A world-wide favored television show, “Stranger Things”, released its fifth and final season on Dec. 31, 2025. It achieved over 105.7 million views within its first few weeks and placed in Netflix’s Top 10 most-watched series ever.
In the first season, the story of “Stranger Things” follows a small group of kids attempting to find their missing friend, Will. On the way, they meet a young girl with supernatural abilities named Eleven. As the seasons go by, new characters and creatures are added, creating more suspense and action.
The show has become so popular because of its unique elements of blending horror and science-fiction with coming-of-age, attracting a diverse audience.
After the show’s first season released in 2016, it quickly became a global success. Each season continued to break previous records of viewership.
Ever since season four was released back in 2022, fans wondered how the show would end and who would die.
“I think the show should have had a fifth season. I understand it seemed a little rushed and it could have been better, but overall I think they wrapped it up with a good ending,” Ava Christy, junior, said.
Netflix had given “Stranger Things” a per-episode budget of $50-$60 million. With the new season having eight episodes, this would bring the total production cost to around $400-$480 million.
“I think the quality has gone down since the last season. The script didn’t seem like it was written by the same people but that could be because of the gap when they filmed season four to five,” Iliana Papayannis, sophomore, said.
During the fifth season, five new supporting characters were added and one character, Kali Prasad (Number Eight), from season two was brought back for the final battle.
“If I could rewrite the ending, I would have everyone get a happy ending besides Kali,” Ansley Henehan, sophomore, said.
Since the show is set in the 80’s, many episodes throughout all five seasons include songs from that time period.
Music has become a tool to the characters and is used to help them fight back against Vecna, the main antagonist. When Max Mayfeild was first cursed by Vecna, her friends discovered that music can help all victims break free from Vecna’s psychic hold.
One of the most well known songs used in Stranger Things was “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush. The song was released in 1985 and was introduced in season four as Max’s signature song. Ever since then, the song became associated with the franchise, as well as “Master of Puppets” by Metallica, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by The Clash and “Every Breath You Take” by The Police.
“The impact of Running Up That Hill being used in Stranger Things was so great and so unprecedented that even Kate Bush was taken aback… The song’s placement in the gigantically popular Netflix show gave Bush her first UK No 1 in 44 years and first ever US Top 10 hit, 37 years after “Running Up That Hill” was first released,” The Guardian said.
The final episode has a 40 minute epilogue that jumps 18 months into the future, explaining what the main story is about. Almost each character is given a proper ending besides Eleven, as hers is ambiguous.
Matt and Ross Duffer, creators of the show, decided to leave Eleven’s fate as an open ending for all viewers, letting them come up with their own version of the story.
“I don’t think she [Eleven] dies. I think Mike was right about how she escaped and is alive somewhere,” Christy said.
Shortly after the final episode was aired, there were many unanswered questions and plot holes circling due to the rushed pace of the episode. All the flaws in the finale led to a viral fan theory called The “Conformity Gate theory.”
The theory follows the idea that the ending of the show is fake. Fans have pointed out errors with it, thinking that it all means that Vecna secretly won and is controlling everything.
“One sign that a character is trapped in Vecna’s mind is objects being the wrong color. Fans noticed that in the show’s final episode, certain items appeared to be a different colour than they did previously. Some fans believed this was a hint that the finale was actually an illusion, and that this deception would be revealed by a surprise episode,“ CBC Kids News said.
