Warning: Spoilers Below for Season 5 of Stranger ThingsThe series finale of Stranger Things has been released and, rather than being a massive bloodbath, it served as an opportunity to bring our heroes back to where their adventure began. The final season of the series featured a variety of monsters, including the demogorgons, though fans noticed this memorable monster was entirely absent from the final chapter. Creators Matt and Ross Duffer recently broke down how this was intentional, as Jamie Campbell Bower’s Vecna was so oblivious to an incoming attack, he didn’t get to plan to have his sentries attack our heroes. While speaking with The Wrap, Matt Duffer detailed:
“Mainly it’s just that Vecna was not expecting this sneak attack on his home turf. Never in a million years could he even imagine that. They’re there somewhere. We obviously discussed having a demo battle on top of the Mind Flayer battle, but it felt more right to us that why does he need the demos when the Mind Flayer is this giant thing and can attack them? He doesn’t need his little ant army to attack, he’s going to take care of this himself. It’s a giant, desolate planet. If you recall, you see Henry wandering the planet back in Season 4 and at some point in his journey, he does see a demo far in the distance, but it’s not like they’re hanging out in little huts. There’s not like a giant civilization of demos up there.”

Keeping ‘Stranger Things’ Fans on Their Toes

A Demogorgon attacking Lucas in a tunnel.Netflix

When it came time to conclude the series after its debut in 2016, the Duffer brothers were faced with the difficult task of delivering everything audiences wanted from the final batch of episodes, while also not merely repeating themselves. The filmmakers recalled how they toyed with the idea of there being demogorgons in the series finale, but given how often they were highlighted in the episodes leading up to the ending, it felt like overkill. Matt Duffer expressed:
“One of the other things we talked about was just demo fatigue. I felt like we did everything we wanted to do with them in ‘Sorcerer,’ and wanting to keep the focus on Vecna and the Mind Flayer, who’s been absent this season.”
Throughout the series’ run, Stranger Things managed to pay tribute to other seminal sci-fi stories while attempting to avoid outright replicating them. The creators confirmed that they did nearly pay respect to a James Cameron masterpiece from the ’80s. Matt Duffer recalled, “We did at some point have that they were going to come across a giant field of demo eggs in kind of an Aliens thing, but you can’t get all your ideas in there. You remember the eggs?” Ross Duffer echoed, “Yeah that’s in the three-hour version of the finale, which was never written.”

Given how ravenous fans have been about getting as much Stranger Things content as possible, even mentioning there was a three-hour version of the finale will likely spark curiosity, but with the filmmakers seemingly moving on from the franchise, we’ll just have to rely on anecdotal details of what we nearly got in the series’ sendoff.

Stranger Things

Release Date

2016 – 2025-00-00

Network

Netflix

Writers

Kate Trefry, Jessie Nickson-Lopez, Jessica Mecklenburg, Alison Tatlock