Stranger Things fans notice subtle tribute in season finale you may have missed

The Stranger Things finale had a subtle tribute to a late character, however, you may have missed it unless you’re a superfan of the show.

Stranger Things came to a close yesterday and, despite criticism of the fifth season, many feel that the TV show did as good a job of landing the plane as you could expect.

Whilst many have claimed that the TV series left a boatload of unanswered questions, some of these were already answered elsewhere, but on the whole fans were left pleased with how things ended for most of the main characters.

Of the main characters Eleven is the only one who doesn’t stay in Hawkins, but Dustin, Max, Mike, Lucas and Will all end things with one last game of Dungeons and Dragons after graduation.

Graduation itself though was notable for Dustin’s speech in which he called the principal a 'square', flipped him off, and stormed off stage to raucous applause from his friends.

Whilst this may have seemed a tad out of character for Dustin considering the principal was barely a character in the show, it was actually a very sweet gesture to another character in the show who had died.

He flips off the principal at the end of his iconic speech (Netflix)

Dustin was paying a tribute to Eddie Munson, his mentor from season four who tragically died in the finale.

Despite various fan theories he was going to come back as the right-hand-man to Vecna, The Duffer Brothers were true to their word and Joseph Quinn did not come back for the fifth season.

Eddie loomed large over the plot though, with Dustin and Steve’s relationship changing massively due to his harrowing death, sacrificing himself to save Dustin and the others in the party.

In season four, Eddie spoke about his plans for graduation, saying: “I'm gonna walk that stage next month, I'm gonna look Principal Higgins dead in the eye, I'm gonna flip him the bird, I'm gonna snatch that diploma and I'm gonna run like hell outta here.”

The speech was a tribute to Eddie (Netflix)

This ended being exactly what Dustin did, flipping off Principal Higgins after calling him a ‘square’, before revealing that underneath his graduation robe he’d worn a t-shirt saying ‘Hellfire Lives’.

Speaking to Tudum, Ross Duffer: “A lot of [the speech] was inspired by Eddie — even at the end where he rips the diploma and flips off the principal, which is something that Eddie said he wanted to do.

"A lot of it is honouring Eddie and what Hellfire had been. A lot of what Hellfire represents and a lot of what Dustin’s talking about is one of the major themes of the show, which is that this is a story about outsiders and outcasts.

The speech got a major reaction in the show, but the extra meaning makes it even sweeter (Netflix)

“It’s about banding together and embracing your otherness to defeat the evils of this world.”

The realisation that this was what Dustin was doing was emotional for fans, with one popular comment on the Reddit thread discussing the finale saying: “Dustin fulfilling Eddie’s graduation plan. Hell yeah.”

Another fan responded to this saying: “That part really got me.”

I think we can all agree that we were looking for the tissues in the last hour of the finale, with this sweet tribute being a highlight.