Stranger Things Fans Call Out The Laughable Weapons Blunders In The Season 5 Finale

Safe to say that Stranger Things could have benefited from some guidance when it came to Season 5 scenes that included firearms.

The series that explored the strange happenings in Hawkins, Indiana finally came to a close on New Year’s Eve. The cultural phenomenon had a tight grip on pop culture ever since the first season captivated the world in 2016. It’s crazy to think that it took them a decade to churn out five seasons. But for the most part, each season was better than the last (maybe minus the final season), and most fans think the show sticked the landing with its finale.

The show, which was set in the 1980s, leaned into nostalgia every chance it got. Kids riding their bikes to school, big hair, retro decor, and 80s fashion all played into the world building that made up Stranger Things. Another piece of the puzzle that the show utilized perfectly? That’d be the timely music that’s plugged into the series (there was even some country music included from time to time).

Something that Stranger Things maybe didn’t do so perfectly? That’d be action scenes that featured guns. For the most part, the ragtag group of kiddos and teenagers from Hawkins, Indiana used weapons that weren’t so sophisticated. Slingshots, baseball bats, and makeshift spears were all used in the series when characters like Mike Wheeler (played by Finn Wolfhard) or Steve Harrington (played by Joe Keery) battled monsters from a different dimension.

Though as the series matured, more and more firearms were used, and Season 5 definitely saw an uptick in gun usage. Now, I’m gonna do my best to avoid any spoilers just in case you haven’t gotten to the final season of Stranger Things (or if you are still waiting for some sort of “secret episode” that’s not actually ever going to drop). But I have to point out a couple of scenes where the ’80s sci-fi series – that had a rumored budget of $480 million for its final season – missed the mark.

Social media and the internet at large have pointed out two rather embarrassing mistakes that snuck their way into Season 5 of Stranger Things. The first included David Harbour’s Jim Hopper character. In the show, Hopper was the Sheriff of the Hawkins police department (prior to becoming a Russian prisoner and being presumed dead by the town), so it definitely makes sense for him to be familiar with firearms.

Even when he wasn’t acting as the sheriff of Hawkins, he carried around his trusty revolver. And in a pivotal scene where Hopper came face-to-face with the show’s big bad villain – Vecna – Jim fired multiple shots with his revolver. Stranger Things accidentally included the sound of shell casings hitting the floor after he fired every bullet he had loaded in his pistol.

Anyone familiar with how revolvers work knows that you have to swing out the cylinder to unload the casings… they don’t just pop out like this sound would lead you to believe:

And that wasn’t the sole mistake that Stranger Things made.

In another very important part of the show’s final season, teenager-turned-Rambo Nancy Wheeler (played by Natalia Dyer) was armed with an M16 as she acted as a distraction in an intense battle with a creature called the “Mind Flayer.” She was backed into a corner by the monster, and had somewhat of a final stand moment as she reloaded her rifle. The fact that Nancy turned into Rambo over the course of the show is comical enough, but this scene seemed the the wires crossed.

How do you reload an M16? Typically, you put in a new magazine and pull back and release what’s called the charging handle. In the Stranger Things universe, you apparently insert the magazine and… rack the carry handle on the top of the gun? Some have argued that she’s just hitting the bolt release in a rather unorthodox way, and that may be true, but it’s hard to tell for sure. There’s also some debate on whether or not she slides her hand back (racking motion), but regardless, the sound team seems to have added the sound of a charging handle… not the bolt release. So either way, it’s a miss.

Obviously, it can be easy to nitpick a show after its release. But you kind of expect a show as big as Stranger Things to get small stuff like that right, you know? Clearly there was no one involved in the audio-editing process that actually had experience with firearms. And if they did? Two oversights in one episode, and during the series finale at that? Not your best work…The post Stranger Things Fans Call Out The Laughable Weapons Blunders In The Season 5 Finale first appeared on Whiskey Riff.