David Harbour (Hopper) promises "spectacular" Stranger Things finale

After years of waiting, Netflix's Stranger Things will finally conclude in 2025. The eight-episode fifth and final season has undergone a huge production, with filming beginning in January 2024 and poised to last for almost a year.

David Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper on the show, has been one busy man. Between DC's Creature Commandos, Marvel's Thunderbolts, and of course, Stranger Things, he's got a lot going on. The Stranger Things NDAs are very strict, but the actor recently opened up to Collider about the forthcoming series finale. Responding to fears that the show wouldn't manage to deliver a satisfying ending, Harbour has absolutely no doubts that the finale will be a hit. “I've said it before, but I do think the finale is spectacular," he said. "I think that it's so satisfying if you've been a fan of the show."

Interestingly, Harbour doesn't see the ending as totally definitive. There will be a couple of loose ends; they've got to leave enough breathing space for spinoffs, after all.

"It takes a lot of threads that you may have worried about or wondered about — I'm not saying it ties them up into a nice, neat bow, but it gives you the having-eaten-a-big-meal satisfaction that you will crave. Whether that be sad or happy, we don't know, but it will give you that. It will give you that satisfaction as a fan of the show. I don't feel like we're gonna disappoint."

Harbour also touched on the emotional rollercoaster of filming this show over the course of nearly decade. He started season 1 working with kids; now those child actors are adults with glittering careers. “It's very emotional. Those kids were kids when we started. It's been 10 years of our lives, come 2025," he said. "So, you've gone through watching the show, and that was their childhood, shooting it for you. I think that that's very profound when you come to a close.”

Hawkins will be in "disarray" in Stranger Things season 5

In the season 4 finale, our group thought they had defeated the monstrous entity Vecna. However, in the final scene, the hellish Upside Down dimension began to spill into the quaint town of Hawkins. The biggest battle is still to come.

Obviously, this has left the quiet town of Hawkins, Indiana in a sorry state. "I think it's a different vibe, for sure, because obviously, things are a lot different going into this season, comparatively to past ones," star Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) told The Direct. "Whereas in the last season, in Season 4, we kind of see there are small victories around in the sense that, it seems like Vecna has been subdued... But also, there's a big, major loss where we see the rifts open in throughout Hawkins. We see, at the end of Season 4, Hawkins is in real disarray. And so we're starting this season in the aftermath of that."

On top of that, it sounds like Dustin himself will be dealing with some big personal issues; remember he was pretty torn up about the death of Eddie (Joseph Quinn) at the end of season 4. "He's still the guy we know and love, but there is a context of that trauma and that weight of loss that seems to carry on with him through the early process of the season, and hopefully, that's something that people like to see, see him grow through that arc, and see him start to deal with intense grief at a young age," Matarazzo said. "I think a lot of people, myself included, can really resonate with and understand what that confusion and that rage can feel like. Because it is an enraging thing to deal with. So, I'm stoked for people to see that."

The final episodes of Stranger Things will be "very long"

Stranger Things season 5 doesn't have a release date yet, nor do we even have our first look. We can expect the series to conclude in 2025.

When that happens, get comfortable. “We’re making, basically, eight movies,” star Maya Hawke (Robin) said on the Podcrushed podcast. “The episodes are very long.” That's in line with the episodes of season 4, none of which were under an hour, and the finale was a staggering two hours and 30 minutes long!

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