A Stranger Things fan has dubbed the finale as an ’emotional betrayal’ speaking out about how unfair it is that the new year will be dominated by the popular Netflix show
The first part of the final season of Stranger Things released yesterday (November 27) in the UK, and fans are already going wild for what happens in the first four episodes. Binge-watching has been compulsory for so many fans of the 80s-themed spooky show, and people are already raving about it, saying how much they’d missed it. But some are less than impressed with the decisions made by Netflix.
Someone took to the Reddit ‘Stranger Things’ forum saying they felt absolutely “cheated” by one thing Netflix has decided to do with the Stranger Things finale. A viewer in India said that “everything fell apart” for them when they checked the schedule for when the next episodes were out.
In the UK, episodes one to four were released on November 27, and episodes five to seven will be released on Christmas Day, with the finale on New Year’s Eve. However one Indian superfan was left devastated when she realised that they were out at a different time.
They wrote: “Right now it is Nov 24 in India and I’m really excited for season five, so I decided to check the exact release time for India, and everything fell apart.
“All this time, I kept reading the dates as November 26, December 25, and December 31. That’s the pattern my brain assumed.
“But when I actually looked it up, I realised the finale lands on January 1 in India because of the worldwide simultaneous release. And honestly, this has thrown me off completely.
“Ending my year with Stranger Things and starting my year with Stranger Things are two very different emotional experiences. The difference is huge. I was expecting to wrap up 2025 with closure, not begin 2026 with emotional chaos, anxiety, or whatever heartbreak the finale is going to bring”.
They then referred to it as an “emotional betrayal,” saying “this timing has hit me harder than I expected,” saying that they had to write it “somewhere” because they feel “bad about it”.
In the comments, however, people tried to give them a bit of perspective, saying that it was exciting anyway.
One wrote: “Bro, it’s a TV show, not the end of the world.”
“Emotional betrayal? I think that’s a bit dramatic…” somebody else wrote.
A fan shared: “This is what the US has had to deal with for all the previous releases, despite the show being based here.
“I feel bad because it does suck choosing between waking up in the early hours like 2-6am or trying to avoid spoilers until after work the following day to watch, but it’s nice to end it with us being the lucky ones the last time around”.
The original poster responded, however, saying they didn’t have an issue with time; it was “the date” they had a problem with, as they didn’t want to start 2026 feeling devastated by what is likely to be a traumatic finale.