Duffer Brothers Reveal Why Stranger Things Season 5 Finale Was Their Biggest Creative Challenge Yet

Well, if you thought the Stranger Things finale felt a little different, you weren’t alone – turns out it was pretty chaotic behind the scenes too. The Duffer Brothers have been refreshingly candid about just how tough it was to get that all-important ending on screen.

The Pressure Cooker Finale

On the new Netflix documentary One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things, Matt and Ross Duffer didn’t hold back about the stress-fest that was writing the season 5 finale. Apparently, they were getting 'hammered constantly by production and by Netflix for episode 8.' In their own words, 'It was the most difficult writing circumstance we've ever found ourselves in, not just because of the pressure to make sure the script was good, but because there was never so much noise at the same time.'

To make things even more dramatic, Matt Duffer admitted they actually started filming the finale without a finished script. Yes, you read that right—the single most important episode of the entire series wasn’t even locked in before the cameras rolled. He put it pretty bluntly: 'That was scary because we wanted to get it right. It was the most important script of the season.'

Fan Reaction: Not Great, Bob

The result? Let’s just say fan response has been... complicated. A decent chunk of viewers weren’t exactly thrilled with how things wrapped up, and the internet being the internet, some fans even decided the finale had to be a fake-out. There’s actually a (real) movement called 'Conformity Gate,' where folks are convinced a hidden 'real' ending is lurking out there, waiting to be released. That’s how divided things got.

What's Actually in the Documentary

• The Duffer Brothers detail the writing chaos (see above for the juicy quote).
• The show’s ending was tweaked during production. Specifically, they changed things up to leave Eleven’s fate a little more open-ended than originally planned.
• Plenty of other behind-the-scenes stories from the tumultuous final run.

One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things dropped on Netflix on January 12. If you’re the kind of person who likes peeking behind the curtain (or just want to know if your theory about the ending is correct), it’s worth a look. Oh, and every episode of Stranger Things, including that 'controversial' finale, is streaming now.