Stranger Things creators made shock admission about 'difficult' final season
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 5.
After nearly a decade, the Upside Down is sealed for good.
Stranger Things wrapped up its triumphant era on New Years Eve, bringing an end to the adventures in Hawkins. The series' conclusion 'The Rightside Up' ran for more than two hours, revealing the fates of antagonist Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and the heroes who defeated him.
While many fans hoped for a hidden extra episode to resolve the ambiguous ending to the characters' lives, a final behind-the-scenes reveal episode has done a solid job of wrapping things up.
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Despite receiving backlash over how they ended the show and criticism from post-finale interviews, the Duffer brothers have shed light on the chaotic and stressful process of perfecting the show's finale in One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5.
Directed by Martina Radwan, the documentary features behind-the-scenes footage of the cast, crew and co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer as they enter their final weeks working on the show’s epic conclusion when they didn't have a completed script.
“We were getting hammered constantly by production and by Netflix for episode eight,” Matt explained in the documentary. “It was the most difficult writing circumstances we’ve ever found ourselves in, not just because there was the pressure of we had to make sure the script was good, but there’s never been so much noise at the same time.”
In one clip, Matt is seen speaking to the team on set, assuring them that despite not yet having a physical script written up, the ending is 'all plotted out.'
At one point in the doc, he admitted: “I have to write it, and we’re just low on time.”
The documentary then takes viewers to the halfway point at Day 117, right as the team prepares to shoot the final episode.
“We are shooting episode 8, which isn’t completely written yet — spoiler alert! So we don’t even fully know what’s going on,” set production assistant Montana Maniscalco told the camera.
Regarding the final episode, Matt admitted: “I’ve never read 8 through, and we’re just shooting it. I’ve never done anything like this before. This is so weird jumping to eight... Don’t love it. Don’t love it.”
Commenting on the final table read, actor Finn Wolfhard (who plays Mike Wheeler) said to the camera, “We had a year of being on the edge of our seats. It was torture.”
In the documentary, the Duffer brothers revealed that they had just finalised the script just days before the final table read on 8 September 2024.
“It was the longest time we’ve ever spent with the writers on a single episode,” Matt said.
“The sheer number of fans who have already watched Volume 1 is staggering — the response has been more than we ever could have dreamed,” brothers Ross and Matt said in a statement.
“The show is now a decade old, and seeing the fanbase not only endure but continue to grow has been incredibly rewarding for us, the actors, and the thousands of artists who helped bring this story to life. We truly cannot thank everyone enough.”
One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 is available to stream now on Netflix.