Creators and showrunners Ross and Matt Duffer spoke with the Happy Sad Confused Podcast to discuss Stranger Things season 4, and tease what might be in store for the show’s fifth and final season.

The Duffer brothers explained that season 5’s episodes would not be as massively big as their season 4 counterparts. “The only reason we don’t expect to be as long is, this season, if you look at it, it’s almost a two-hour ramp up before our kids really get drawn into a supernatural mystery. You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, they’re struggling with adapting to high school and so forth, Steve’s trying to find a date, all of that. None of that is obviously going to be occurring [in season 5],” Matt Duffer said. “However, look for the series finale to be as long as a feature film. “We’re more likely to do what we did here, which is to just have a 2.5 hour episode.” 

“For the first time ever,” he continued, “we don’t wrap things up at the end of [Season] 4, so it’s going to be moving. I don’t know that it’s going to be going 100 miles an hour at the start of 5, but it’s going to be moving pretty fast. Characters are already going to be in action. They’re already going to have a goal and a drive, and I think that’s going to carve out at least a couple hours and make this season feel really different… I’m sure the wrap-up will be a lot longer, it’s going to be [The Lord of the Rings] ‘Return of the King’-ish with, like, eight endings.”

Season 5 is also likely to be more focused, as the Duffers (thankfully) confirmed that Stranger Things’ final season will be set entirely in Hawkins – after season 4 was all over the place, from Hawkins and California to Alaska and Russia. “We wanna go back to a lot of the things we did in Season 1,” Matt Duffer said. “A lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in Season 1 – there’s something nice about coming full circle.”

*Stop reading here to avoid season 4 volume 2 spoilers!*

The Duffers also offered some clarity about Max’s fate post-season finale: she is alive, but “brain dead, blind, and all of her bones are broken.” It certainly isn’t looking good for the character going into the next chapter of the show. News of Eddie Munson’s fate isn’t good either… everyone’s favourite Dungeon Master is very dead, the Duffers confirmed, squashing all hopes of a Brenner-like resurrection.