«We were very inspired by Back to the Future: It’s one of our favorite movies. It has a perfect script: anyone who wants to write for the cinema should watch it on repeat. But we didn’t include time travel: everyone thinks that’s where we’ll end up, but that’s not the case.”
Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of Stranger Thingsas well as screenwriters, directors and executive producers, at Lucca Comics & Games 2025 assured us – looking us in the eyes – that the two-hour grand finale, arriving on Netflix on New Year’s Evewill not see the protagonists engaged in some space-time journey. Even though everything actually seems to point in that direction.
Of course, so does anyone I’ve worked on Spider-Man: No Way Home has ensured for years that the film would not feature all three Peter Parkers seen at the cinema so far: we saw how it ended. In any case, whether there are twists or not, one thing is for sure: this fifth and final season was an emotional roller coaster. It’s almost as if the characters (and we with them) had a very long therapy session. Let’s think about Will’s “confession moment”. Even Vecna, the terrible villain played by Jamie Campbell Bower in both the human and demonic versions, seems to portend redemption. «He too was a child», it is said in volume 2.
And in fact the traumas of growing up have always been the great theme of the series. The Duffers themselves have spoken extensively about their own: school wasn’t easy for them. Cinema, books, comics and music saved them. It is no coincidence that they decided to offer a role in the last season to their theater teacherone of the few who believed in them when they attended Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina: Hope Hynes Love, who plays Miss Harris.
Therefore art as salvation. We’ve also seen it in previous seasons: the song Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush was vital to the character of Max, while the book In the folds of time by Madeleine L’Engle is at the center of this finale. Just like Alice in Wonderland: the character of Holly (Nell Fisher, a revelation), Mike’s younger sister, was kidnapped by Vecna together with 11 other children and the character, from the clothes to the posters hanging in the room, recalls the Alice created by Lewis Carroll.
So what to expect from this conclusion? Incredible but true, even if we are no longer used to it, perhaps there won’t be the slaughter we all imagined. Someone is going to die, as the Duffers talked about saving the most violent and shocking kill for the conclusion. But it won’t be a massacre: Hopper has tried countless times to sacrifice himself for Eleven, yet he’s still there. We’ve written Steve off every episode and yet he’s still fighting alongside us. Also because the phrase “You die, I die” that they say with Dustin has become a catchphrase and it seems truly impossible that the authors had the courage to kill both of the most beloved characters in the series.
If we had to bet, we would say that Vecna could actually redeem himself (those who have seen the theater show Stranger Things: The First Shadow in London or New York you know), while we don’t trust Number Eight at all. Indeed: she could prove to be a very dangerous antagonist. Since the spin-off on Robin and Nancy should be confirmed, let’s hope that Maya Hawke’s fantastic Rockin’Robin (daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, when genes don’t lie) doesn’t leave us.
While we are approaching this final ride (impossible to wait, also due to the real risk of spoilers: after the midnight toast you have to carry on until 4 in the morning), we can say without fear that in recent years no series has entered the collective imagination like Stranger Things. It was from the time of the finale of Game of Thrones that there wasn’t much anticipation worldwide for a final episode.
The secret of Hawkins is that, despite many delays, she has managed to almost become part of our family. Dustin, Steve, Robin and the others are a bit like friends. Also because we grew up (or grew old) with them, who in turn grew up before our eyes. So we are ready for one last big hug, even if we will be disappointed. Because: «Friends don’t lie».
