The Duffer Brothers already know how Stranger Things ends, and they’re sticking to it

A fourth season of Stranger Things is in the works at Netflix. Series creators Matt and Ross Duffer have said they could see the show running for four or five years, so we’re closer to the end than the beginning. And it seems the Duffers already know how this story with end, and have for some time.

In an interview with Deadline, the two discussed their approach to piecing the tale of Eleven and her friends together, explaining that each season tells its own individual story with “a different feel and different tone” than the others. But despite each season standing on its own to some extent, they also know they’re building to something.

“We like to look at each season as kind of its own complete story,” Matt Duffer explained. “We do have a pretty large mythology … and to Netflix’s credit, they pressured us to make sure we had this mythology hammered out. And each season by season, we’re turning the page and revealing a bit more and more. So, we do have a general sense of where we’re going. We’ve known the ending of the show for quite a while.”

We definitely have gotten a better understanding of the world of the show with each passing season, learning more not just about the people living in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, but also about the mysterious nightmare dimension the Upside Down, which regularly spits out monsters into our reality. And judging by what we know about season 4, the mythology is only going to get more complicated, what with the Russian military apparently having punched a hole through the Upside Down in a development that surely won’t backfire spectacularly for them.

Matt also emphasized that they aren’t interested in dragging the series out just because they can — and let’s be honest, with Stranger Things’ popularity, they could keep it going for a while before fans got bored. That won’t happen, though, as the Duffers intend to stick to their planned ending. “We have an ending in mind,” Matt said. “We don’t want to keep churning it out.”

That’s refreshing to hear in a world where Hollywood is happy to give us 20 movie sequels as long as the audience keeps showing up. Whether Stranger Things ends with a shocking reveal or with a tearjerker moment like season 3, fans can take comfort in the fact that plenty of thought has been given to the conclusion.

As for what we’re gonna get in season 4, David Harbour (Sheriff Hopper) teased dark times ahead:

"Hopper is the American in that Russian prison, and to me, what happens in this season—first of all it’s very epic and very big in a Stranger Things way. There’s monsters, there’s horrors, there’s scares, there’s also like great Indiana Jones-type action, but also we get to see some of Hopper’s really deep backstory that we’ve hinted at with the boxes in season two, and I’m really excited to let people see these really deep colors in him. Each season we see a different side of him, and last season he was sort of wacky…now I think he’s painted in a bit of a darker palette and he’s able to express some of these really deep things in him, which we haven’t really known yet. It’s been hinted at, but we don’t really know."

Stranger Things season 4 will be out sometime in 2021…hopefully.

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h/t Digital Spy, E! Online