I Need To Talk About How Badly Stranger Things’ Final Season Botched Linda Hamilton’s Role

Stranger Things is over (sorry, folks, #ConformityGate wasn’t actually a thing), and while there were aspects of the final season that I liked, I also have issues with a handful of the narrative choices. The one that has most consistently been bothering me is Linda Hamilton’s role as Dr. Kay. I was psyched when it was announced in June 2023 that the Terminator 2 actress was boarding the popular Netflix subscription-exclusive series, but now roughly two and a half years later, I’m disappointed by how poorly she was used and need to talk about it.

Dr. Kay Is As One-Dimensional As It Gets

Dr. Kay is essentially a blending of Matthew Modine’s Dr. Martin Brenner and Sherman Augustus’ Lt. Colonel Jack Sullivan (who was last seen in Season 5 recovering from his injuries sustained during Vecna’s attack). As the head of the military’s occupation of Hawkins, Indiana and its base in the Upside Down, Kay was injecting pregnant women with Kali’s blood in the hopes of restarting Brenner’s program with their babies. But Kali’s blood wasn’t cutting it, so Kay was desperate to capture Eleven to see if hers would do the trick with giving these offspring superpowers.

And, that’s basically the only function Dr. Kay served in Stranger Things Season 5. While there was at least an air of mystery surrounding her when it was unclear who the military was keeping imprisoned in the Upside Down, once that was revealed to be Kali, Kay felt like an afterthought. She and the soldiers continued to hunt down Eleven, but it amounted to nothing in the midst of our protagonists dealing with Vecna. We never learned anything about Kay beyond her drive to grow a new generation of superpowered children, and once the Upside Down was blown up, she just disappeared with no direct acknowledgment.

Dr. Kay Should Have Gotten A Personal Arc

Dr. Kay was one of only two new leading characters who were introduced in Stranger Things Season 5, the other being Derek. (I’d argue Holly Wheeler should count as a third given how much of a non-entity she was in the first four seasons, but that’s a different conversation.) While I wouldn’t call Derek one of my favorite Stranger Things characters, at least he felt like a fully fleshed-out individual. Dr. Kay was more of a tool to throw in simply to drive the plot forward.

With eight episodes ranging from 50 minutes to two hours each, some time should have been carved out to give Dr. Kay a personal arc. Maybe we could have learned about a connection she had with Brenner, hence why she was so keen on continuing his work. Maybe we could have flashed back to a traumatic event she experienced in the military that she believed she could prevent from happening again by creating super-powered people. I personally would have liked Kay to have factored into why we never saw Dr. Sam Owens again.

In any case, Linda Hamilton deserved better from her time on Stranger Things. My only hope now is that if the live-action spinoff in development takes place after Season 5, Dr. Kay is brought back for it. She has the potential to be a good character, but the now-concluded flagship show failed to utilize her properly.