The fifth and final season of Stranger Things came out with its first volume recently and the show has been getting rave reviews. The series has created a global following and creators The Duffer Brothers, Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer, admit that even though they envisioned the final scene of the series years ago, they are still nervous about how it would be received by the audience.
Sharing his emotions about wrapping up the Netflix show with the fifth season, Matt Duffer says, “It was a little stressful. There’s probably more examples of shows that kind of crash and burn at the end then land the plane smoothly. So obviously, that was on our minds. The good thing is we always knew what the last scene was going to be for seven years or so. So that kind of gave us a North Star. We knew where we were going and we were confident, at least in that last scene. When we were working on the season with our writers, it was all about sort of building to that moment. It was challenging, but we’re very happy with it, the actors are very happy with it. And hopefully it resonates for the audience too. We won’t know till it airs on New Year’s Eve.”
Check out the entire interview with The Duffer Brothers here:
Resonating with it, Ross Duffer adds, “There’s so many mysteries and storylines that we’ve wanted to get to and we’ve always been like, ‘oh, we’ll deal with that next season’. But the stress of this season was there was no next one. So anything we wanted to say, any mysteries we wanted to resolve, any character arcs that we wanted to make sure reached their end, we had to resolve this season. Just making sure we got it all in this season was certainly a challenge. But we’re feeling pretty good that we checked off all the boxes that at least we wanted to check off.”
While they created a show that became a global phenomenon, Matt reveals that initially they didn’t have any interest in television as they just wanted to make movies. “But what we’ve come to love about television is that it is ongoing and the story is kind of being written when you’re even shooting, and it is constantly evolving. The characters constantly surprise you and a lot of that is because of the actors. You cast these actors who are maybe a little bit different than you imagined. You get to know the actors, you’re surprised by what they’re doing and that influences the journey of those actors. The most obvious example is Steve Harrington, played by (actor) Joe Keery.”
Making an interesting revelation about Steve, Matt shares, “That character was designed as kind of a jock and bully. He wasn’t supposed to be likeable. He wasn’t really supposed to last. I believe we were going to kill him at the end of season one. But Joe was just so charming that we could write the douchiest line ever and he would sell it and make you love him. So that led us to giving him a bigger and bigger role as the seasons went by. I would say his arc is one of the biggest and probably the one that surprises the most.”
Matt and Ross gave break to five child actors, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin with Stranger Things. And the creators insist that seeing them become global stars and be under constant spotlight and scrutiny, made them feel protective of them. “We’ve all seen horror stories over the years of child actors. It doesn’t always go smoothly as they transition into adulthood. So we have been very protective of them and concerned, but it’s been such an incredible journey and a relief to see what amazing adults they’ve grown into. The key was that they all had each other. It wasn’t just one of them, and they were all going through this experience together. Filming the show over so many years, the spotlight, the pressures that come along with the spotlight, since they were all in it together and they could share that experience and talk to each other, they really managed it beautifully,” Ross says.
