Stranger Things fans slam Netflix over non-existent episode

Stranger Things fans have paralyzed the Netflix streaming service trying to watch an episode that doesn't actually exist. The tabloid Mirror writes about this, data about the failure is confirmed by the Downdetector service.

The reason was a theory called ConformityGate - fans of the series believed that the final episode shown on the night of December 31 was fake, and seven days later the “real” one would be released on Netflix.

Fans who believed in the theory were really waiting for the release of the series and began looking for it on Netflix on the evening of January 7, US time (in the morning of January 8, Moscow time), Dozhd notes . But the “real” ending was not available on the platform, and Netflix’s servers could not withstand the load - users left hundreds of complaints about the unavailability of the service.

The show's official Instagram account responded to the news of the extra episode and wrote in its profile description: "All episodes of Stranger Things are now available."

One of the reasons for the emergence of a theory about the imminent release of the “real” ending, Mirror cites fans’ dissatisfaction with the script of the last episode - they considered its quality unsatisfactory and containing a large number of plot holes.

They then began looking for evidence that the Dec. 31 episode was deliberately intended to be fake by the show's writers, and then for supposedly hidden references that some of Stranger Things' storylines might be undone in the final, "real" episode.

The final season of Stranger Things received mixed reviews from fans, partly due to the lack of a consistent tone and visual storytelling style. At the same time, as Deadline notes , the viewing figures for the series were high; the fifth season of the series at the end of December topped the list of English-language Netflix series in terms of the number of viewers.