Stranger Things Season 5 Channels the Greatest TV Finale George R.R. Martin Endorsed
With Season 5 around the corner, Stranger Things is gunning for a finale worthy of TV’s greats, with the Duffers studying the swan songs of Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, and Friday Night Lights, they told Variety.
Stranger Things is gearing up for its last ride, and the Duffers are aiming for an ending that sticks the landing — not a twist-for-twist’s-sake finale, but something that feels honest and earned. Their north star? A certain HBO classic about a funeral home.
The finales the Duffers studied (and the one they idolize)
In a new chat with Variety, Ross Duffer said they did their homework on how great shows say goodbye, singling out Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, and Friday Night Lights as the ones they looked at most closely. The lesson they took away: don’t overthink it — stay true to the story you’ve been telling.
'The best ones were very true to themselves. The shows that are trying to be super clever — I think that’s where it can go wrong really quickly.'
That Six Feet Under shoutout tracks with the broader TV hive mind. George R. R. Martin has long called that finale the gold standard, writing on his site that if he had to pick a single perfect episode, it would be that last hour — the best sign-off in TV history, in his words.
So what are the Duffers actually promising in Season 5?
According to Variety, wrapping up Stranger Things cleanly matters more to the brothers than any decision they’ve made in their careers. This is the end, full stop, and they want it to feel complete — for the Demogorgons, the Mind Flayer, Vecna, the Upside Down, Hawkins, and every character we’ve been following. Translation: they’re doing the last remaining things on their monster/ mythology bucket list, and they’re spending what it takes to get what’s on the page onto the screen.
Small but important correction while we’re here: some coverage has referred to quotes from 'Matt Ross' — that’s a mix-up. It’s Matt Duffer. He says they’ve known the shape of the last scene for years. The specifics evolved in the room, but the core idea never changed. He’s also bracing for the discourse once it drops, and admits the final cut got to him — the last 35 to 40 minutes are essentially a long goodbye for the characters and the cast.
Story setup: time jump, quarantine, answers
The season opens with everyone back in Hawkins after an 18‑month jump from the Season 4 finale. The town is under military quarantine. The Duffers mapped out the Upside Down’s nature and each character’s fate in the writers room before rolling cameras, so the answers aren’t being made up on the fly.
Release plan, runtimes, and that theater question
Netflix is stacking the holidays, and Stranger Things 5 is a big piece of that. Variety asked if the finale might get a theatrical bow, especially since Netflix has dabbled with one-off movie events lately (including a sing-along rollout for KPop Demon Hunters that even spawned fan videos from packed screenings). But Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria shut down the idea — the streamer wants this one watched the way most people found it: at home, on Netflix.
Episode guide
- Episode 1 — 'The Crawl' — Nov 26, 2025 — 68 minutes
- Episode 2 — 'The Vanishing Of...' — Nov 26, 2025 — 54 minutes
- Episode 3 — 'The Turnbow Trap' — Nov 26, 2025 — 66 minutes
- Episode 4 — 'Sorcerer' — Nov 26, 2025 — 83 minutes
- Episode 5 — TBA — Dec 25, 2025 — runtime TBA
- Episode 6 — TBA — Dec 25, 2025 — runtime TBA
- Episode 7 — TBA — Dec 25, 2025 — runtime TBA
- Episode 8 — 'The Rightside Up' — Dec 31, 2025 — about 2 hours
Why Six Feet Under keeps coming up
Quick refresher if you missed it or haven’t revisited in a while: Six Feet Under is Alan Ball’s HBO drama about the Fisher family, who run a small Los Angeles funeral home. It ran from June 3, 2001 to August 21, 2005 for five seasons and 63 episodes. Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Freddy Rodriguez, Mathew St. Patrick, and Rachel Griffiths lead the cast. Tonally it’s a drama shot through with very dark humor, and every episode opens with a death — a formal choice that turns mortality into the show’s organizing principle. It won 9 Emmys, 3 SAG Awards, 3 Golden Globes, and a Peabody, and it still sits in the 'all‑time greats' conversation.
The finale, 'Everyone’s Waiting,' does something few series even attempt: it flashes forward to show how each major character’s life ends. Not metaphorically — literally. It’s a birth‑to‑death sweep that faces the whole theme of the show head on, cuts out ambiguity, and somehow makes closure feel both devastating and comforting. Two decades later, that ending still gets cited as the high bar for how to finish a story about life and death.
What that might mean for Stranger Things
Given those influences — Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Friday Night Lights — don’t be shocked if Stranger Things leans into mortality and legacy in its final stretch. A flash‑forward epilogue? Possible. A conclusion that isn’t afraid of the darker implications of this world? Likely. The Duffers keep stressing that the ending fits the story they’ve been telling, which is exactly the lesson they took from the greats.
Where to watch and when
Six Feet Under is currently streaming in the U.S. on Netflix and HBO Max. Stranger Things Season 5 is expected to drop its first four episodes on Netflix on November 26, 2025 in the U.S., with three more on December 25 and the feature-length finale on December 31.