The Good Ending

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: A beloved character from a show dies in Season One, the character is forever cemented as a cult-classic, and then the actor for that character pursues music, and 10 years after her character’s death, releases an incredible song inspired by the recent Silent Hill 2 remake, written from James’ perspective.

Okay, you probably haven’t heard that one before. But that is the pitch for this story about Shannon Purser, who played Barb on Netflix’s Stranger Things, and recently released a song called “Leave (Good Ending)” inspired by her Silent Hill 2 remake playthrough at the end of June.

“This guy is going through it [...] and James finally beats Pyramid Head by basically volunteering himself to die. The final thing for him is to just be like, ‘Alright, let me face this thing head on. And I just thought that was a really cool concept and it just rang true for me because I feel like a lot of the healing I’ve done in my life has been about having to look head-on at the thing that really scares me. And it inevitably takes away so much of its power when you finally do face it.”

Purser’s “Leave (Good Ending)” is about this confrontation, the “good ending” of Silent Hill 2, and how it left her feeling when she reached the credits.