There have been Stranger endings..

A lot of people are upset by the twists and turns that Stranger Things Season 5 has taken. Some fans are enraged, others are bored, and a surprising number were so confused that they needed The Duffer Brothers themselves to confirm what the plot actually was.
So let’s talk predictions.

The final episode drops on New Year’s Eve, both on Netflix and in theaters. We’ll be among the people seeing it in a theater on New Year’s Day, which means I’ll be shutting off every facet of the internet and social media until about 5:15 p.m. on January 1st. I really don’t want the ending spoiled.
That said, let’s talk about the ending.. at least what could be cool.

A lot of people have said that an ending where the boys are revealed to be sitting around a table ten years ago, finishing a Dungeons & Dragons game, with everything revealed as just a story, would be a terrible ending. I’ve come around to thinking it wouldn’t be so bad. It would mean Eleven never existed and everything we saw was imagined. That’s bold, and honestly, it might work.

Another theory that’s been floating around involves a scene we haven’t seen yet, Hopper talking to an adult Mike on a bench. Maybe instead of a traditional ending, they figure out the wormhole and travel back to November 6, 1983, preventing Will Byers from ever being taken by the Demogorgon. But in doing so, they create a reverberation where many other things never happen, friendships never form, lives take different paths, and Mike never becomes who he was supposed to be. That’s an interesting concept too.

Now for a crazy theory. The show would have to be brave to pull this off—and history suggests they won’t, because they’ve chickened out every time they’ve had the chance—but it’s strange how Henry kept warning Holly not to go into the woods because the monsters were there. When she did go into the woods, she found Max. After that long monologue, Max tells Holly she can’t come with her and has to find her own way out, which puts Holly in even more danger. Then Max later says, “The song didn’t bring me back. You did.”
What if Max is actually dead?

There are tons of other fan theories out there, most of which probably won’t happen. Every time the show has faced the opportunity to kill off a main character, it hasn’t followed through. The final episode is titled The Right Side Up. To us, that implies the Upside Down was never opened at all—and the only way to fix that is to go back in time and stop it from ever happening.

If that’s the case, everything resets.
We’ll see.

This finale has to be epic. Otherwise, the accusations that this is heading toward a Game of Thrones–style ending will stick, and ten years of buildup will have been for nothing. Duffer Brothers, it’s all on you. Let’s hope you made the most of it.

Either way, Joyce still owes Hopper a dinner at Enzo’s..