“Stranger Things” has been flooded with reviews since the fifth volume of Season 5 was released on December 25th. 2.
Recent episodes have brought this season’s fan-driven Rotten Tomatoes score down from the 70s to 56%, a significant drop from the show’s previous season. (For reference, the popcorn meter for season 4 is 89%, season 3 is 86%, season 2 is 90%, and season 1 is 96%.)
The penultimate episode of the Netflix series, “The Bridge,” appears to have sparked a backlash campaign after Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) comes out as gay to his friends. This long monologue takes place as Hawkins and his gang prepare to confront Vecna, the great evil of the Upside Down. “The Bridge” is currently the lowest-rated episode of “Stranger Things” on IMDb, with a score of 5.4 out of 10. (This episode is the only episode below 7.8; most episodes are between 8.6 and 9.2). More than 96,000 people have reviewed “The Bridge” on IMDb, while most other episodes this season have ratings below 50,000.
Elon Musk, who often complains about movies and TV shows becoming “woke,” said in response to a post by X that fans were “criticizing characters who come out as gay,” saying “the culture is changing.”
“This is completely unnecessary and forced onto an audience that just wants to enjoy some basic sci-fi,” Musk wrote.
Review bombing by so-called “toxic fandoms” is nothing new. Actors in blockbuster franchises, from Star Wars to The Lord of the Rings: The Ring of Power to Bridgerton, have long had to contend with a torrent of racism, sexism and homophobia on social media. To get ahead of it, Hollywood studios have begun conducting professional focus group tests and training actors in social media boot camps.
Still, many Stranger Things viewers have made it clear that they don’t have a problem with Will’s sexuality, which has been hinted at since season one. Rather, they criticized the show’s clumsy explanations, slow development, and half-baked script.
As an example, Variety’s chief television critic Alison Herman argued that the show refuses to “enrich its characters with age” and is “primarily a pastiche, indebted to inherited archetypes (the mad scientist, the reformed bully) and references (The Clash, the Peanut Butter Boppers), with its main cultural influence coming from extratextual elements such as the casting and the rise of Netflix.”
Variety’s chief correspondent Daniel Daddario wrote that Will’s speech “touches an emotional chord” as it mirrors the actor’s own coming out process. From his column: “In a show as big as Stranger Things, where a pivotal character comes out as queer, this piece is shocking and, strangely, feels like the culmination of a very long journey.”
In an interview about the episode, Schnapp told Variety that when he first read the scene, which took almost 24 hours to film, he “brought tears to my eyes.” “The cast was so kind to me. I’ll never forget how supportive they were that day and how much respect they had for me,” he said.
The final episode of “Stranger Things” will be released on Netflix and in theaters on December 31st.
