End of an Era

A complete breakdown of how the fan-favorite series brought its twisty sci-fi storylines to a close

This post contains spoilers for the series finale of Stranger Things.

The Stranger Things kids are all right. They’re a little banged up and eternally trauma bonded, haunted by violent images of the things they’ve seen and the heartbreaking losses they’ve endured… but they really are all right. After five wild seasons, the series finale of Netflix’s global phenomenon brought the journey of Hawkins’ finest nerds to a dramatic close, vanishing Vecna for good. But how did it happen? And is the ending really as peaceful as meets the eye, or did the Duffer Brothers (who also wrote and directed the finale) leave a couple strategic loose ends? Let’s rewind. 

Season Five, Episode Eight, cheekily titled “The Rightside Up,” opens with the main gang gathered together for “one last fight” against Vecna and the Mind Flayer, as Mike (Finn Wolfhard) classically puts it. The military’s Wolf Pack unit, led by evil scientist Dr. Kay (legendary Linda Hamilton) is on the hunt for them, while Henry/Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) still has Holly and several other kidnapped children trapped, their bodies wrapped up in the Pain Tree. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) go into the void of Eleven’s mind to begin tracking down Henry/Vecna, explaining to a confused Max (Sadie Sink) that the only way to destroy him is by going into his mind (in a very “English, please?” micro moment). The rest of the gang heads up to the Squawk tower to the Abyss, ready to blow up the Upside Down once Vecna is dead, with some explosive help from Murray (Brett Gelman), and sideline aid by Erica (Priah Ferguson) and Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens). Easy, right? 

Naturally, the plan goes awry fast. Eleven and Kali find Henry and the kids fairly quickly. But before they’re able to destroy him, Vecna plays mental tricks on Hopper, who’s guarding Eleven’s body in the tank. First, he manipulates Hopper into seeing a vision of his late daughter. Then, he allows Hopper to overhear Kali tell Eleven that the only way to truly destroy Vecna is to sacrifice themselves, too. With Kali and Eleven still alive, there will always be a portal to the human realm, and the military will always be chasing them down. Then, Vecna tricks Hopper into shooting his gun and hallucinating that he’s shot Eleven. Hopper desperately pulls her out of the tank, which yanks Eleven, Max, and Kali out of the Upside Down (and leaves little Holly in charge of saving the children and leading them to the cave where they can escape back to the real world, with Henry hot on their heels). Kicked out, Eleven and Kali head to the abyss instead, joining the others to fight Vecna there. But before they can do that, Hopper threatens to not detonate the bomb that will destroy the Upside Down if Eleven actually plans on sacrificing herself. “I have to end the cycle,” Eleven insists. From that moment on, savvy viewers know: There’s no way Eleven is making it out of this finale alive. Season after season, she’s had the weight of this world on her shoulders, forced to live a brutal existence as a result of her father’s cruelty. How is there any possible way she could survive? 

Editor’s picks

Before we can contemplate these larger questions for very long, the Wolf Pack catches up to them. Eleven uses her powers to fight them all and disarm them — but Kali gets caught in the crossfire, shot in the stomach. “My story was always going to end here,” she says, accepting her fate and dying quietly. 

Back over with the others, Will (Noah Schnapp) is using his connective power to get into Henry’s mind. He sees the childhood memory that led to Henry becoming Vecna (which features a young Henry bludgeoning a mysterious scientist to death). “You’re just like me, Henry, a vessel,” Will pleads with a tearful Henry. But Henry resists, determined to forever be the villain and to give himself over to the enormous Mind Flayer. “Will realizes he was led down the same path as young Vecna, but the only difference was that Will fought it and Vecna gave into that evil,” Schnapp said in an interview with Netflix. 

Related Content

With that, Henry wakes up the Mind Flayer and sets off to kill Steve, Nancy, Robin, Dustin, Lucas, and Will. Eleven finds her way to them, jumping inside the Mind Flayer to destroy Vecna, who’s controlling it from within, while Will fights telepathically from the outside, no longer empathetic or afraid to go toe to toe with his former saboteur. The rest of the gang does everything they can, shooting at the Mind Flayer and destroying it bit by bit. “Everyone contributes in some meaningful way,” co-creator Matt Duffer told Netflix. “In that sense, it also feels very much like the climax of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, where every character has a special skill, and they’re able to bring it to this final fight.”

They eventually bring the Mind Flayer down after Eleven pushes Vecna back with her telekinetic powers, impaling him on a jagged fang. The rest of the gang rushes inside to be at Eleven’s side and save the children who are trapped inside on the Pain Tree, while Vecna burbles and gasps for air. He’s alive, but not for long. Joyce (Winona Ryder) strides up to him with an axe in hand. “You fucked with the wrong family,” she says. Then she swings, chopping his head off and destroying him once and for all. (As she does it, the score swells and a montage of all the hell these characters have gone through plays, reminding viewers just how much has happened in the last decade, and how adorably tiny the cast used to be.)

But they’re not in the clear yet. Dr. Kay and the military are waiting for them, still eager to nab Eleven. In the midst of the chaos, Eleven pulls Mike into the void and tells him that she’s going to sacrifice herself. As Prince’s “Purple Rain” plays, the two of them reminisce on their good times and short-lived romance. “I will always be with you. I love you,” Eleven tells him, before sending him back into the real world and letting herself be destroyed in the explosion that destroys the Upside Down. 

And then… that’s that. No more Upside Down, no more military pursuit, no more anything. Hawkins is just another place. And, aside from Eleven, everyone lives. Now all they have to do is get ready for high school graduation and start planning the rest of their lives. (And somehow, in one of the more mind-boggling twists, Dustin manages to be valedictorian.) Graduation goes off without a hitch. Joyce and Hopper get engaged. The older kids — Robin, Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan — reminisce about their high school days, vowing to always be friends, in a very Gen X-, _Reality Bites-_coded scene. 

Trending Stories

The series ends how it began — with the main gang, plus Max, playing a heated game of Dungeons & Dragons. During the game, Mike reveals that he thinks that before her death, Kali cast a powerful spell to protect Eleven, and that the Eleven who died in the explosion was just an illusion to permanently ward off the military. The real Eleven, Mike rhapsodizes, is off in a distant land, somewhere beautiful and free, with three waterfalls in the distance, just like he’d always hoped. This vision of his brings the rest of the kids to tears. The show takes things a step further, showing Eleven backpacking through nature, on her way to peace and safety. In their interview with Netflix, the Duffer brothers refused to reveal the truth about Eleven’s fate. The story Mike tells is emotional respite for the Hawkins kids. “She lives on in their hearts, whether that’s real or not,” Ross Duffer said. 

Then the gang wraps up the game, so Holly and her friends can take over, adorably carrying on the Dungeons & Dragons tradition. It’s full-circle and shockingly neat for a series that had as many twists and turns and secrets as it did. Almost everyone makes it out alive! There’s no revelatory post-credits scene! No plot twist where Vecna’s hand twitches in some place beyond the Upside Down, insinuating a never-ending ending! All is actually well. In a landscape of sequels and overly pillaged IP, the Stranger Things finale is finite and close-ended, the credits rolling once and for all.