The final ending for Stranger Things was originally planned for season 2
By Ashley Hurst
Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s cornerstone shows. Since its premiere in 2016, every season has built upon the last, with the scale of the production becoming enormous and the stories getting bigger and bigger. The dangers aren’t confined to Hawkins anymore. The fifth and final season will no doubt get even crazier.
The unprecedented success of Stranger Things was crucial for Netflix; people subscribed by the millions to watch it. That said, creators Matt and Ross Duffer were not always certain that their show would catch on. In their initial outline for the series, they squeezed the whole story into only two seasons, and rethought things after season 1 became a hit.
“The success of season 1 freaked us out and then we knew we needed to build up this bigger world, that this was going to be ongoing,” Ross Duffer said at WGFestival. “But it was way too much — [five times] more ideas than we needed, or [10 times].”
"For season 5, we’re pulling from a lot of those big season 2 ideas… A lot of our big ending stuff has pulled from stuff that we thought was going to be in season 2."
That said, it would be impossible to stay completely loyal to the original idea for the ending. There are too many loose ends to tie up, and the story has expanded in the meantime. Rather, the Duffers are “cherry-picking” ideas from the original endgame. And the “big” idea they had for it remains…whatever it may be.
“We reread the document,” Matt said. “We’re like, ‘That’s cool, that’s cool. That could be a lot better. That could be a lot better.’ The ending is a little bit different [now]. A lot of the big ideas are the same, but the stuff that happens within, it’s very different.”
The upcoming fifth season of Stranger Things will be its last
Any loose ends that cannot be wrapped up in the final season may be addressed elsewhere. There are already discussions of potential spinoff shows, after all. Everything gets a spinoff nowadays!
Stranger Things season 4 ended on a huge cliffhanger as the Upside Down dimension appeared to bleed into the town of Hawkins, Indiana:
Stranger Things seasons 1-4 are streaming on Netflix ’round the clock. Season 5 is on the way, but presumably not until 2024. Expect it to be big. It’s all come down to this, folks!
Next. David Harbour wants to “pour his soul” into final season of Stranger Things. dark
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