Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 is out, but the real pressure sits with the finale on New Year’s Eve.
After nearly a decade in Hawkins, fans want closure, not carnage for the sake of it. And with comparisons to Game of Thrones flooding social media, the creators know exactly what people are worried about.
Season 5 launched with huge expectations, and for the most part, Volume 1 clicked for a lot of people, mostly due to Will’s powers reveal. But Volume 2 itself plays a different role: it stacks tension.
Everything points toward a single, two-hour finale that has to do a lot of heavy lifting. Understandably, this leaves some viewers uneasy, especially those still haunted by shows that promised big endings and didn’t deliver.
The Duffers say the finale won’t “shock or upset” fans
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Duffer was asked, “you have been foreshadowing more than one character being ready to die for the larger cause. How worried should we be about their survival?”
Duffer tackled it head-on: “It’s not Game of Thrones. We’re not in Westeros,” he said. “There’s not going to be a Red Wedding situation. We’re not trying to shock or upset anyone.”
That doesn’t mean the finale will play it safe. Matt added that some moments will still surprise people, but the goal is for the ending to feel earned. “I hope by the time people get to the end of the finale that it just feels like there’s something inevitable about what happens,” he said.
Ross Duffer also explained that the final scene has been planned for years. According to him, everything in Season 5 has been steering toward that moment, with the last five minutes carrying the most weight.
They know that “if you slip in the last five minutes, it’s all anyone’s going to talk about!” but in the end, they conclude “you can’t really work towards satisfying [everyone].”
At last, they trusted their instincts and the cast, many of whom, they say, are “as happy as they are” with the way the characters ended.
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