This article contains spoilers for the Stranger Things series finale.

Vecna had to die. No one disputes that. Over five seasons of Stranger Things, the creature that was once the Boy Scout Henry Creel inflicted all manner of suffering on the people of Hawkins, Indiana, from kidnapping young Will Byers and torturing Eleven to killing Bob Newby and Eddie Munson. Worse, he was completely unrepentant, refusing to the very end the goodness still in him that Will tried to find. So it’s hard to feel bad about Joyce Byers‘ decision to take an ax to the dying Vecna’s neck.

Yet, somehow, Stranger Things found a way. What should have been a moment of catharsis as the characters bring their nightmare to an end instead plays like a community indulging its lust for violence. The presentation of the scene emphasizes retribution and the destruction of an outsider, undermining the good feelings that the scene should have evoked.

The defeat of Vecna occurs halfway through Stranger Things‘ final episode “The Rightside Up,” written and directed by series creators the Duffer Brothers. It takes a team effort to bring down the beast, with Eleven and Will unleashing a psychic attack on Henry while the others chip away at the giant form he takes by melding with the Mind Flayer. At the end, the heroes all convene within the Mind Flayer’s rocky interior as one last blast impales the viney Vecna on a stalagmite.

After his latest batch of young captives are freed, Vecna begins to awaken, which compels Joyce to approach the monster, ax in hand. Joyce drives the blade into the enemy, striking until he’s finally beheaded.

By itself, there’s nothing upsetting or even unusual about a final standoff between the big bad and the heroes. Stranger Things is fundamentally a fantasy show, so even if we’re largely opposed to violence in the real world, we understand that a series like Stranger Things interprets conflicts between good and evil only through spectacular fights. The problem is the way the Duffers choose to depict Joyce killing Vecna.

Before each blow Joyce strikes, the Duffers cut to a close-up on one of the main cast members, accompanied by a flashback that shows how Vecna harmed them. So when the camera pushes in on Dustin, we see Eddie Munson getting killed. A push in on Holly is matched with a flashback to a demogorgon attacking Karen Wheeler. After each flashback, the camera cuts to a close-up of the ax landing on Vecna’s neck.

One gets the sense that the Duffers intend the moment to be cathartic, to remind us that so many people have suffered at Vecna’s hand and now that suffering can come to an end. But instead, the combination of a wrong done followed by a blow of the axe makes the scene feel like a celebration of retributive violence. Each member of the community is bound not by how they suffered, not by the way they support one another, but rather by the fact that they inflict violence on Vecna. Moreover, the editing of the scene suggests that the slow killing of Vecna achieves some sort of balance through the violent act.

That presentation undercuts the cathartic feeling that the Duffers want to achieve with the scene and the long denouement that follows. Across the last 45 minutes of the finale, we see how the main characters have found some sort of peace and even prosperity after the events of the show. No, they don’t want to forget what Vecna did to them or all that they lost—that’s the main point of Dustin’s valedictorian speech. But they do want to move on, no longer living in the fear and suffering they experienced while Vecna was free.

By building Vecna’s death scene around the rhythm of remembering grievances and Joyce’s ax strikes, the climax emphasizes retributive violence. It suggests that healing doesn’t come just from the diverse group of weirdos who make up the show’s heroes coming together, or even from overcoming Vecna and the Mind Flayer. Instead, the scene emphasizes the dismembering, suggesting that healing comes only through retribution through blood. It’s not enough to stop and defeat Vecna. He must be methodically punished, ritualistically dismembered.

The concept of a community inflicting distributive violence against a single person undermines much of the appeal of Stranger Things, which is to watch how the oddball main characters find a community among one another. Even when they make mistakes, even when they hurt one another, Mike and Eleven and Max and the others find acceptance with one another. And yet, the finale asks that ragtag community to come together and slowly cut Vecna as punishment for his wrong doings.

Vecna had to end for Stranger Things to end. The show would have felt unfinished if he was still out there to return at any time. But Stranger Things shouldn’t have ended by making our heroes just as vengeful and bloodthirsty as the monster they were fighting.

All of Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.

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