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Endings are hard. Just ask Game of Thrones. Years later, the HBO fantasy series is still tarnished with a season 8 brush that washed away years of hard work, meticulous plotting, and – most importantly – the goodwill of fans. The likes of Lost and How I Met Your Mother, too, are casualties of not being able to quite stick the landing after the expectant eyes of the world tuned in for their finales.
Next in the firing line is Stranger Things. The pressure is on, not only because of how staggered the Netflix series has been in releasing new seasons since its debut way back in 2016, but also because of how deeply audiences have fallen in love with the residents of Hawkins.
From Hopper to Eleven, the collective heartstrings of an audience are in the Duffer Brothers' hands later this year when Stranger Things season 5 brings the show to a close.
But I'm not here to give specifics on how the story should wrap up. Instead, it's how it should make you feel – and it's something Cobra Kai achieved a black belt in recently with the final part to its sixth season.
Except, it shouldn't have. I was firmly of the belief that Cobra Kai delivered a perfect ending with its violent, brutal fifth season finale finally putting an end to Terry Silver's karate schemes once and for all. How wrong I was. While that was an ending, the emotional ending was still to come in Cobra Kai season 6. Spoilers follow.
Fight or flight
While I won't recap the entirety of the series' endgame here (there's a Cobra Kai season 6 ending explained guide if you want to dig further into the finale), the basis of the final season revolved around the Sekai Taikai tournament. Essentially the pinnacle of the sport for teenage karate fighters, the brackets conveniently saw Miyagi-do's competitors butt heads – and trade kicks – with the iron-willed Iron Dragons and the series' perpetual pain-in-the-sides, Cobra Kai.
Ultimately, Cobra Kai came out on top but, in a twist, it involved Miyagi-do's combatants stepping up to fight for that dojo to overcome Terry Silver's Iron Dragons. Sure, it may have been somewhat predictable but that's the first of the Mr. Miyagi-style lessons Cobra Kai is able to impart on Stranger Things: do everything for the audience.
There should be no attempts at subverting expectations or being clever for the sake of being clever. Instead, Stranger Things should work at setting up a schmaltzy-sweet ending that does right by its characters and, crucially, leave them standing victorious.
From Sam's year-long placement in Okinawa to Johnny's tear-stained reunion with Kreese, each character got their own specific happy ending and a degree of closure. Even the explosive sending-off of Kreese and Terry Silver as they both went up in flames on Terry Silver's yacht suited the characters and their decades-long rivalry down to a tee.
Game of Thrones was only ever going to end one way – with death and destruction – but Cobra Kai was cut from a different cloth; it preached patience and peace, allowing the Netflix series to end at the top of the mountain instead of with a cynical shoulder shrug. Stranger Things is uniquely placed in that it could go both ways, yet it really should make good on its 1980s cinematic origins – much like the Karate Kid – and give us a fist-pumping finale.
Speaking of the past, how Stranger Things deals with its own history – both of the past four seasons and the '80s retro aesthetic – is paramount to its success. Cobra Kai's ending worked because it was such a cheesy, honest-to-goodness love letter. There were Rocky tributes packed in alongside storylines that were tied up after decades of waiting – including Johnny's tremendous arc from bad boy to bad boy with his heart in the right place. If you didn't at least get a frog-throated response to Daniel telling Johnny he's "alright" in the same way Johnny told him 40 years ago at the All-Valley during the events of The Karate Kid, you're a liar.
Stranger Things, then, needs to bring us plenty of full-circle moments from the first few seasons, lots of quieter reunions to give the characters – and their actors – some closure. Setting up for spin-offs was never Cobra Kai's aim, nor should it be for Stranger Things. On top of that, the story itself, including Vecna and the Upside Down, should be window dressing for what we're all here to see: a warm goodbye to those we've spent years watching.
So, yes, endings are hard – but they also don't need to be complicated. Keep it straightforward, wrap up everything in satisfying fashion, and don't betray the themes of your show. If Stranger Things heeds the lessons passed down by Cobra Kai, it will surely go down as Netflix's greatest-ever series.
Cobra Kai season 6 is now streaming on Netflix. For more, check out our picks of the best Netflix shows and best Netflix movies.
