ATTENTION, SPOILER! This post contains details of the series finale. Stranger Things.
Stranger Things officially ended after an emotional two-hour finale on New Year's Eve.
Ten years have passed, and throughout the final season, creators Matt and Ross Duffer have tried to answer all the questions about the Upside Down and the supernatural horrors that have haunted Hawkins, Indiana since November 6, 1983. The finale picks up right where Episode 7, “The Bridge,” left off with a cliffhanger, as the characters must face Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) in the final battle.
The plan was to attack him from all sides, inside his mind as well as physically from inside the Abyss. The group suffers many setbacks, but ultimately wins, managing to defeat Vecna and the Mind Flayer.
So, will everyone make it out alive?
Short answer: we think so.
As soon as the crew leaves the Upside Down, they are confronted by the military. Hopper (David Harbour) and Murray (Brett Gelman) have already set timers on the detonators, so the entire bridge will soon collapse.
As they are detained, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) notices that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is missing. He notices that she is standing right outside the gates of the Inverted Place and tries to run towards her, but is held back by a soldier. Al takes Mike into her thoughts for an emotional goodbye, explaining that she needs to sacrifice herself to keep everyone else safe or the government will never stop their experiments.
She forces Mike out of his void in the midst of his pleas to reconsider his choices, just as the bombs explode and the Upside Down World collapses.
But wait—a few months later, we see Mike, Will (Noah Schnapp), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Max (Sadie Sink) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) graduate from high school. After graduation, they finish the Dungeons and Dragons campaign, with Mike telling his friends his theory about their mage (as he called Eleven) who had just helped save them from defeat. He suggests that she did not actually sacrifice herself. As he explains his theory, the episode flashes back to the moment of the Upside Down's collapse.
This time, Eleven is shown escaping with the help of her sister Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), who uses her powers to play one last mind trick on everyone before she dies inside the Upside Down. She makes everyone think that Al is behind the gate, when in fact she ran into the tunnels and disappeared. The screen then cuts to Al, who is hiking somewhere along a mountain range, and Mike says that he believes their magician has stumbled upon a small, distant town to hide in.
Realizing that Mike is talking about their friend, Max and the rest of the group are a little skeptical, wondering how they can know if it's true. Mike says they will never know for sure, but they can believe as much as he does. They take turns swearing “I believe” at the table.
So, if we take this at face value, it means Eleven did make it out alive. It all depends on what you believe.
Oh, and thankfully, the Duffers also confirmed that Ted Wheeler (Joe Chrest) is alive and well. He hung in the air after the Demogorgon destroyed him in his home in the first volume. We've seen Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) since then, but we wondered if we'd get to see Ted again.
