Beware the Mind Flayer; spoilers ahead for the “Stranger Things” series finale.
This was how “Stranger Things” was always going to end, wasn’t it? No, I’m not talking about the unflattering optics of Kali’s (Linnea Berthelsen) heroic but heavily telegraphed death in the series finale. I’m not even referring to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) maybe or maybe not sacrificing herself in the episode and the problematic implications of her fate in either of those scenarios. No, I mean the giant spider.
In the blockbuster streaming series’ final hour, fittingly titled “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up,” we learn that Henry “Vecna” Creel’s (Jamie Campbell Bower) fortress in the Abyss — which (probably not accidentally) bears an uncanny resemblance to the Skeksis’ castle from Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s cult 1982 fantasy movie “The Dark Crystal” — is really the Mind Flayer in the flesh. (That explains its gooey interiors and beating heart.) Thus, it falls to the various heroes of Hawkins to do battle with this arachnid-like Kaiju, recalling how the climax of Stephen King’s 1986 novel “It” culminates with the plucky Losers Club taking on It (aka Pennywise) in the form of an enormous spider-like creature.
Again, in hindsight, this might’ve been inevitable. The Duffer Brothers not getting to direct an “It” film adaptation led to them creating “Stranger Things” instead, so why wouldn’t they bring their small screen pastiche of all things Stephen King (plus a whole lot of John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, and other assorted 1980s pop culture; again, see “The Dark Crystal”) full circle with a no-holds-barred homage to possibly the wildest ending in King’s infamous oeuvre of bizarre endings? Besides, it’s not as though that was the only way that King’s touchstone coming of age fantasy-horror tome clearly shaped and informed the Duffers’ Netflix sensation.
