Warning: spoilers ahead Season 5, Vol. 2 Stranger Things.
Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler have finally cleared the air in their relationship after two seasons of tension.
Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) have been together since their first kiss in the second season of the hit Netflix supernatural show. But in season four, with the characters traveling long distances—Jonathan in Lenora, California, and Nancy still in Hawkins—it seemed like the couple was no longer on the same page.
This continued in the fifth season. Even though both returned to Hawkins, Jonathan hid from Nancy that he had not applied to Emerson College with her. However, he carries his wedding ring with him. Meanwhile, Nancy leads the team's covert operations in Upside Down, while receiving love not only from Jonathan, but also from her first boyfriend, Steve Harrington (Joe Keery).
Finally, during new batch of episodes released on Christmas Day, Nancy and Jonathan had a real talk about their relationship while trapped in a room quickly filling with a vague liquid in the Upside Down.
Are Nancy and Jonathan separated?
Yes, according to show creators Matt and Ross Duffer, Jonathan and Nancy broke up during that conversation.
“It's a Breakup” by Matt Duffer told people. “They broke up.”
But you'd be forgiven if their current relationship status doesn't seem clear.
A moment of brutal honesty begins with Nancy admitting to Jonathan that she doesn't like The Clash, his favorite band. He replies that he hates reading her articles.
Things got murkier when she revealed that she didn't visit Lenora during spring break back in season four because she felt like she needed “space.” They also tearfully discuss how their relationship was born out of shared trauma, an aspect they felt was “suffocating.”
When Jonathan asks if her feelings of distance are due to lingering feelings for Steve, she refers to the fact that her ex wants six children. Unlike her former flame, she says she doesn't know what she wants.
Finally, Jonathan decides to do “one thing right” and show off the ring he kept in John Coltrane's cassette case. But instead of proposing, he asks Nancy “not to marry him.”
She accepts his “refusal of the proposal.” Concluding the bittersweet moment, they realize they are not going to drown in the thick goo. Rather, the liquid solidified, providing a temporary reprieve from the chaos of the Upside Down.
Although their conversation ended with an exchange of “I love yous” and an intimate hug, the Duffer brothers confirm that the couple are no longer together.
The decision to split from the longtime couple was made to give Nancy “an opportunity to find herself,” Matt Duffer told People magazine.
“It's hard to remember exactly when the idea came about, but I think we – and the writers – all felt that Nancy needed to eventually become self-sufficient and independent and be able to find herself,” he said.
“I mean, how many people are dating their girlfriend or boyfriend that they met in high school?” he added.
The Stranger Things series finale airs on December 31 at 8:00 pm ET/5:00 pm PT, along with the season 5 finale, “Right Side Up.”
