Welcome back to the Upside Down — and controversy.
Stranger Things is facing a wave of online review bombing after fans reacted negatively to the newly released Season 5, Volume 2 episodes, which debuted on Christmas Day.
As anticipation builds for the series finale airing on New Year’s Eve, Season 5 has now become the lowest-rated season of the show on Rotten Tomatoes.
Before Volume 2 dropped, Season 5 held an audience score of 73%. That figure has since fallen sharply to 56%, reflecting growing fan backlash.
Millie Bobby Brown stars as Eleven in Stranger Things.
The backlash appears to be centered on the show’s penultimate episode, “The Bridge,” which has become the lowest-rated episode of the entire series on IMDb, earning a 5.4 rating.
That score is even lower than the widely criticized Season 2 episode “The Lost Sister,” which currently holds a 6.0 rating.
By contrast, every other episode in Season 5 has an IMDb score of 8.0 or higher, highlighting just how sharply “The Bridge” stands out among fans.
Noah Schnapp and Maya Hawke appear in Stranger Things 5.
Following the release of Volume 2, frustrated fans flooded X to voice their complaints, with much of the criticism aimed squarely at the penultimate episode. Viewers cited repetitive storylines, an overstuffed cast, weak performances, and uneven writing as key issues.
“Can’t believe I’m watching this show — can it be over already?” one fan tweeted.
“Because Season 4 was so good, this feels that much worse,” another wrote.
A third viewer was even more blunt, tweeting, “Stranger Things has genuinely become so f–king stupid. Terrible plot. Terrible cliché, lazy writing. Terrible acting. Why am I wasting my time with this s–t?”
Another fan summed up the backlash by writing, “Stranger Things Season 5 is the worst season of the series by far — comically bad.”
Joe Keery, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, and Charlie Heaton star in Stranger Things 5.
Criticism has also spread to Reddit, where viewers echoed similar frustrations about the show’s execution and performances.
“Also, the acting is kinda … all over the place from everyone, including Winona. It was giving HS drama class,” one user wrote.
Another fan took issue with the pacing, saying, “It seems like dialogue scenes between characters are too long to the point of dragging. This happened a few times for me during this set of episodes. Three scenes in particular I’m like, ‘WE GET IT — STOP CHATTING NOW, TROUBLE HAPPENING!’”
A third Reddit user added, “I feel like in this episode the show became a parody of itself, and for a penultimate episode, it really did not hype me up for the end.”
Someone else added, “The convoluted way they have been revealing major plot points is what I hate. Do we really need characters running off multiple times an episode to create some dumb analogy when they figure something out with the rest of the cast following them? It’s just bad writing.”
Another fan chimed in about the show’s writing, saying, “By the time the episodes get to the last 10-15 minutes, the good stuff happens for the cliff hanger into the next. Then the next episode starts and it’s dead again. Rinse and repeat.”
A lot of the negativity was also directed at the scene in “The Bridge” in which Will (Noah Schnapp) comes out as gay to the group as they prepare for the final battle with Vecna.
“the worst part of the coming out scene was that no one even properly addressed it after?? like they just immediately went back to planning??????????” one fan wrote on X.
Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, and Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers in Stranger Things 5. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
Some of the backlash has also centered on the show’s handling of Will Byers’ storyline, prompting heated reactions on social media.
“Woke ruins EVERYTHING,” one user tweeted, claiming Netflix “ruined their most popular show of all time” by focusing the final season on Will coming out and tying elements of the plot to his sexuality.
Another fan questioned the narrative direction, writing, “How did Stranger Things go from such a great show to the only way they could defeat Vecna being Will telling everyone he’s gay first?”
A third viewer was equally critical of the execution, adding, “The Will coming out scene may be the worst in the entirety of Stranger Things. Making that the most important plot point for the penultimate episode is such a waste — and it was super cringey. A hard watch.”
Noah Schnapp and Winona Ryder appear in Stranger Things.
In a recent interview with Netflix’s Tudum, Schnapp, 21, opened up about his emotional reaction to reading the script for Will Byers’ coming-out scene.
“I read it alone in my room, and I was crying — it really resonated with me,” Schnapp said. “I texted [the creators], and I was like, ‘This is great. This is awesome.’ I didn’t know if they were ever going to write that story for Will. They could have just left it up in the air, so getting to finally see it happen was amazing.”
The two-hour series finale of Stranger Things premieres on Netflix at 8 p.m. ET on Dec. 31, with select theatrical screenings also planned.
