‘Stranger Things’ Came Close To Saving Joyce’s Disappointing Character Arc

Spoilers for the Stranger Things series finale are below!

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things has finally come to an end. The Duffer brothers had lofty goals and a rabid fan base to appease, teasing the grim possibilities. There were numerous characters to give send-offs, as while the focus started with four young friends, the surrounding cast became just as integral to the Netflix sci-fi sensation. While fans needed to know what happened to Eleven and Hopper, characters like Steve and Robin also needed proper farewells.

Stranger Things delivered satisfying, even heartbreaking endings, with one last emotional Dungeons & Dragons game being particularly poignant. However, the final season juggled so many characters that a few stragglers felt pushed into the background. While characters like Holly Wheeler got their time to shine, mainstays like Joyce Byers found themselves cast aside for much of the action. Despite failing Joyce throughout Season 5, Stranger Things had one last trick up its sleeve during the finale that nearly rectified her disappointing arc.

Joyce’s Journey Was Crucial to ‘Stranger Things’

Joyce and Will in Stranger Things

Netflix

When Stranger Things started, Joyce was the heart and soul of the show. Audiences followed her descent into grief, sympathizing despite her odd tendencies due to Will’s disappearance. When the stakes grew more horrific, Joyce was the humanity that pulled everyone back from the darkness, sometimes literally. It was that emotional resilience that made Joyce a fierce maternal figure, with Winona Ryder giving one of her most beloved performances in years.

Joyce’s journey has seen her change significantly through the seasons. Following Will’s return from the Upside Down, she went from a mother on a desperate search to a devoted, paranoid protector, helping her son deal with his trauma as best she could while adapting to new external threats. However, she even ventures into her own storylines, featuring a romance with Hopper and a short stint in international prison breaks. It’s that journey that allowed Joyce to grow with Stranger Things as the plot became more grandiose and looped in more characters.

Yet, after all Joyce has been through, Season 5 relegated her to a secondary character. Much of Joyce’s time was spent worrying about others, reverting to a version of her Season 1 characterization, or being overprotective of Will, as in Season 2. Sure, she took on a Demogorgon with an axe, but rather than pursuing her own story, she was mostly around for everyone else’s, lending a sympathetic ear or simply standing by. Still, Stranger Things gave Joyce a notably cathartic ending, which was almost epic enough to thwart the season’s earlier injustices.

Season 5 Almost Saved Joyce’s Disappointing Arc

“You f**ked with the wrong family.”

Joyce wielding an axe in 'Stranger Things' Season 5. — Joyce wielding an axe in ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5.

During the series finale of Stranger Things, Joyce is part of the team that goes into The Abyss. While initially still acting in a supporting capacity, aiding Will as he sees through Vecna’s eyes, the stakes force them into action. The fight against Vecna and the Mind Flayer was a staggering spectacle to behold, with everyone having their moment, like Nancy and Eleven, who do much of the heavy lifting. Yet, after the fight saw Vecna barely drawing breath thanks to El impaling him on a spike inside the Mind Flayer, it was Joyce who delivered the killing blow.

As Joyce stared Vecna down with the axe she’s been seen with so many times before, she delivered a line that took her power back, saying, “You f**ked with the wrong family.” Whether that line works is debatable, but her actions spoke volumes. When Joyce slams her axe down on Vecna’s neck, Stranger Things expertly packs the painful, emotional journey of every character and every season into each swing she takes. The camera lingers on each character, flashing on their arcs throughout all five seasons, mixing emotionally impactful elements with the violence of Vecna’s decapitation. Everything led to this moment, and Stranger Things delivered, with Joyce getting one of the show’s best moments.

The problem with Joyce’s epic slaying of Vecna is that it’s one of her few memorable moments in Season 5, when she was generally shown as a sympathetic ear for someone else or merely a cog in the plan. Giving Joyce the final blow was understandable after everything she’s been through, as she earned it, but the season left her underutilized for far too long. However, the entire sequence was so well crafted that it almost redeems how the season ignored her, as no fan will soon forget the impactful way it played out.

As with many other characters on Stranger Things, Joyce is alive and well as the credits roll, and she even has a wedding to plan with Hopper. Her final scenes ultimately give the character a satisfying close, feeling like an excellent way to say goodbye. Still, Joyce wasn’t a focal point throughout the season, lacking a meaningful storyline of her own. Unfortunately, the final season of Stranger Things felt like it didn’t quite know what to do with Joyce right up until the end.