Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard began his journey as Mike Wheeler back when he was just 13 years old. Now he's a 22-year-old adult, and the final season of Netflix's seminal sci-fi series is coming out later this year.
The fifth and final season of Stranger Things promises to be one of the biggest TV events of the year, and possibly in Netflix's illustrious history. We're talking eight episodes, many of which will run as long as movies, much like what we saw in season 4.
When we last saw Mike and the rest of our team of teenagers, the inter-dimensional menace known as Vecna had punched a hole through reality, and the hellish Upside Down dimension was leaking into our world (beginning in the quaint little town of Hawkins, Indiana, of course). Is this too much for a few teenagers to handle? Probably not.
While the ending of season 4 sets up a pretty action-packed finale. we can expect plenty of tear-jerker scenes as well. "Because everyone knows it's the last season, I think that it's super melancholy," Wolfhard noted in an interview with Men's Journal. "There's a lot of the happy-sad, which is emblematic of real life, for those of us who worked on the show. It's very bittersweet, and that carries over into the story, too."
His words echo what the rest of the cast has said. The word 'bittersweet' has been thrown around more times than I'm able to count.
In addition, Wolfhard discussed how, both now and in the future, everyone will know him as Mike from Stranger Things:
""It's nice, obviously, when people say, 'Oh, I loved you in that weird indie movie.' But at the end of the day, I wouldn't be in that weird indie movie if it wasn't for Stranger Things. I think it's a really special thing. I'm at peace with it.""
Wolfhard is still a young actor, so he may well be able to find other roles that people identify him with. But Stranger Things will indeed be a tough act to follow. It's the closest Netflix has yet come to having a generational hit, and there will be a lot of eyes on the final season. Get those boxes of tissues ready for an emotional rollercoaster. Stranger Things 5 arrives on Netflix later this year, although we don't have an exact release date as of yet.
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