With production on Stranger Things Season 5 slated to begin in 2023, series creators Matt and Ross Duffer are starting to share more hints about the upcoming season. While they haven't spoiled anything or revealed any significant details, they have set the tone for what fans can expect in the fifth and final season — tears to be shed.
“We turned in the first script a couple of weeks ago and we’re onto the second. It’s full steam ahead,” Ross Duffer revealed during an FYC panel over the weekend that was attended by the series creators, director Shawn Levy and stars Millie Bobby Brown (attended virtually), Caleb McLaughlin, Priah Ferguson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Joseph Quinn and Eduardo Franco.
While the the script will likely undergo some changes throughout production, the overall plan for the end of the series seems to have been mapped out already. And the two-hour pitch meeting for the full season had Netflix executives in tears.
"We did get our executives to cry, which I felt was a good sign that these executives were crying,” Matt Duffer said. “The only other times I’ve seen them cry were like budget meetings."
“Those were different tears,” joked Levy, who added, “As a witness and having been in that two-hour pitch room and having read this first script — I’m paralyzed with fear that I’ll spoil anything but I will say the thing about these Duffer Brothers is that even though the show has gotten so famous and the characters have gotten so iconic and there’s so much about the ’80s and the supernatural and the genre, it’s about these people, it’s about these characters. Season five is already so clearly taking care of these stories of the characters because that’s always been the lifeblood of Stranger Things.”
Season 4 of Stranger Things finally started to dive into the backstory of the Upside Down, which up until now has been one of the show's biggest mysteries. While Season 5 will continue to explore this dimension, the Duffers acknowledged that they have a lot of character arcs to wrap up as well.
Ross stated: "But just as important as the supernatural, we have so many characters now — most who are still living — and it’s important to wrap up those arcs. A lot of these characters have been growing since season one so it’s a balancing act between giving them time to complete their character arcs and also tying up loose ends and doing our final reveals.”
Unfortunately, these hints at the upcoming season leave us with more questions than answers, like what exactly was it about from the pitch that made the executives cry? Does the three-way triangle between Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan end with heartbreak? Does Steve finally get killed, which I know everyone — myself included — expected to happen in Season 4? Does something even more traumatic happen to Eleven? The questions are boundless and we won't get answers for quite some time.
As for the theme of the final season, Ross revelaed that it will be a "culmination of all the seasons, so it’s sort of got a little bit from each."
“Whereas before each season was so distinctly… [Season] 3 is our big summer blockbuster season with big monsters, and [Season] 4 was the psychological horror. I think that what we’re trying to do is go back to the beginning a little bit, in sort of the tone of 1," he explained.
One thing that will continue from Season 4 is the size and scope of the episodes. Ross added that "scale-wise," this final batch of episodes are "more aligned with what [Season] 4 is."