SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the series finale of Stranger Things.
Stranger Things has officially come to an end after an emotional two-hour finale on New Year’s Eve.
It’s been a decade in the making, and throughout the final season, creators Matt and Ross Duffer have sought to answer all the questions about the Upside Down and the supernatural horrors that have been plaguing Hawkins, Indiana, since November 6, 1983. The finale kicks off right where Episode 7, “The Bridge,” ended on a cliffhanger with the characters set to face Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) for one final battle.
The plan was to attack him from all angles, inside his mind and also physically from inside the Abyss. The group runs into quite a few set backs but ultimately prevail, managing to defeat Vecna and the Mind Flayer.
So, does everyone make it out alive?
The short answer is: 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 the timers on the detonators, so the whole bridge is going to come crashing down soon.
As they’re getting apprehended, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) notices Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is missing. He spots her standing just inside the gate to the Upside Down and tries to run to her but is held back by a soldier. El piggybacks Mike into her mind for an emotional goodbye as she explains that she needs to sacrifice herself in order for everyone else to be safe, otherwise the government will never stop their experiments.
She forces Mike out of her void in the middle of his pleas for her to reconsider her choice, just as the bombs detonate and the Upside Down collapses.
But wait — 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’re finishing up a Dungeons and Dragons campaign when Mike tells his friends a theory he has about their mage (which is what he used to call Eleven), who just helped save them from defeat. He theorizes that she didn’t actually sacrifice herself. As he’s explaining his theory, the episode flashes back to the moment the Upside Down collapsed.
This time, it shows Eleven escape 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 El is standing inside the gate, when in reality she’s escaped into the tunnels and gotten away. The screen then cuts to El on a hike somewhere in a mountain range as Mike says he believes their mage stumbled upon a small, faraway town to hide in.
Catching on to Mike’s implications about their friend, Max and the rest of the group are a bit skeptical, wondering how they might know if it’s true. Mike says they’ll never know for sure, but they can choose to believe like he does. They take turns vowing, “I believe” around the table.
So, if we take this at face value, then that means Eleven actually 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. It was up in the air after the Demogorgon took him out inside his home in Volume 1. We’d since seen Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono), but we wondered whether the we’d get to lay eyes on Ted again.
Despite some close calls during their face off with Vecna and the Mind Flayer, the rest of the main characters manage to survive as well.
