It should be a surprise to nobody that Stephen King is a Stranger Things fan. After all, much of the series has been inspired by the aesthetics and feel of his books. He regularly shares his love for the show on his Twitter account, but in a rare turn of events, his latest post about the series actually says that he was feeling trepidations about watching the finale of Stranger Things 4. Why? Because it's predecessor in the season is so "full of dread" that the Master of Horror actually felt afraid to watch.
The final two episodes of the latest season of Stranger Things arrived on Netflix this past weekend, and Stephen King apparently dug into the new release fairly quickly. But while he finished the penultimate episode of Stranger Things 4 by late on Saturday night, he Tweeted apprehension about watching the two-and-a-half hour long conclusion:
The penultimate episode of STRANGER THINGS is so good, and yet so full of dread, that I'm almost afraid to watch the last one.July 3, 2022
Stephen King hasn't Tweeted about Stranger Things since then, so it's unclear if he has actually overcome his fear yet and dived into the feature-length finale.
One imagines that Stephen King's appreciation of the show will stop him from waiting for too long before diving into the finale – after all, this is a program that the author has been buzzing about even before Season 1 arrived on Netflix. Stranger Things made its debut on the streaming service on July 15, 2016, and five days before that (on July 11, 2016) he was already anticipating its overwhelming popularity and questioning if it would be big enough to crash servers:
My only question about the Netflix series STRANGER THINGS is whether or not it will be popular enough to crash their servers. It might be.July 11, 2016
More recently he's been enthusiastic about Stranger Things 4, and that goes back to the launch of the first run of episodes in late May. In addition to Tweeting that the season is "as good or better than the previous three," he also let the universe know that he would be onboard seeing a spinoff series based around Nikola Đuričko's new character Yuri. (it has since been announced that a Stranger Things spinoff is indeed in the works, but we have no idea what it will actually be about).
For those of you who are brave enough to dare watching, the final episodes of Stranger Things 4 (a.k.a. Episode 8 and Episode 9) are now available to stream on Netflix, and it's been breaking records for the digital film and television service. Just be sure to clear your schedule before diving in, because it's a king-sized season.
And while fans wait for the eventual arrival of Stranger Things 5 (learn what we know about the episodes with our Quick Things guide, allow me to recommend the wide variety of works of Stephen King – including books, movies, television, and more. There is a long history of terrific King adaptations, and there are always more King movies and TV shows on the way.
