We all know that the cast can’t stay kids forever, but nonetheless, there was a lot of chatter online when the Season 4 teaser images dropped and the cast looked so grown up. With Season 3 releasing in 2019 and Season 4 in 2022, it’s likely we’ll see our young series leads change before our eyes again if the final season drops a couple of years from now.

Ross Duffer said: “Ideally, we’d have shot [Seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was no feasible way to do that.” So with that in mind, the writers have discussed a time jump to line the characters’ ages up more closely with the actors that play them.

How the time jump will factor into the storyline is yet to be revealed…

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The Duffer brothers have mentioned that the final season will hark back to Season 1’s vibes, with Matt Duffer telling NME: “We wanna go back to a lot of the things we did in Season 1. [There will be] a lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in Season 1 — there’s something nice about coming full circle.”  

This will be welcome news for the fans who complained about the uprooting of the Byers bros. for Season 4, accusing the writers of sidelining the much-loved family.

The Duffers also discussed how some of the character arcs would come full circle, too, in particular Will, as well as Steve and Nancy’s unfinished business and her relationship with Jonathan. 

Matt told Collider: “I think one of the things that’s exciting about Season 5 is [that] Season 4 was interesting to us because everyone was scattered to the winds. That’s what was unique about it. But this is about everyone finally coming back. Coming back together, coming back to Hawkins. Hopper is back in Hawkins. The original group [is] back together — the original group of boys plus Eleven. The OG group. There’s something interesting to re-explore some of the Season 1 dynamics again, except on this grander scale.”

The Duffer brothers are set to punch us right in the feels with the final season of Stranger Things, with Matt stating that they “really want to stick the landing” of the ending, and explaining that when they pitched Season 5 to Netflix execs, it was really emotional.

He said: “We outlined Season 5 and pitched it to Netflix. Everyone there had also been present when we first pitched the show in 2015. While we were strangers then, we were now friends, and there were a lot of tears when it was over. It’s just been an extraordinary journey for all of us, and while it’s hard to believe that we’re approaching the end, we feel incredibly lucky to have such amazing partners.”

He also said he saw executives crying who he’d never seen cry before and described the experience as “wild.”

While Will’s disappearance in Season 1 was a huge part of the storyline, some might say Will himself hasn’t had as much screen time as some of the other characters in recent seasons. However, Season 5 is set to very much bring Will to the forefront of the storyline again, from his connection to the Upside Down, why Vecna chose him and how they’re connected, as well as Will’s growth as a person.

Speaking about Season 5, Matt Duffer told Collider: “Will’s going to be a big part and focus. We’re starting to see his coming of age, really. Which has been challenging for a number of reasons, some of which are supernatural. But you’re starting to see him come into his own.”

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The Duffers have said there will be “less ramp-up” for the show’s final season. Matt Duffer said: “Normally, it’s like ‘Oh, we get to revisit the characters in their normal lives and how they’re doing and what are their relationships like,’ but [Season] 5 is just going to be pedal to the metal from the opening scene.” 

Ross Duffer added: “[In Season 4], for instance, it was two hours before our characters even realized the monster was killing people in Hawkins. They know what the threat is now, and so that will help speed it up.”

Matt continued: “[Seasons] 4 and 5 are really [connected] together. [With Season 5], there’ll be no wind-up time — like even [in Season 4], you get to experience the kids and what they’re going through in high school before things start to escalate. Then it gets crazier and crazier and crazier — that’s typically the trajectory. Five, you’re just going to be right in the middle of it, so it’s going to feel very, very different.”

With Season 5 dovetailing directly into the final stretch of the show, we won’t get any of that character-led catch-up time before we’re thrown into the action. However, exactly how that dovetail will happen if there is the time jump that’s been mentioned is yet to be explained. 

With Eleven shouting into the empty blackness of Max’s mind at the end of Season 4, many fans have taken the scene to mean that Max is braindead.

Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Duffer brothers said: “She’s braindead, but yeah, she’s alive. She’s blind, and all of her bones are broken, but yeah, she’s doing great!”

According to many medical sources including Hopkins Medicine, brain death is irreversible — but this is Stranger Things we’re talking about, and Max is only alive in the first place because Eleven resurrected her by entering her mind and showing her happy memories while piggybacking from a pizza dough freezer. So we may well see the Max we’ve grown to love come back to us!

There’s already been a whole bunch of theories about what’s going on in Max’s mind, from Vecna stealing all her memories to her being subconsciously trapped in the Upside Down. The Duffers are yet to comment though, so I guess we’ll just have to wait two years or so to see how our beloved Max fares…*sobs*

Clout News @CloutNewsMedia Sadie Sink says she doesn't know if Max lives or dies in season 5 of Stranger Things. #max #sadiesink #strangerthings #StrangerThings4

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Peter Friedlander, Netflix’s head of scripted series for the US and Canada, told Variety that Season 5 won’t be split up like Season 4.

“For the fans of Stranger Things, this is how they’ve been watching that show. I think to change that on them would be disappointing.” He described Stranger Things as a seasonal experience that fans go through with the Hawkins natives, and said deviating from that would be “an abrupt change.”

He also explained that the only reason Season 4 was split into two parts was an attempt to get the show out quicker to those who wanted to watch, but assured fans they’d return to the “multiple-episodic-viewing experience” we’re used to for the show.

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Joe Keery, who plays Steve, told Esquire that the final season is going to be “pure chaos; complete madness.” 

He added: “There are a lot of pending plots to close. I have my preferences, but it seems to me that the Duffers are focused on offering an ’emotional reward.’ I blindly believe in them. They are the most of the most, and there is nothing that can resist them.”

In an interview with The Wrap, Millie called the Duffer brothers “sensitive Sallies” and encouraged them to go down the path of Game of Thrones, known for its brutal culling of characters. She joked that they now struggle to take a group photo because there are too many cast members, so the writers “need to start killing people off!”

She even volunteered her own character, Eleven, for the chopping block and joked that when the Duffers do try to kill a main character, they just bring them back again, like with Hopper.

Responding to Millie’s jokey criticism, the brothers said they had explored all options in the writing room, but the deaths had to be right for the show.

Matt told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “Just as a complete hypothetical, if you kill Mike, it’s like… that’s depressing… we aren’t Game of Thrones. This is Hawkins, it’s not Westeros. The show becomes not Stranger Things anymore, because you do have to treat it realistically, right?”

He went on to state the difference between Game of Thrones and Stranger Things when it comes to dealing with character deaths, stating that “even when Barb dies [back in Season 1], there’s two seasons worth of grappling with that, so imagine — is that something we’re interested in exploring or not interested in exploring?”

The writer duo did, however, tease that more deaths could be on the table as they head toward the end of the series. As for Millie, jokes aside, she confirmed that she fully trusts the Duffer brothers and their creative process, saying “What they’ve seen for Eleven has always been amazing and something I’ve always supported.”

Nothing is fully set in stone, but the Duffer brothers think they know how the series will conclude.

Matt Duffer told NME that they “do have an end,” saying: “I’m sure a lot of it’s going to change, but now [it’s] the end. It’s just one of those things that you come up with and you go, ‘That’s it, that’s right, that’s inevitable — that’s what it has to be.’”  

They also hinted that the show might have multiple endings.

The Duffer brothers told Variety that they have an idea for a spinoff series to pursue following the final season, so maybe we’ll get our Stranger Things fix via new avenues in the future.

They said: “We do have an idea for a spinoff that we’re super excited about…but we haven’t told anyone the idea yet, much less written it. We think everyone — including Netflix — will be surprised when they hear the concept, because it’s very, very different. But somehow, [Mike actor] Finn Wolfhard — who is one crazy smart kid — correctly guessed what it was going to be about. But aside from Finn, no one else knows!”

Peter Friedlander, Netflix’s head of scripted series for the US and Canada, said we will “hear very loudly when we have stuff to announce,” but until then, it’s “highly confidential.”