Jan 05, 2026
3 min read
The Duffers want Stranger Things fans to draw their own conclusions, but have they laid the groundwork to help?
For better or for worse, everyone has been talking about the latest season of Stranger Things, especially its ending.Reactions were mixed around the world, but for creators Ross and Matt Duffer, it all worked out more or less as intended.
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If the Duffers had spoken, they would have simply let Stranger Things speak for itself from now on.Unfortunately, that didn't work out: from Joyce and Hopper discovering their classmate is Vecna to Robin and Vickie still being together, the conversation after the finale is partly about why they didn't touch things in the last episode, or why they made the choices they did.For example, with Vecna they actually wrote the season as the music of the First Shadow whose origins simply don't exist, because they didn't want to confuse anyone who didn't see the music.But don't worry, they're "sure" Joyce and Hopper are talking about Vecna's off-screen connection, which...
Likewise, they want the audience to decide for themselves whether young Henry embraces his own darkness or is ultimately used by the Mind Flayer.At one point, however, they liked to put him in what Ross Duffer called a "Darth Vader-type situation," where he would abandon Flayer.As explained in a Netflix Q&A, that idea was removed after speaking with Vecna writers and actor Jamie Campbell Bower and agreed that Vecna needed to "remain what he did: 'I chose this and I still believe in it.'
The idea of ambiguity is something the Duffers really wanted to promote for some characters - even with Eleven, they said there was "never a version" of the ending where she would live a normal life with others, so Mike and everyone else chose to believe she was alive in the other dimension rather than the one she actually lost after sacrificing herself.And by making them believe what could have been a lie, “it's the best way to end the story and represent the closure of this journey and their journey from children to adults,” Ross continued.
Obviously, some Stranger Things fans don't think the on-screen shame was actually intentional or even an advantage to the ending. But before (or if) a sequel series comes along, it's up to them to come up with their own theories and fill in whatever holes they see fit in Duffer's narrative, or at least before Duffer explains or rationalizes the rest of it.
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