Stranger Things Producers Assure Everyone They’ve Cracked the Ending

They’re in the afterlife! They went to prehistoric Earth! Meadow is bad at parking! TV fans have long debated these infamous endings to beloved series. While some stick up for the finales of Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and The Sopranos, there’s no question that these shows left a bad taste in some viewers’ mouths.

While the producers of Stranger Things would happily follow in the footsteps of those beloved shows in most regards, they do not want to disappoint fans with their fifth and final season. “They have had their hearts broken by shows that they loved that failed fans in the end,” producer Shawn Levy said of Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer in a recent profile at Variety. “They did not want, and do not want, and refuse to be one of those shows.”

Admirable as the intentions of Levy and the Duffers certainly are, there’s no question that they’ve set themselves up for a challenge. Since the show’s first season in 2016, Stranger Things has only garnered a larger and more rabid following, with fans regularly taking to the internet to share clips and theories. Extended delays between seasons have only heightened expectations, as the show has had a gap of two years between seasons two and three and three year gaps after seasons three and four.

So how are the Duffers planning to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? For one, they’re taking advantage of the massive budget they’re getting from Netflix to make sure they’re telling the story they want to tell. “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,” said Matt Duffer, adding, “This is a complete story. It’s done.”

The brothers know that the story is done because they wrote the ending early in the process and worked from there. “We knew roughly what the end scene was for years — it wasn’t something we had a strain to come up with,” revealed Matt. “There were elements of it that were discussed for weeks, but the core idea of the ending, we had for a really long time.”

Finally, and just as importantly, the Duffers prepared for the Stranger Things ending by rewatching some of their favorite finales to see what they can learn, shows such as Six Feet Under and, yes, The Sopranos. According to Ross, the most important lesson they’ve picked up is to keep things simple. “The best ones were very true to themselves,” he shared. “The shows that are trying to be super clever — I think that’s where it can go wrong really quickly.”

Will Stranger Things be true to itself in the final episodes? We’ll find out when the series finale streams on December 31 of this year.

Stranger Things season 5 streams on Netflix on November 26, 2025.