Finale letdown
- Clock It
- May 11
- 3 min read
From ‘ Stranger Things to Squid Game.’ Why do decade long series of ten fail to stick the landing when it matters the most?
By Hansika Kohli
There are bad relationships. And then there are TV shows that keep you
emotionally invested for ten years, and still don’t give you proper closure.
It is a different kind of heartbreak. Not the one when your favourite character
dies, that’s sad. It is the one when a show makes you wait for years, and
then ends in a way that makes you go,“Is that it?”
"We’ll complain, feel betrayed, and still press play on the next one.Riddhi Tewari," 19, a psychology student at OP Jindal University, Sonipat
It always starts simply. You watch one season and it’s really good. So you
watch the next and before you realise, you are fully invested in it. At one
point it is not just a show, which is why disappointment hits harder when a
series lets you down.
Take Stranger Things. When released in 2016 it became Netflix’s favourite
child. We grew up with it, waited years for seasons, only for the main plot to
end in 10 minutes. Quoting Forbes, in an article published on December 31,
2025, titled “The ‘Stranger Things’ finale stuck the landing” where writer Paul
Tassi exclaimed, “The show got too famous for its own good, making the
ending incredibly difficult to satisfy.”
The plot keeps getting better, until the ending doesn’t. Riddhi Tewari, 19, a
psychology student at OP Jindal University, Sonipat, sharing her experience
of Stranger Things says, “It was not just a show but something I grew up
with. They spent years making the monster, Vecna feel unbeatable. But when
the people of Hawkins finally faced it, they defeated it in ten minutes. It felt
like they suddenly remembered the show was ending and just decided to
finish it quickly.”
She continues on to remember, with a smile on her face,“My favourite
character was Dustin Henderson. He was cute and adorable, but at the same
time incredibly smart. He played a major role in helping understand the
connection between Hawkins and Upside down, setting up devices that
helped the group communicate across dimensions."
And then there was Squid Game, which Netflix decided to “stretch” for no
reason. Saanchi Jain, 21, a communication design student from Pearl
Academy, Delhi, says,“The most emotional scene was from season 1,
where Ji-Yeong handed her last marble to Sae-Byeok in a game where one
person from each pair had to die. Watching her smile while falling on the
ground, taking her last breath made me cry buckets of tears.”
She continues on to say,“ Season 2 became intense when something
unexpected happened. Gi-hun the winner of season 1, on the way to catch
his flight to meet his daughter, turned around and decided to enter the
game again. Not for the money but to destroy the game and help people
like him, trapped and broken.”
Snahita Singh, 19, a communication student at UPES University, Dehradun,
says,“Season 3 made me wonder,‘Why did they even film it?’ The worst
part, in order to save Player 222, a CGI baby, they killed Gi-hun and made
the baby the winner. I felt so disappointed watching the end, thinking if it
was even worth waiting 2 years for it to release.”
Their reactions were what many fans felt. Yet again we will repeat the same
thing. Find a new show, get attached to the characters, and hope for an
ending worth the wait. When hit with disappointment, we’ll complain, feel
betrayed and still press play on the next one.
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