Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Stranger Things season 5.Stranger Things co-creator Matt Duffer explains how the show’s season 5 plans “changed radically,” particularly with a last-minute upgrade given to one character. While Matt and Ross Duffer previously shared that they had the final scene in the Stranger Things series finale in mind years in advance, other elements changed along the way.
On Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Matt shared that after he and Ross wrote season 4, they had an unexpected amount of time available due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and used it to begin working on an outline for the final season. This outline did not include Holly Wheeler, who had been a minor character in the prior seasons.
After season 4’s release, the Duffers revisited the outline and made some significant changes, including giving Holly a much more prominent role. Despite this massive change, Matt clarifies that “the rough shape” and many parts of the finale had already been decided long in advance. Check out his comments below:
Roughly. If you remember, season 4 was in the midst of COVID, so we had a massive break where we actually had time. We had finished writing season 4, and we started to work on season 5. So we had an outline for it. It changed radically, the outline, because after season 4 came out we looked at the outline, and we thought a lot could be different and improved. Holly was not in that outline, for instance, but the rough shape of it, especially the ending, was all laid out.
Given her substantially larger role in season 5, Stranger Things recast Holly, with Nell Fisher taking over the part from twin child actors Tinsley and Anniston Price. Holly is targeted by Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), becomes integral to defeating him, and takes charge of helping her captive peers survive.
It is now difficult to imagine the last season without Holly playing a major part, especially considering how important she is to the story of Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) while trapped in Vecna’s mind prison. Holly and the other children also represent the next generation and are reminiscent of Stranger Things season 1 when Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) and his friends were younger.
Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeler in Stranger Things season 5
The Duffers knew for a long time that they wanted the show to end with Mike and his friends playing Dungeons & Dragons in the Wheeler house’s basement, in what would be a full-circle moment from the series’ first episode. An element of this final scene that changed is Holly, Derek Turnbow (Jake Connelly), and their friends coming down to play afterward as Mike emotionally watches the torch be passed to the next generation.
Including Holly and her friends arguably adds even more weight to the original party’s emotional final game and the final shot of Mike shutting the basement door, also symbolizing the door being shut on his childhood. The ending to Stranger Things ultimately combined aspects that had been planned for years with changes that delivered the ending that the Duffers felt was best for the show.
Release Date
2016 – 2025-00-00
Network
Netflix
Showrunner
Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
