Stranger Things Season 5 is set to be Netflix’s biggest release ever, and the streamer is pulling out all the stops for it. While two-part releases have become trendy, the final season of Stranger Things will be released in an unprecedented three parts, each tied to part of the holiday season and each releasing in prime time instead of the middle of the night.
The story for such a big release is bound to be just as bold, but until now, we’ve known next to nothing about how the series will end. But the showrunners are starting to let the details slip, and at least one mystery — one that’s been haunting every season — will finally be solved.
Variety visited the set of Stranger Things Season 5, where showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer discussed why wrapping up the series that’s occupied a decade of their lives presents unique challenges. They even studied classic series finales to try and crack the code on what makes a good one. “The best ones were very true to themselves,” Ross Duffer said. “The shows that are trying to be super clever — I think that’s where it can go wrong really quickly.”
“We do every last remaining thing we wanted to do with the Demogorgons and Mind Flayer and Vecna and the Upside Down and Hawkins and these characters,” Matt Duffer added. “This is a complete story. It’s done.” (Except, of course, for the upcoming animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85.)
But with that done-ness comes the one thing the Duffers have avoided for season after season: definitive answers. Over the past four seasons, we’ve learned about the inhabitants of the Upside Down and how they’re all related, but we still don’t know what the Upside Down is, what created it, and what its existence means for the world.
The Duffers assure Variety that answers are, in fact, coming. “Every season would be like, ‘Should we talk about it?’ And we’d go, ‘No, let’s wait,’” Ross said. “And then finally, we’re like, ‘Well, we have to now!’” It’ll all be spelled out in the two-hour-long finale that drops on New Year’s Eve.
The Duffers are talking a big game, but actually backing up their words will be quite the task. There are only eight episodes left to wrap up the long and winding journey of the Hawkins gang. Hopefully, the answers we finally get will be satisfying ones.
