Stranger Things ended its nine-year run, concluding its fifth and final season with a single episode airing on the last day of 2025.
Fans reacted strongly to the finale, which saw the series' main villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) defeated and our squad of teenagers from Hawkins, Indiana heading into their future.
A The Redditor said they cried for “an hour“after the final. Another called it the “11/10 final”“
Threads fan compared final feeling of growing up: “Perfect. No notes. For me, this is exactly how I felt growing up. Leaving the sacred portal in time before you are ready.”
But what exactly happens and where does that leave Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown)? Here's what you need to know about the controversial ending.
What happens to Eleven in the Stranger Things finale?
The title of the episode, “Right Side Up,” hints at what happens in the finale: everything is in order, well, rightand that includes closing the Upside Down, a portal that opened in the first season.
Eleven and Will (Noah Schnapp) defeat Vecna. But there is something else that needs to be done: the Upside Down World itself must be destroyed.
Eleven seems to understand her role in the next phase of the plan, but others in her life are reluctant. “I need to break this cycle,” Eleven tells Hopper (David Harbour), her adoptive father.
He is skeptical and gives a speech about how she deserves a better life. “Life has been so unfair to you. So cruel. But you never let it get you down. I need you to fight, baby,” Hopper says.
But Eleven decides to make her choice on her own. After Hopper creates a bomb to destroy the Upside Down, Eleven stands in the portal doorway and refuses to budge.
She psychically visits her boyfriend Mike (Finn Wolfhard) before he explodes. “None of this will ever end if I'm still here,” she says. She later continues, “I need you to help them understand my choices.”
She leaves one last message: “I will always be with you. I love you”.
After the final kiss in the psychic verse, the gang watches as Eleven sacrifices herself to the bomb that closes the Upside Down.
Wait, but does Eleven really die?
Depends on who you ask.
After this, the episode moves to the future. It's high school graduation day, and Mike admits to Hopper that he's “not comfortable” with the idea of leaving Eleven.
So will he create a story that will help him cope with his new reality, or has he truly grasped an alternative explanation for Eleven's fate?
At the end of the episode, the gang plays Dungeons and Dragons again. Using Dungeons and Dragons characters as stand-ins, Mike tells stories about all of his friends and what will happen to them next. The show then moves on to their future, indicating that Mike got his predictions right.
“But there's a story he'll never be able to tell,” Mike says. The story of the magician – the character of Eleven. Regarding real story?
According to Mike, Eleven and her sister Kali came up with a last-minute plan to help her escape. “She had to make everyone, including her friends, believe she was dead,” Mike says.
Kali cast an invisibility spell on Eleven, then an illusion spell to make it appear as if she had been blown away by a bomb. “No one will ever know” where Eleven went, Mike says, but “I like to imagine she's in a beautiful country.”
The show ends with Eleven walking through the landscape and finding a small town to live in. “This is where she finally finds peace,” he says.
Will asks, “How do we know this is true?”
Mike replies: “No. Not sure. But I choose to believe that it is so.”
Stranger Things fans have the same choice.
What the Duffer Brothers Said About the Ending and Eleven's Fate
“There was never a version of the story where Eleven hung out with the gang at the end,” Ross Duffer told Netflix's press site. Tumdu.
Ross Duffer said that Eleven's death or disappearance was integral to the story's ending. “Eleven” symbolizes childhood, and the ending is about the kids from “Stranger Things” growing up.
“We and our writers didn’t want to take away her power. She represents magic in many ways and the magic of childhood. “In order for our characters to move on and for the story of Hawkins and Upside Down to come to an end, Eleven had to leave,” said Ross Duffer.
Essentially, Eleven had no intention of fulfilling Hopper's dream of her becoming a “regular” girl.
The Duffer Brothers have not ruled out whether she is alive, but they confirm that she will not return to the Hawkins children. That's the power of Mike's story that allows it to remain in their lives.
“If Eleven is out there somewhere, the most they can hope for is to believe that it's true, because they can't be in contact with her. If that were the case, everything would fall apart. So if this is the story, this is really the best way to keep her alive. And it's about Mike and everyone finding a way to overcome what happened,” Matt Duffer said.
