Viewers are airing out their frustration with season 5 of Stranger Things by review-bombing the show — specifically Will’s coming out episode.
Part 2 of the fifth and final season premiered on Thursday, December 25, with “The Bridge” showing Will (Noah Schnapp) discussing his sexuality with his loved ones before the group went off to take down the show’s biggest villain, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).
“I haven’t told any of you this because I don’t want you to see me differently, but the truth is I am different. I just pretended like I wasn’t because I didn’t wanna be,” Will told the group. “I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be like my friends, and I am like you. I’m like you in almost every way.”
He continued: “We like Milk Duds in our popcorn with extra butter, and we like drinking Coke with Pop Rocks, and we like bike races and trading comics and NASA and Steve Martin and Lucky Charms and literally all the same things. I just — I don’t like girls.”
Will hinted that he “had this crush on someone” even though he knew “they’re not like” him, which viewers knew as a reference to his feelings for Mike (Finn Wolfhard).
In the days after the emotional episode aired, the score for the season on fan-driven Rotten Tomatoes went from the 70s down to 56 percent. Past seasons of the show have received mostly high 90s or 89 percent as the lowest score from viewers.
A campaign was also launched against the penultimate episode specifically, with IMDb ranking “The Bridge” as the show’s lowest-rated episode with a score of 5.4 out of 10 based on user response. More than 96,000 users reviewed “The Bridge” compared to other episodes this season, which have been rated by fewer than 50,000 people.
Review-bombing is a tactic previously used by disgruntled fans who have targeted shows such as Star Wars: The Acolyte, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Bridgerton and more following attempts to be more inclusive on screen. Cast members of said shows have spoken out about receiving an onslaught of racist, sexist and homophobic comments on social media as a side effect of review-bombing.
Other Stranger Things fans, however, have criticized this half of season 5 for how it has wrapped up the show’s biggest story lines so far. Will’s big moment, meanwhile, has been years in the making, with the character playing a pivotal role since the show premiered in 2016.
The character appeared largely offscreen until he escaped from the Upside Down at the end of season 1. Will struggled to return to his normal life as things around him changed and the monsters from the Upside Down returned. Discussion around Will’s sexuality came to light during season 3, when he got in a fight with Mike.
As fans questioned whether season 4 would confirm Will’s sexuality, Schnapp, 21, noted that he liked the ambiguity to his character’s love life.
“I feel like [creators Ross and Matt Duffer] never really address it or blatantly say how Will is,” he told Variety in 2022. “I think that’s the beauty of it, that it’s just up to the audience’s interpretation, if it’s Will kind of just refusing to grow up and growing up slower than his friends, or if he is really gay.”
The actor praised the way Stranger Things allowed Will to explore his feelings toward romance. “I find that people do reach to put a label on him and just want to know, so badly, like, ‘Oh, and this is it.’ He’s just confused and growing up. And that’s what it is to be a kid,” Schnapp added.
His costar Millie Bobby Brown also applauded the show’s approach to Will’s story through the years. “Can I just say, it’s 2022 and we don’t have to label things. I think what’s really nice about Will’s character is that he’s just a human being going through his own personal demons and issues,” she shared during the joint interview. “So many kids out there don’t know, and that’s OK. That’s OK to not know. And that’s OK not to label things.”
She continued: “It’s such an amazing role for Noah to play. And to be that role model for kids out there who don’t know what they’re going through growing up.”
