WARNING: This article contains significant spoilers from the Stranger Things season 5 finale.
The much-anticipated third volume of Stranger Things season five has finally landed, with a final teaser trailer providing fans with a glimpse of the conclusion. As promised, viewers were treated to a cinematic, feature-length finale as they said their goodbyes to characters they've come to adore over nearly ten years.
With the series now concluded, many fans are left with questions about how Stranger Things ultimately ended, including who perished, who survived, and whether the Hawkins gang managed to defeat the Mindflayer and Vecna (portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower) once and for all while sealing the wormhole between the two dimensions. Here's a rundown on the grand finale of Stranger Things.
Who meets their end in the Stranger Things finale?
Despite the show's reputation for ruthlessly killing off cherished characters, the body count in the Stranger Things finale was surprisingly low. The villainous Vecna and the Mindflayer met their demise, with Joyce Byers (played by Winona Ryder) dispatching the evil antagonist in spectacular fashion, reports the Mirror.
In doing so, the gang managed to close the wormhole between the two dimensions.
Regrettably, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) also lost her life after being shot by Akers (Alex Breaux) as he threatened Hopper (David Harbour). Tragically, Eleven was unable to rescue her sister, who died in her arms.
Hopper managed to eliminate several members of the Wolf Pack Unit, led by Akers, during their attack, with Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) also playing a key role. However, the most significant event was the apparent death of Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who seemed to sacrifice herself, thereby ending the cycle of her powers being exploited.
Is Eleven dead in Stranger Things?
The fate of Eleven at the conclusion of Stranger Things remained uncertain. It was speculated that she had died along with the Upside Down when she decided to stay behind after the detonation of the bomb intended to seal the rift.
As the rift closed, El disappeared, leading everyone, including the military, to believe she had perished.
However, Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) proposed an alternative theory after hearing distortion on the speakers during his graduation ceremony. He shared his hypothesis with his friends that Kali and El had formulated a plan just before Kali's demise.
The plan involved Kali using her powers to create the illusion of El's death.
According to Mike, this was Kali's final gift to her sister before her own death, ensuring that Eleven would no longer be pursued by the military for her abilities. Instead, Mike suggested that El had faked her death to escape from everyone and was now living elsewhere, exploring the world on her own.
A sequence showed El discovering the trio of waterfalls that Mike had vowed to show her should they both make it through alive. Whether this represented reality or merely Mike's vision of El's future remained ambiguous.
Though speculative, this interpretation provided comfort to Mike and his companions.
There was also a sense that Mike harboured hopes of reuniting with her someday, clinging to that possibility. The Stranger Things creators, the Duffer Brothers, have left El's fate deliberately open to interpretation.
Ross Duffer explained to Netflix's Tudum: "[S]he lives on in their hearts, whether that's real or not."
The concluding moments of Stranger Things featured Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) and her mates engaged in a game of Dungeons and Dragons in the basement, symbolising the torch being passed to fresh faces. This scene brought Stranger Things full circle, mirroring how the series originally opened with the initial group playing D&D in the very same Wheeler family basement.