{"id":311511,"date":"2025-11-28T03:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T03:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311511\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T03:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T03:04:10","slug":"biggest-twists-of-final-season-so-far-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311511\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Twists of Final Season So Far, Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains major spoilers from Stranger Things<\/a> season five, episodes one through four.]<\/p>\n

\n\tWithin the first four episodes of their final season,\u00a0Stranger Things\u00a0creators Matt and Ross Duffer have already turned things upside down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first batch of the Netflix hit\u2019s final season has arrived<\/a>, with four more episodes still to come (three arriving on Dec. 25, and the grand finale hitting Dec. 31). Already, the wait for the second half feels agonizing, thanks to the Duffers putting the Hawkins gang through their paces and then some. Thus far, some long percolating twists have already unfurled, such as Will (Noah Schnapp) finally channeling the Upside Down <\/a>and gaining some sorcerous powers of his own. In the Upside Down itself, a familiar face resurfaced, though it\u2019s one no one really expected to see again: Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), the central figure of season two\u2019s \u201cThe Lost Sister,\u201d easily the most polarizing episode of the whole series. Not only is she back, but she\u2019s seemingly powering the army\u2019s ability to navigate the Upside Down \u2014 though now that she\u2019s reunited with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown<\/a>), the power dynamics are certain to flip.<\/p>\n

\n\tWill\u2019s sorcerer turn and Kali\u2019s return aren\u2019t the only big surprises of the final season so far, with Lord Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower)<\/a> showing up to abduct as many Hawkins\u2019 children as possible in the closing moments of episode four, among other brutal developments. (The Wheelers! Somebody think of the Wheelers!<\/a>) Below, the Duffer brothers<\/a> break down some of their boldest swings of the final season thus far, and share insight into the work done to bring this last stretch to a satisfying close.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThe world\u2019s finally getting their first look at the beginning of the end. How do you guys feel?<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS DUFFER We\u2019re good. We\u2019re good. We\u2019re excited. I mean, nervous to show it to the world, but we\u2019re excited to finally be near the end, but also sad\u2026 very confused emotions over here! We\u2019ll see how we feel when it\u2019s all done. Right now, we still have some work to do, but we\u2019re getting near to the end.<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT DUFFER We\u2019re still working on it, which allows us to remain in denial. But it\u2019s very weird. When I was in school, I was always the last person working on a test, so I hate that someone has to force me to put pencils down, which is inevitably going to happen.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore we dig into the big beats from these first four episodes, I just want to say, how dare you end this show just as soon as you introduce us to Derek (Jake Connelly, the series\u2019 latest breakout young actor).<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS\u00a0(Laughs.) Jake is a special kid. He had only been in a local Chicago furniture commercial [before this]. We found him and it\u2019s different than how we imagined Derek originally, but that\u2019s how it was with most of the actors we found. Gaten [Matarazzo] was very different than the Dustin we originally imagined, but what you want to find is someone who you think is special, and then you just write the role to them.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith finding this young actor right here at the end, was it at all nostalgic for the way you originally cast the series?<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT Yes. That was one of the reasons we [created this character], and why we made Holly (played by Nell Fisher, in a recasting decision) a big part of the storyline, and her friends. A big part of the story was to recapture some of the feeling of season one. Obviously our \u201ckids\u201d are not kids anymore, so we\u2019ve lost that element of the show and because we wanted this season to harken back<\/a> a little bit more to season one, we felt it was very natural to bring in the next generation. The timing worked out in the sense that Holly is very close to the age our boys were in season one.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not\u00a0Stranger Things\u00a0without extraordinary amounts of reckless child endangerment! And where we leave things at the end of the first half of the year, the kids are very much in danger, with mass abductions\u2026 the vanishing of Will Byers writ large. How long did you know that this was a direction that the show was going in?<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS There are definitely elements, like Will\u2019s powers and where the show\u2019s ultimately going, that we\u2019ve known for a while. But the Holly and Derek storyline involving all these kids was really formed once we sat down with our writers and started breaking season five. That\u2019s really what clicked it all into place, once we realized that and it felt like we brought things full circle. So that was a later idea, but once we had that, that\u2019s when season five started to click into write itself.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNoah Schnapp as Will Byers with Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna in season five.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNetflix<\/p>\n

\n\tWe\u2019ve had years to prepare for the end, and you\u2019ve had years to plan it. But now, the ending isn\u2019t just theoretical; it\u2019s here. How much did the reality of ending the show match up with your initial visions? In other words, how much did you stay close to your original plan, versus how much you allowed yourself to add in here along the way with these final episodes?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT\u00a0Ross and I started out wanting to make movies, and it surprised us that we ended up in television. But one of the things we\u2019ve fallen in love with is that it is so alive. It is constantly evolving. You\u2019re able to shift the story, even mid-production, based on what you\u2019re seeing and what\u2019s working. The actors have enormous influence on the story, so it\u2019s constantly evolving. So did we have some rough ideas of where we wanted to go? Yes, especially as we started out season two \u2014 we\u2019ve known for a really long time what the final scene of the show was going to be<\/a>, which is nice because that gave us a north star. But as far as a lot of the details, that was us and our writers following the story and the characters in ways that often surprised us.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS\u00a0The way we approached every season but I think ultimately was the right way to do this \u2014 and occasionally it\u2019s gotten us into trouble \u2014 but it\u2019s as if there\u2019s a movie every season. Let\u2019s not leave anything on the table. Let\u2019s not hold this back. We wanted every season to have not only its own identity, but to swing for the fences, and that\u2019s what we tried to do season by season. It wasn\u2019t really until four and five were broken together that it really became of a piece. And like Matt said, we always knew the ultimate destination, but there was so much room for discovery. We just tried our best every season to make the best season we possibly can as opposed to stressing about it. It\u2019s very hard when people are planning three movies ahead\u2026 it\u2019s like, try making\u00a0one\u00a0good movie!<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT The fact that we grew up watching almost no television and only watching movies is why we called it\u00a0Stranger Things 2\u00a0and\u00a0Stranger Things 3, rather than season two and three. We wanted each season to have its own identity and feel very different. For one of the reasons, obviously, it keeps us from getting bored. The second we get bored, we knew we\u2019d have to end the show because then the creative is going to suffer. We wanted each season almost to feel like its own massive, standalone movie and we love the idea \u2014 and you see this happening now \u2014 where people are arguing over what is the best season. Our goal was that none of it melds together and each season has very much its own identity, and you can yell at your friends about it.<\/p>\n

\n\tBack to some of the season\u2019s biggest surprises: Kali returns! Talk about big swings; her introduction back in season two was a big swing, and it didn\u2019t land for everyone.<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT\u00a0Really? (Laughs.) I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tListen, there was certainly a world where you tried something, but it didn\u2019t work out. So I was really surprised and delighted to see her turn up in the finale.<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT People can say whatever they want about that episode, it\u2019s fine. It\u2019s not going to hurt my feelings. But when people said it was designed as a backdoor pilot for a spinoff, no. Not the case. We loved the character of Kali. We loved Linnea. I think she\u2019s fantastic, and we wanted to bring that character back and we wanted to do that character justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS Not doing that would be a disservice to the entire story. Because then that episode does look like a mistake. We\u2019ve always wanted to bring her back and do justice to Linnea and Kali, but we didn\u2019t want to just do it for shock value. We wanted to bring her back in a way that she was really going to impact the narrative and arc of Eleven\u2019s journey. Now as we go into volume two, she plays a really important role moving forward. We\u2019re really excited for people to see more of Kali and how she impacts Eleven\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a big \u201choly shit\u201d moment for me. I didn\u2019t think they were about to come across Vecna, but I wasn\u2019t sure who they would find. <\/p>\n

\n\tMATT\u00a0Oh, great! I think that might surprise people more than Will having powers.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of which, Will has powers! That\u2019s been in the hopper, so to speak, for a while, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT\u00a0We started to plant the seeds all the way back in season two, building his connection to the Mind Flayer, which eventually we learn is very much connected to Vecna. So it just is something like Kali where every season thereafter it never felt like the right time. Season five felt perfect because the story began with Will and his vanishing, so it felt very natural to recenter the story on Will for this final season. We wanted everything to go full circle. It was something we knew we were going to do that we settled on pretty immediately. But it was important to us that he wasn\u2019t a second Eleven. He doesn\u2019t exactly have his own powers. Obviously, it\u2019s a little bit more complicated than that.<\/p>\n

\n\tRight, it seems like he\u2019s channeling Vecna\u2019s powers.<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT We liked that. It feels different. We liked giving Will, who\u2019s been a little bit more in the background, especially for the last two seasons, a very powerful moment that tied into his character growth and development. That\u2019s important for me and Ross and the other writers on the show, especially when you have these big climactic set pieces, that there\u2019s something big or emotional or powerful happening with one of the characters at the same time. \u201cDear Billy\u201d in season three being a good reference for the best the show gets, which is when we have the special effects and spectacle climaxing at the same time as a character\u2019s emotional\u00a0\u00a0journey. That was the goal with the end of episode four.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMillie Bobby Brown as Eleven in season five.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNetflix<\/p>\n

\n\tCan you talk about figuring out the character pairings for the final season? Some of it feels very classic, with Eleven and Hopper together<\/a>, while other pairings feel newer, like Will and Robin. How did you strike that balance between keeping things both nostalgic and new?<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS Part of the fun is shuffling people around and playing with those dynamics, but a lot of it goes back to not the narrative specifically, but where we wanted our characters to be by the end of the season and how were they going to get there. We started there and that\u2019s how the pairings come about. Then, for example, Will and Robin being the perfect instance of putting them together was a way for Will to discover more about himself and have her as a mentor. Suddenly, once we did that, his journey clicked into place. So we did that with everyone: Eleven and Hopper, all of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT\u00a0More than any other season, this season we talked about the characters, and how since this is the last time we\u2019re going to be with them, we can\u2019t kick the can down the road anymore. We have to resolve these people. So we started there and looked at everything that was unresolved with each of the characters and talked about where we wanted to end up, and we worked backwards from there. We knew we needed to resolve a lot between Jonathan and Nancy, and Hopper and Eleven had a lot to be resolved. Then you\u2019re looking for new dynamics, and sometimes that involves characters who\u2019ve been together for a long time, like Dustin and Steve. It was important not to be repetitive.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut even with a combination like Steve and Dustin, there\u2019s a knot to tie, right? You want to connect those cables and close the loop.<\/p>\n

\n\tMATT\u00a0Exactly. You want to shake up their dynamic. It\u2019s a matter of looking at what\u2019s going to be interesting, which pairings are going to be interesting, and also what will allow them to grow and arc and reach the point where we want them to reach. But sometimes they surprise you as you\u2019re writing it. Television is so alive. Sometimes the characters do things that you\u2019re not anticipating, which is always fun.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason five of\u00a0Stranger Things\u00a0is being released in three parts:\u00a0Volume 1 is now streaming\u00a0<\/a>(consisting of four episodes), Volume 2 on Christmas (three episodes) and The Finale on New Year\u2019s Eve. Find\u00a0everything we know about\u00a0Stranger Things\u2018 final season here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains major spoilers from Stranger Things season five, episodes one through four.] Within the first four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,41880,41882,104661],"class_list":{"0":"post-311511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-millie-bobby-brown","12":"tag-stranger-things","13":"tag-the-duffer-brothers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}