'We Just Thought It Was Such a Better Way to End the Story' — Stranger Things Creators Explain What They Were Going for With the Season 5 Finale and Eleven's Ending

Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers person explained the Season 5 finale and its ending, which has sparked overmuch statement among fans.

Warning! Spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5 Episode 8, The Rightside Up, follow:

Stranger Things ends with a definitive question goodbye to each the cardinal characters but Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, who appears to sacrifice herself to guarantee she cannot beryllium utilized to make ace weapons, different Vecna / Henry, oregon different span betwixt our satellite and The Abyss.

18 months aft that traumatic event, we spot the cardinal characters conscionable up for graduation and accidental their goodbyes. It’s astatine this constituent that Mike Wheeler, played by Finn Wolfhard, has a thought: what if Kali Prasad, besides known arsenic Eight (Linnea Berthelsen), utilized her dying enactment to make the illusion of Eleven’s death, and an invisibility spell connected Eleven herself, leaving her escaped to flight unseen?

Finn teases this revelation to the Dungeons & Dragons radical arsenic their last run comes to an end, suggesting Eleven cooked up a program with Kali to fake her ain death, past traveled to a acold distant tiny colony — bordered by 3 waterfalls — to unrecorded retired her days successful peace. But this ending is unconfirmed. Finn and the others choose to judge it, and it’s near up to the assemblage to determine what they take to judge arsenic Stranger Things yet comes to an end.

So, wherefore did Matt and Ross Duffer determine to permission Eleven’s ending connected specified an ambiguous note? Netflix published a Q&A with the brothers to travel the play finale, and successful it they explained what they were going for here.

“What we wanted to bash was face the world of what her concern was aft each of this and however could she unrecorded a mean life,” Matt Duffer said. “These are the questions that we’ve been posing this play that Hopper conscionable doesn’t adjacent privation to deliberation oregon speech about. Mike’s evidently talked astir it a lot, but it’s benignant of this phantasy mentation that would ne'er work. There are 2 roads that Eleven could take. There’s this darker, much pessimistic 1 oregon the optimistic, hopeful one. Mike is the optimist of the radical and has chosen to judge successful that story.”

Ross Duffer added: “There was ne'er a mentation of the communicative wherever Eleven was hanging retired with the pack astatine the end. For america and our writers, we didn’t privation to instrumentality her powers away. She represents magic successful a batch of ways and the magic of childhood. For our characters to determination connected and for the communicative of Hawkins and the Upside Down to travel to a close, Eleven had to spell away. We thought it would beryllium beauteous if our characters continued to judge successful that happier ending adjacent if we didn’t springiness them a wide reply to whether that’s existent oregon not. The information that they’re believing successful it, we conscionable thought it was specified a amended mode to extremity the communicative and a amended mode to correspond the closure of this travel and their travel from children to adults.”

“And the world is, if Eleven is retired there, the astir that they could anticipation for is simply a content that it’s existent due to the fact that they can’t beryllium successful interaction with her,” Matt concluded. “Everything falls isolated if that were the case. So if that’s the narrative, this is truly the champion mode to support her alive. And it’s astir Mike and everyone uncovering a mode to determination past what’s happened.”

It sounds similar Eleven’s ending volition ne'er beryllium resolved, but determination is much Stranger Things to travel via a spinoff with wholly caller characters, a caller town, and a caller mythology. And if you’re present feeling astatine a nonaccomplishment for what to ticker this year, cheque retired The Biggest TV Shows Coming to Every Streaming Service successful 2026.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].