How ‘Stranger Things’ Ended After 5 Seasons

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Stranger Things” Season 5, Episode 8.

“Stranger Things” reached its epic conclusion after five seasons and almost a decade, with an epic battle that took Eleven and company to their breaking point in the Upside Down and beyond.

Episode 8, a supersized installment titled “The Rightside Up,” picked up with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and company putting their beanstalk plan into motion, battling the evil Vecna (James Campbell Bower) just as he got close to merge the real world with his darker dimension, the Abyss.

The result was a two-hour extravaganza of poignant moments, callbacks, sacrifices and more as viewers saw the end of Netflix’s biggest franchise to date — at least for now.

Operation Beanstalk

As crafted by Steve (Joe Keery), the crew planned to make their last stand against Vecna, and rescue the kids he’d stolen to help merge worlds, when the Abyss dimension got close enough to the real world to be reached from the top of the Upside Down’s laboratory tower. Then Eleven and her sister Eight/Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) would use their psychic powers to infiltrate Vecna’s mind, with Max (Sadie Sink) as their guide.

Before the battle, Will (Noah Schnapp) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) shared a sweet heart-to-heart about Will’s coming out in Episode 7, where they agreed to remain the best of friends. When the worlds start to merge, they realize the tower is at risk of collapsing as soon as the Abyss gets too close. But Eleven stops the process just in time to save her friends in the Upside Down before they are crushed.

The efforts allow Steve, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and company to reach the Abyss to save the kids. On the way to Vecna’s lair, Steve and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) make amends for their past feuding over Nancy. Just as Vecna starts to manipulate Hopper (David Harbour) into helping him stop Eleven’s efforts in his mind, leading to a confrontation between father and daughter.

Like clockwork, the U.S. military arrives in the Upside Down to complicate things for Hopper and Eleven. And at the Abyss, Will feels Vecna’s presence just as he overcomes his fears of the cave to come after the kids. He tells the rest of the crew to keep going toward the lair to get the kids, while he attempts to use his powers to stop his nemesis from getting them.

Hopper takes Eleven to a safe place, but gets captured when he goes back for Kali. What’s next is a chaotic rescue mission when Murray (Brett Gelman) throws a C-4 at the military helicopter that helps distract them with enough time so Eleven can kill Hopper and Kali’s captors. But the efforts aren’t enough to save Kali, who ends up shot dead by enemy fire.

Vecna’s mind

Max, Eleven and Eight’s mission in Vecna’s memories first takes them to 1959, the time when he first earned his powers — and also when the Netflix show’s Broadway spinoff “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” takes place.

They make their way through Joyce’s play before finding the right spot in the memory to push through to Vecna’s house where he was holding the kids in time to stop the merging of worlds. That leads to a big showdown between Eleven and Vecna, allowing enough time for Max to lead the kids toward safety in the cave.

But when Vecna plays with Hopper’s mind to get him to stop Eleven, he takes them off the chessboard — leaving Holly (Nell Fisher) alone to guide the rest of the kids to the cave to safety.

They make it into the cave, but Vecna fights through his fear to come after them. Holly helps get the kids to the cave where young Henry/Vecna was first infected by the Mind Flayer particles, after killing the Russian scientist who held them. The scientist tried to warn him not to let the Mind Flayer consume him, but young Henry killed him instead.

Experiencing that memory stopped Vecna from getting to Holly, and also helped Will realize that Vecna was a vessel for the Mind Flayer. But Vecna quickly clarfied he was always working alongside the monster to carry out the merging of worlds — and that reveals that Vecna’s lair in the Abyss had been the Mind Flayer itself the whole time.

Final boss

After the Mind Flayer shows itself, Eleven shows herself in the Abyss and lunges inside the monster to fight Vecna on the inside. The rest of the crew devise a plan to hurt the Flayer — and in turn Vecna — by hurting it in its weak points.

Working together, Will and Eleven are able to give finishing blows to both monsters. It seemed like victory was upon them, with Nancy finding Holly and the rest of the crew helping save the rest of the kids.

But Vecna wasn’t dead just yet. The group all gathered and it was Joyce (Winona Ryder) who axed the evil man to death, as they all recalled all the people they lost along the way.

Sacrifice

With success in their hands, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) gives Hopper and Murray the green light to blow up the Upside Down. But just as they thought they had won, they are ambushed by Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton), who captures them in an effort to finally get her hands on Eleven.

But she’s outsmarted once again. Eleven left the truck and opted to sacrifice herself by shutting herself in the Upside Down before it got destroyed — just as Kali had told her to do to finally end the suffering forever. Mike, Hopper and the team watch in anguish as the Upside Down and Eleven are destroyed by the explosives and the portal closes, seemingly for good this time.

18 months later…

The show then flashes forward 18 months, as Hawkins, Indiana, puts the finishing touches on rebuilding and we see a memorial to the lives lost in “the Great Earthquake,” a likely excuse for all that happened.

Robin is still working in WSQK The Squawk and shares how tranquility has once again come to town. And just in time, for the class of ’89 to graduate, which includes all our heroes. Meanwhile, Steve Harrington has settled into a new role as coach of the local youth baseball team and teaching sex education. Nancy and Jonathan went their separate ways and left town, but returned for the big day for their respective siblings. Jonathan went to NYU and is working on a film, while Nancy dropped out from Emerson and is now working as a journalism trainee at the Herald.

As everyone prepares for graduation, Joyce gets a call that Mike’s mother can’t find him. Hopper finds Mike at the memorial, and he admits he doesn’t plan to walk in the ceremony in honor of Eleven. He blames himself for not being able to save her, but Hopper tells him she made the choice to save everyone, and now it’s Mike’s turn to decide to move forward in honor of her sacrifice. With that he does end up making it to graduation, just in time to reunite with his family — including dad Ted, whom we hadn’t seen since a demogorgon almost killed him.

Dustin ends up giving a passionate D&D-inspired valedictorian speech about how all the drama that happened across the show’s run brought the town back together. Then he took the moment in the spotlight to create a last bit of chaos, with the help of Erica (Priah Ferguson) with a massive but playful prank.

After the ceremony, Nancy, Jonathan, Steve and Robin catch up on the last few months and pledge to always prioritize their friendship. Hopper and Joyce have a romantic dinner together where he proposes to her, after the promise to start their new lives together potentially away from Hawkins. Of course, Joyce says yes.

And though the guys get invited to a cool girl’s party, they all come together to celebrate finishing high school and overcoming their shared trauma. Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Max, Mike, Dustin and Will gather in the basement once more to play Dungeons & Dragons — with Mike writing happy endings for each of their characters.

And that’s when Mike theorizes Eleven’s real fate. He says that she and Kali used their powers to fake her sacrifice, and that she really escaped and found peace by settling in a small, remote town, away from where she could be found. They don’t know if it’s real, but they choose to believe it is as they make their separate ways.

Then Holly and some of the kids who were rescued from Vecna take over the basement, getting ready to kick off their own D&D adventure. All is right in the world, finally.

Who died in the “Stranger Things” finale?

The first major casualty of the finale was Kali, who was shot by one of the military members who held her and Hopper captive in the Upside Down. The soldier who died, Lt. Robert Akers, is especially significant because he’s played by the same actor who plays Dr. Brenner in “The First Shadow” broadway production.

The biggest death was of course Eleven herself, who sacrificed herself so that the U.S. government wouldn’t have any more infected blood to experiment and replicate this nightmare with ever again. But Mike’s story about her faking the sacrifice put her fate into question — maybe she is alive and happy in a remote place.

The other big death was Vecna, who Joyce decapitated after Eleven and company helped defeat both him and the Mind Flayer.

Steve almost became the finale’s first casualty, as he nearly fell from the tower where the crew stood to enter the Abyss, but Jonathan Byers grabbed him just in time to save him. Other fakeouts included near death moments for Eleven (when Hopper “shot” her in the water tank), and Dustin and Nancy when fighting the Mind Flayer.

Is there a post-credits scene?

There is no post-credits scene to the “Stranger Things” series finale.

And while there’s no sequel to the epic series in the books, and the Duffer Brothers have said they’re not interested in exploring these characters further, fans can look forward to the premiere of animated series “Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85” set to premiere in 2026.

There’s also talks of a spinoff series in development, which would focus on new characters in a new location and a whole new mystery.

“Stranger Things” is now streaming on Netflix.

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