Stranger Things ended over six months ago, but for the actors, they had to say goodbye to playing their characters way before that. Filming on the fifth and final season of the Netflix hit wrapped in late 2024, and understandably, everyone was emotional. (And the Duffer Brothers’ sentimental statement didn’t help.) Since then, the cast has been clear about how difficult it's been to bid farewell to this project, and Finn Wolfhard got real about how depressing it was when the show ended.
Even though Stranger Things had just five seasons, it took close to a decade to make them. That’s a long time to be working on one show, especially for the young cast who grew up on the set. Over the years, they all got very close, and in some ways, this time felt like school to them, as Wolfhard told The Guardian:
That’s what was so great about it. Every year it was like, OK, I know I’m going to be in Atlanta filming this thing with the same people for the next however long. It was like my school in a really odd way. Everyone was having a great time, hanging out … All the cast lived in the same neighbourhood. We would go to each other’s houses all the time.
Well, much like school, Stranger Things eventually had to come to a close, and the kids had to graduate. However, with the time they had left, they made sure to spend it wisely with each other. However, this also made saying goodbye that much harder:
The vibe was almost like, ‘Oh, we’ll back next year,’ but once we got about halfway through, everyone started to realise like, ‘Oh. This is it.’ And then everyone just really valued the time we all had together for that last half. It was pretty depressing for everyone when it ended … but it feels absolutely right that we’ve ended at the time that we did.
It’s never easy to close a chapter that happened during such formative years and that made an impact on so many people. And when you consider how much time had passed between Seasons 1 and 5, it makes perfect sense why it was "depressing" for everyone to come to terms with Stranger Things ending. Even I’m still mourning six months after the divisive finale.
I do agree with Wolfhard about ending the show when it did. A lot of shows these days don’t get the luxury of ending on their own terms. So, some season finales are crafted as series finales if the writers don’t know what the future holds. In Stranger Things’ case, the Duffer Brothers announced the end of the series in 2022, a few months before Season 4 was released and almost three years before Season 5 even premiered. They made the choice to end the show and told fans themselves. It might have been heartbreaking to see it end, but it was definitely for the better. And Wolfhard knows it.
Filming the final season must have been both fun and hard, knowing that at the end of it, they wouldn’t be back for another season. Even though the cast and crew had a couple of years to prepare themselves, when filming eventually wrapped, I can only imagine the kind of emotions that were brought up. Then, having to go through it all again the following year during the press tour was probably even harder.
At the very least, the bond Wolfhard has with his fellow co-stars will hopefully never go away. And as for us fans, we can always watch Stranger Things with a Netflix subscription.
