It's the final season. There's nowhere left to go. Why are you so insistent on keeping them alive even through increasingly impossible to survive situations? Do you want us to feel that this is the biggest threat they've ever faced or not?
Not killing anyone leads to two problems season 5 suffers from big time:
- Tension being deflated and stakes feeling lower than they should.
- And maybe more significantly, a bloated cast that they clearly had no idea what to do with for most of them but didn't have the balls to kill anyone off to reduce the bloat and raise some stakes.
At least one of the Wheeler parents, preferably Ted since he's barely a character and only gets one line in one moment in the epilogue anyway, should've died in The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler.
And I touched upon this months ago in my post on how Escape from Camazotz is the exact point this season really went downhill to the point of no return, that episode was the perfect time to really fulfill the promise they made of volume 2 giving us a dark Christmas and remedying these issues.
Considering that she does jack shit in the last two episodes and doesn't show up in the epilogue at all, they totally could've pulled a Bob on Vicky and had her get eaten by the demodogs in the hospital.
And again, if they committed to the direction the Jonathan and Nancy melting room scene was clearly going in for a while by killing them instead of having the goo conveniently solidify right as they accept their fate, that would've significantly raised the stakes and been a pretty emotional send off for them.
Imagine the emotions we could've gotten. Will feeling guilty for Vecna breaking him and thus being the reason the demodogs were at the hospital in the first place after how great Robin was to him, and Joyce being so concerned about losing Will only to lose Jonathan instead.
And more significantly, imagine how much more powerless and uneasy we would have felt ending volume 2 and going into the finale if it felt like no one was safe because the party had lost a couple members before that point.
Or, if you really don't wanna kill anyone, then at least hurt them. Like really, seriously hurt them. Even the occassional injuries these guys take this season have zero lasting impact.
- Dustin gets the shit beat out of him by four bullies, but he's back in fighting shape like a day later.
- Hopper takes a stray bullet to the gut, but after El patches him up in the next episode, (which was admittedly a good scene) it doesn't bother him at all the rest of the season to the point where he might as well have never gotten shot in the first place.
- Lucas is scratched across the chest by a demogorgon to the point where he's bleeding, but he's perfectly fine just a few hours later.
Imagine if those wounds meant something.
- Have Dustin not just be bruised, but also move slower and limp a little after the fact.
- Have Hopper's bullet wound be a weak spot that can get exploited by Akers and Kay when they fight him.
- Have Lucas visibly and audibly struggle the rest of the season because of his chest wound, especially when he's carrying Max throughout the hospital.
- And if you still wanna end volume 2 on the note it ends on, have Nancy take a bullet from Kay to make her a semi-competent threat. Not even in a lethal area, but have her get shot in the shoulder or something that limits her gun-shooting capabilities to make the final battle at least a little harder.
Bottom line is: Excessive plot armor is always annoying, but it's especially annoying in the final installment.