Good or bad, everyone was talking about the final season of Strange things, and its end in particular. Reactions have been mixed across the board, but for creators Ross and Matt Duffer, things have almost gone as planned.
Until the end, fans make a request convinced that there are unseen footage caught by Netflix, or a secret episode. But the brothers told Variety that no such interference or hidden plot exists, and Matt said they made the show “[we] he wanted to do. […] No interference or direction at all from Netflix. They are amazing, and always have been, and they really trust us. That was true from the first season.”
If the Duffers had their say, they would have agreed Stranger Things let them speak for themselves from now on. Unfortunately, they can’t: from Joyce and Hopper finding out their classmate was Vecna to Robin and Vickie still being together, their post-finale talk is partly about why they didn’t touch on things from the last episode, or why they made the decisions they did. With Vecna, for example, they write the season as First Shadow there was no music indicating his origin, because they didn’t want to confuse someone who hadn’t seen the music. But don’t worry, Joyce and Hopper “made sure” to talk about their Vecna connection off-screen, which is…something, right?
Likewise, they would like the audience to decide for themselves whether young Henry embraces his darkness or is finally possessed by the Mind Flayer. At one point, however, they were interested in putting him in what Ross Duffer called a “Darth Vader-type situation” where he would withdraw from the Flayer again. As explained in a Netflix Q&A, that idea was scrapped after they talked to the writers and Vecna actor Jamie Campbell Bower and settled on Vecna having to “affirm everything he’s done with, ‘I chose this, and I still believe in this.’ Where Henry goes, it doesn’t matter because he chooses the Mind Flayer’s side at the end of the day. “
The idea of ambiguity is something that the Duffers really want to push for a few characters—even Eleven, saying that there was “never a version” of the ending where he would live a normal life with the others, so Mike and everyone else chose to believe that he was living in another dimension rather than actually leaving after sacrificing himself. And by making them believe what could be a lie, “it was the best way to end the story and represent the closure of this journey and their journey from childhood to adulthood,” Ross continued.
Obviously, others Stranger Things fans don’t think that the screenplay is intentional or serves the purpose. But until (or if) a sequel happens, it’s up to them to make up their own minds and fill in whatever holes in the Duffers’ story they see fit, or at least until the Duffers go and explain or balance something else out of it.
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