranger Things Season 5 wasn't merely "bungled"; its UNIFYING conservative messages caused it to fail. This video covers how the show betrayed its subversive, heroic potential, and I end with how I would have rewritten Stranger Things' last season. (And yes it has Byler!)

0:00 Intro
5:30 Eddie isn't vindicated
10:09 Drops the bullying storyline
13:21 Conformity and "growing up"
21:30 El's story
27:05 "You can't beat the government"
30:15 Suicide
34:13 Sexism
40:11 Will's story
44:22 Non-confrontation with homophobia...
49:24 ... and abuse
55:59 Unsympathetic, underdeveloped nonwhite characters
59:40 Why?
1:01:57 How I'd change Season 5

Other Ronald Off the Record videos:
"Stranger Things' homophobic humiliation of Will Byers and the Byler fandom (queerbaiting + more)" Stranger Things' homophobic humiliation of...
"BYLERGATE: Evidence Byler was removed mid-production, why Stranger Things 5 fell off a cliff" BYLERGATE: Evidence Byler was removed mid-...

Peetapiper's TikTok on Will as the subject of "misery porn": https://www.tiktok.com/@peetapiper/vi...

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20 Comments

@RonaldOffTheRecord Creator 3 months ago (edited) Pinned

Season 5 wasn't merely "bungled"; its UNIFYING conservative messages caused it to fail. Here I talk about how the show betrayed its subversive, heroic potential and end with how I would have rewritten Stranger Things' last season. (And yes it has Byler!)
I chose to premiere it June 27, to mark six months after the debacle that was Season 5 and also the Stonewall Rebellion.
EDIT: To be perfectly honest, I'm not completely satisfied with my remix of the show! It was an exercise of "patching" what the Duffer Brothers made. There are other issues with the season I don't cover in this video, and I think there was MORE potential than what I try to convey here. Maybe someday I'll find the time and motivation to do a genuine "if I wrote this season" remix.

@Blim-e3k 3 months ago (edited)

In season 4 El believes she doesn't belong anywhere in this world, Mike felt unneeded and Will knew he will never be loved.
Season 5 confirmed all of this while never addressing Will's painting or Max's letters.
Not to mention the humiliating coming out, the confusing non unbreakup of Jonathan an Nancy and the general lack of depth in the charater's arcs.

@Mage_Artemis 3 months ago

Your final fanfiction is more canon than the real canon and made me cry

@howabtjoe8 3 months ago

They really missed the opportunity to have anyother gaggy Vecna false vision. Imagine if Will "comes out" and immediately gets rejected by Mike (basically what Will desccribes seeing in his coming out scene) and then its revealed that he is having a vecna vision. They introduced such an interesting idea for the villain that was used on 4 rando teens and didn't utilize it for the MAIN CHARACTERS of season 5. Why wasn't vecna the vehicle for all of the main characters to explore their final arcs?

@robinronin 3 months ago

I used to rewatch Stranger Things multiple times a year... I haven’t rewatched it since the finale, and I have no desire to rewatch it ever again. You know a finale is bad when it retroactively ruins the entire show 😂

@Zoroasto1 3 months ago

This season gets worse and worse as people remember it.

@PurpleUnicorn17 3 months ago (edited)

I also thought the graduation scene was dumb because everyone was cheering when Dustin revealed his Hellfire Club shirt but we never saw Eddie’s name get cleared. The writers rely too heavily on the excuse that things happened off screen.

@maddrcks 3 months ago

I genuinely had more emotion and feeling hearing you read your season 5 rewrite than I did in the entire season itself. It was genuinely perfect, and I can tell you seriously understand and care about these characters far more than the duffer brothers did when writing the season. I’m so glad you did this. It seriously made my day. This would have been my dream season 5

@emineverlikedu 3 months ago

1:16:51 TYSM for including the pregnant women omg 😭😭 they just left all those women to die after showing us how they were basically being tortured. Like what??!! I love this rewrite as it actually includes the things i expected the season would do, like the eye of vecna. I was really disappointed they didn't lean more into the dnd terms when thats how the show started

@davidkonevky7372 3 months ago

Gosh I forgot how depressing this finale episode was, genuinely sucked the life out of the series in one try. The part where you talk about how ridiculous it is that the show is forcing the characters to "Grow up" and leave childish things rings so true. Why do we need to leave whimsy behind?!

@rachel_bonjourrr 3 months ago

I genuinely blocked and unfollowed everything related to stranger things after the finale and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I think about it. I can't explain how much byler meant to me as a queer teen. I don't think I can ever watch it again without feeling sick to my stomach

@Boricua_User146 3 months ago

The finale made me go through the 5 stages of grief and they were all anger.

@gilliancauldwell9539 3 months ago

I was so disappointed that we didn’t get to see Eddie’s name be cleared! 😢 He deserved so much better! 😭

@BlouseSasha-q3n 3 months ago

If the show ended as Ronald’s remix went, Stranger Things would have been a legendary show

@Hollarious 3 months ago

The first half of your video raised my blood pressure so much, I was clutching three pillows like giant stress balls while I tried to regulate my breathing. Every day, I get madder at the Duffers.
But the Ronald Remix saved me! It was like being bathed in soothing blue and yellow light in a lovely feild where two boys give each other signals that mean what they appear to mean! I cried actual tears of joy.
It was so good to see a new Stranger Things (💙💛) video from you, and I'll really miss not seeing them anymore. Thank you for being such a wonderful guiding light in the Byler community!

@thatonetheatrekid14 3 months ago

how is the ronald remix better in like less then 30 minutes than the writing team had years to cook up 😔 this was awesome

@eisisj 3 months ago

i remember how hard i cried after the finale. i know so many people that laughed at byler fans because they thought it was just upset fans who didn’t get what they wanted but it was so much more than that to me and so many other queer teens. it’s such a shame how they wasted the potential they grew 😞

@lush-lad 3 months ago

Season 5 was some of the most uncomfortable episodes of a show I’ve ever watched. The way everything was treated was diabolical and there were so many scenes where they were trying to just shock us but like just totally tasteless I am sickened to this day. Thank you for the content though you make my favourite stranger things content ❤

@ailene_e 3 months ago

Loved your remix of the show. 😭 it makes me sad that the fan base of the show wrote more thoughtful endings to these characters. But I’m grateful for the community and endless creativity. And thank you Ronald for your awesome long form videos!

@MonAhgasInsomniAroELF 3 months ago

it's so weird because no matter if one is in favor of byler or not, the overall writing in the last season (particularly post S5E4) just makes zero sense. so much setup throughout the previous seasons, and almost none of it was explored, what little they did was done very poorly, not to mention all the plot holes and loose ends that were never resolved. stranger things has become the poster child for bad writing imo. but the frustrating thing is one needs media literacy to see it, and tragically very few people have that skill these days, even among some channels that analyze media and make video essays! thank goodness for your channel! you lay everything out so clearly, it's pretty much indisputable.

one thing that made me sad, was i saw several byler channels here and accounts on other social media apologize for misleading people about byler. they had nothing to apologize for! it was all clearly there in the writing of the show. someone with the power to choose shut it down. they're to blame, not those who saw the subtext and expected the writing to follow through.