The Duffers Talk Eleven's Fate In Stranger Things' Final Episode, But I Have A Hole To Poke Through Mike's Theory

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched Stranger Things’ series finale via Netflix subscription, so be warned!

Welp, it finally happened, everybody. Not only was Vecna’s planet-smashing agenda stopped in its tracks, but Stranger Things’ final season finally gave Winona Ryder’s Joyce something to do besides coddle her son Will. That’s not our focus here, however. No, this spotlight is focused on seemingly the series finale’s biggest development and the series’ biggest death overall — Eleven sacrificing herself as the Upside Down was destroyed — as well as what the Duffers said about it, and why I think Mike’s hopeful explanation doesn’t fully make sense.

Let’s first quickly break down what actually happened: The show’s giant protagonist group successfully defeated the Mind Flayer, decapitated Vecna, and saved all of existence, but they couldn’t evade Dr. Kay and the military. With nearly everyone rounded up, Eleven suddenly appeared at the dimensional breach for an emotional finale exchange with Mike in the mindscape Void, set on sacrificing herself as it was previously hinted at. Despite all of his pleas, she fades into the ethers as the Upside Down is destroyed forever.

Amusingly, the show skips past the immediate aftermath to jump forward 18 months, and it doesn’t look like any of the teens or adults faced much heat for all the death and destruction caused during that tumultuous period. A fateful realization during the graduation ceremony leads Mike to posit a theory for how Eleven may have actually survived her martyrdom moment. But let’s first check in with the Duffer brothers for their thoughts.

The Duffer Brothers' Take On Eleven's Stranger Things Fate

While watching the finale, I was a bit confused by the way Eleven just disappeared from existence in front of everyone’s eyes instead of meeting her maker in a more visceral way. But I didn’t necessarily think right in that moment, “This is probably just a ruse,” and I fully bought into the idea that she made the ultimate decision to keep her friends safe along with the rest of humanity. So when Mike offered a separate explanation for his friends to gnaw on later in the episode, I was genuinely surprised.

Matt and Ross Duffer spoke with Netflix Tudum about all kinds of details that popped up in the finale, including those previously teased pivotal music cues that no doubt referred to Prince and David Bowie being represented. When asked about Eleven, however, they chose not to divulge any concrete resolutions, and instead opted to leave it in the minds of audience members, with Ross saying:

On the one hand, this is the most predictably wishy-washy way for the esteemed creators to offer a final answer on Eleven’s fate, since it would be a big ol’ downer if they immediately confirmed beyond a (first) shadow of a doubt that she’s dead now, and Mike’s rose-colored glasses are wholly flawed. On the flip side, it might also feel like a cop-out if the Duffers 100% guaranteed that Mike’s speculation about her survival was legit, since it would heavily water down the emotions of their final scene together in the Void.

As such, the happy medium here is for the writing/directing siblings to leave it up to viewers to decide whether or not Eleven is actually out there living her best waterfall-enjoying life. I’d love to know a percentage of fans buying in on that, and how many are convinced that she’s a goner. Because part of me would love to believe it, but I don’t think that Mike’s theory makes sense all the way through.

Why Mike's Theory Doesn't Completely Hold Up For Me

For one, I think it's wild and slightly non-feasible that Mike's grand theory was first sparked by the graduation ceremony's speakers, yet he didn't say anything about it until the end of the group's Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Seems like a strange way to voice such a massive idea, even if it isn't legit, but my bigger issue is that Mike's theory about Kali and Eleven's plan is based on several different leaps in logic, as noted below.

1. Kali and Eleven seemingly would have needed to know that the group would be immediately caught by Dr. Kay's soldiers after driving through the breach. (And why wouldn't Eleven suggest a different exit if she did know?)
2. The plan relied entirely on Kali being alive long enough to project the image of Eleven at just the right time, despite not having any guarantee for how long it would take to stop the Mind Flayer and Vecna.
3. Kali seemed to be mentally wiped by the energy used to project her own image into the lab, and she at least knew how that space looked, so it would seemingly take even more effort to project another person into an unfamiliar location.
4. Eleven seemed to be able to lock eyes with Mike surrounding their time together in the Void, which seems extremely hard to do with a mental projection.
5. Kali would have likely needed real-time access to El and Mike's convo, as well as knowing what the situation was in the Upisde Down, in order to know when to make Eleven disappear.
6. The soldiers would have needed to immediately lose track of Eleven while rounding everyone up and....wait, no, I can 100% buy into this, since all of those soldiers were absolutely terrible at their jobs.

Certainly there are further details that I could dig my critical heels into, but that lineup represents the biggest hurdles in the way of me buying into Mike's hopeful guesswork. I guess the only way to truly convince me here is for Netflix to announce that Millie Bobby Brown is heading up a new Stranger Things spinoff focusing on Eleven's trials and tribulations as a globetrotting adult. I'll be refreshing my inbox for that press release regularly, Netflix!

I'm hoping one day soon, after the entire world has witnessed the events of "The Rightside Up," that Matt and Ross Duffer will open up with a firmer stance on whether or not Eleven survived the wormhole's desctruction. But until then, we'll presumably be able to reconnect with Eleven when the animated spinoff Tales from '85 hits the 2026 TV schedule.