"One last fight, and this whole nightmare, it'll be over," Hopper (David Harbour) promises to Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown) in the beginning of Stranger Things's long-awaited series finale. "It'll finally be over." All due respect to the detective, but I had my doubts. All throughout the promotion of the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, series co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer promised that they fully intended for this story to end. That means no post-credits scenes, no hints that the Upside Down and its resident demons are still kicking around, and no final shot of Dusty Bun suddenly discovering that he had Vecna-esque powers. This seemed highly improbable for the streaming service that threw Cate Blanchett into a random alley at the end of Squid Game, just to keep stoking the flames of the franchise and give those green jumpsuits a place at the Netflix House. So, let's cue a well-deserved encore of David Bowie's "Heroes" for the Duffer brothers. Despite an uneven final season, the sibling creators closed the book on the series in the finale, which hit Netflix on New Year's Eve. Not only that, but they delivered a final hour that feels like some of this show's best work—especially that final scene. |
"No one can prepare anyone for it," Wolfhard, now twenty-three, tells me about becoming a child star in the streaming age. "It was incredibly exciting, and it still is, but there was a period in my teenage years where it was just hard. I wanted the people in my life to just be chill." When we meet in early December, Wolfhard is wrapping up a photo shoot at the Esquire office in New York City, where he donned a knight's helmet—a nod to Mike Wheeler's Dungeons & Dragons class in Stranger Things. It's been a crazy day. He's in his seventh time zone in under a month as he promotes the fifth and final season of Stranger Things across the globe. It's dizzying just to think about, but he's traveled from London to Italy to Los Angeles, back to London, Berlin, Japan, and now New York in roughly thirty days. The night before we talk, he performed his song "Trailers after dark" live on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and tried his best not to spoil anything that happens in the Stranger Things finale, which debuted on Netflix just before the Times Square Ball dropped Wednesday evening. The culminating episode of the Netflix series had a lot of ground to cover, as the kids of Hawkins, Indiana, underwent the final fight against the powerful villain, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). There was little for Wolfhard to say about the end until everyone had seen it, but rest assured: he gives one of the finale's best performances, bringing Mike Wheeler's story full circle. He's even the final face we see on screen, and it feels right. "There's a lot of sadness that comes along with it, because it was our lives for so long—it's like our school, our childhood," Wolfhard tells me. "It's terrifying. But I think it's all going to go the way that it should." |
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The end of the world was near. Everyone realized it was coming, so the only question was: How? Preparations had to be made. People needed to know. And time was running short. Stranger Things, the Netflix series about supernatural terrors that overtake a quiet midwestern community in the 1980s, was drawing to a close. It had become a pop-culture juggernaut of unspeakable scale, adding all the more weight to its looming fifth and final season. Hawkins, Indiana, the setting of the story, does not actually exist, but the people who have spent the past decade bringing it to life onscreen formed something akin to their own tight-knit small town. Their world, in a sense, was ending too—and they were the ones responsible for making sure it went out with appropriate bangs, whimpers, and all-around spectacle. Apart from scores of actors and camera operators, there are countless behind-the-scenes workers like builders, painters, electricians, and greenskeepers in a holding pattern.
The whole world was waiting to see how Stranger Things was going to end, but this caravan of workers, centered in and around Atlanta, needed to find out first. For that, they all looked to the identical twin brothers whose imaginations had given birth to Stranger Things: Matt and Ross Duffer. But the twins had difficulty providing all the answers.
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Stories may be fictional, but you can't deny there's real magic in them. In Stranger Things season 5, the heroes of Hawkins close off the Duffer Brothers' series with one last game of Dungeons & Dragons. But as the adventurers prepare to say farewell, they're given one last parting gift: The gift of knowing Eleven's (Millie Bobbie Brown) potential whereabouts. As Mike spins an explanation, we learn that Eleven couldn't actually cast spells (her powers) because of the military's satellites. This means that Eleven couldn't have used her own powers to disguise her escape back to the Upside Down's front gate. Instead, Mike alludes that Eleven and her sister, Kali, hatched a secret scheme. But is what Mike tells them the truth? Or is it just more fiction from their Dungeon Master? Listen closely, and you might figure it out yourself. And if that's not enough, hearing from the Duffer Brothers themselves might change everything. |
Vecna, Demogorgons, and alternate universes. It's not Dungeons & Dragons we're talking about here, but the end of Stranger Things. With its finale now streaming on Netflix, the story of Stranger Things and the weirdness that grips Hawkins, Indiana is now complete. But that doesn't mean Stranger Things is over. The question on everyone's minds (flayer) right now is: Will Stranger Things continue? For starters, it's safe to squash the possibility of a sixth season. The Duffer Brothers said back in 2022 that season 5 is the conclusion of the main story. But there was never any ruling out of spin-offs or other stories set in the same universe.
Here are all the different ways Stranger Things can—and will—continue after the series finale.
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So, did the Duffer Brothers pull off the finale? The consensus among fans so far is… mixed. "The final season was not perfect, but the final episode was just amazing," one fan commented on Esquire's Instagram. Our senior entertainment editor, Brady Langmann, had a similar opinion, writing that "In the final hour of the Netflix series, the Duffer brothers reminded us why we fell in love with the show in the first place."
What did you think of the finale, and how do you think Netflix should (or shouldn't!) continue the story in their planned spin-offs? Let me know all your thoughts about the end of Stranger Things by writing to me at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.
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The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week (Stranger Things Edition!) |
Winner: Going to NYU to Study Film Much like Ladybird and To All the Boys, the classic "and then they went to NYU to study film" ending strikes another victim in Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton). Given the fact that Heaton put Rocky, Walk Hard, The Dark Knight, and Kes—which is also one of Finn Wolfhard's favorites—in his Letterboxd Top 4, I think the older Byers sibling is going to be A-OK. Loser: Fans with Absolutely Insane Theories About the Finale Leading up to the finale, Stranger Things fans thought up one silly theory after another, as if the Duffer Brothers were planning on ending the Netflix sci-fi series like it was Shutter Island. Many viewers thought beloved characters like Steve or Will would die, while other theorists were preparing for an ending that would explain that nothing was real. Thankfully, the duo picked something far more sweet and nostalgic. Winner: Prince After Max declared that she didn't even need to hear "Running Up that Hill" to escape Vecna's mind in season 5, part 2, the season finale blasted Prince's "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry" as the new anthems. Sorry Kate Bush, there's a new king in town. Loser: Giant Monsters from Another Dimension Villains are constantly centering their evil plans for world domination around killer monsters. But like Vecna and the Mind Flayer from Dimension X, it never works! Seems like it's back to the drawing board for the world's most evil minds. Winner: Robin's Weird Uncle At the end of the finale, the older kids—Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin—agree to meet for a reunion once a month at Robin's "weird uncle's house" in Philly. I don't know how Robin's uncle feels about this agreement, but maybe the Duffers can cast a Philly all-star if there's a spin-off. Bradley Cooper? Kevin Bacon? Rob Mac? M. Night Shyamalan? However it shakes out, I'm here for Steve screaming "Go Birds!" in the spin-off. |
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