People love to hate finales.
There’s just too much pressure put on the showrunners to wrap everything up and make everyone happy. There have been some legendary hits (Six Feet Under) and misses (Game of Thrones), and now, as the last batch of Stranger Things episodes ever airs, fans are wondering how the Netflix behemoth’s conclusion will fare. Namely, they want to know: Who will live to see the finish line?
Past seasons have featured notable finale deaths, such as Bob in Season 2 (bye, Samwise), Billy in Season 3, and Eddie in Season 4. There’s a pattern here: Both characters showed up for the first time in the season where they die, and they’re all adult men—though still young. Still, patterns can be broken in a final season, and I suspect they will be. We know someone is gonna die during the final battle for Hawkins, Indiana. They played “Who Wants to Live Forever” in the trailer!
Here are my guesses for who will live and die in the last few episodes, in order from safest to most likely to be dead by the time the credits roll.
(Warning: Spoilers for Episodes 1-4 of Season 5, and some references to other TV shows’ finales.)
Safe: The original party
Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas are endgame. Stranger Things creators, the Duffer Brothers, might kill one of the original party just because they want to take out our hearts and stomp on them, but it would be a storytelling mistake. No one in this crew could be sacrificed and the overall arc of the show still make sense. The story is about these four overcoming monsters with the power of friendship (and telekinetic friends).
But Will! He’s possessed! In the last moments of Episode 4, Will realizes he can control the darkness within and saves his friends. I’m sure he will wrestle with the immense power over the next few episodes, but this kid has to live. The whole premise of the show is that Will has to live.
Safe enough: The little kids
Erica, Holly, and all of Holly’s classmates are going to make it because they’re too young to die. Fiction logic dictates that an innocent kid can die at the beginning of a season or series, but a character we’ve come to know or that our main characters are trying to protect can’t die in a series finale. Also, Delightful Derek is a new favorite. He needs a spin-off.
Must live: Max
No way are they going to have her be in a coma, come back (we assume), and then die. She’s going to come back, save the day, hopefully get to have the final blow against Vecna (like in Game of Thrones with Arya vs. the Night King), and then reunite with her boys. She and Lucas can grow old together, and everyone will sing “Neverending Story” as the credits roll. Too optimistic? Fine. But I think she has to live.
Had better live: Steve Harrington
Do not take away our Steve. Steve is the dad of the group and needs to continue in that role. I have a feeling they’re going to toy with us regarding Steve for the next few rounds. He’s going to need a near-death experience at least once before this is over. However, we’ve all come to love the unlikely hero, and he and Dustin need to be friends forever and ever. He and Robin, too. I’m rooting for him and Nancy.
OK, I am pretty scared that I’m wrong and all the romantic talk in the last season and the strong dad vibes mean Steve is going down, but I refuse to succumb to the darkness. That’s how Vecna gets ya. Steve is my “Running Up That Hill.”
Probably will live: Robin and Nancy
I really think these two are going to make it. They’re not technically in the original party, but a lot of the story revolves around Nancy, and not in a martyr way—she’s getting her own mystery book! The center of a love triangle never dies.
Robin is a ray of light. If it were not the last season, I’d say she’s 100 percent safe. I’d also hope we don’t have a bury your gays situation where we save Will but lose Robin. It’s not Highlander—there can be more than one.
Robin’s girlfriend, though…? She might be toast. They’re never going to Enzo’s.
Probably OK: Joyce
Joyce was the emotional center of Season 1 and has been relegated more and more to the sidelines ever since. However, all she’s ever wanted is for Will (and her other kid, I guess) to be OK, and she will sacrifice herself for the kids, that’s for sure, as demonstrated when the Demogorgon came after them. I do believe she will be rewarded (or punished) with her life, regardless of whether she succeeds at protecting all the kids.
Danger Zone: Eleven
If anyone has a martyr mentality, it’s Eleven—or rather the Duffer Brothers’ writing of her. She sacrificed herself at the end of Season 1 and in every battle since. She’s been used pretty much exclusively as a weapon for the last two seasons, and will likely be part of the key to wrapping this whole thing up (teaming up with Will?). In the end, she’ll have to live the rest of her life as a civilian for real this time.
Her “sister” is totally dead, though.
Poetic Death: Jonathan
If all this time we were trying to keep Will safe, and then we lose Jonathan, it would feel like a poetic tragedy. Also, it would make it emotionally complex for Nancy and Steve to get together if Jonathan kicks the bucket. I envision him giving Nancy and Steve his blessing before saving the day and dying in the process.
He’s an adult, so he can die according to my made-up rules about child death, and it would be sad but not horrifically painful to lose him—kind of like when one of the twins died in the last Harry Potter.
Good Riddance: Hopper
He’s faked us out twice now (Russia and then going into the vault with a bomb vest in the last episode), which means third time’s a charm? Fiction logic dictates that he’s safe since the show has tricked us before. But also, who else has been listening to the Lily Allen album and thinking Hopper going kablooey might be sweet vengeance, even if the one we’re mad at is David Harbour and Hopper is a good guy?
The whole “I love you, Jane” proud dad speech was touching, it’s true, so it might be something he says now that comes back later when he dies heroically or whatever. I can’t care about him anymore, and he’s never gonna take Joyce to Enzo’s, is he? No one ever gets to go to Enzo’s.
Dead weight: Murray, Mike’s Parents
Murray is a great character, but he is the kind of character we can lose. We will care that he dies, like when Bob got slashed by a monster, but it won’t be as upsetting as if one of the kids gets it.
Mike’s parents were humorously tuned out in the first few seasons and have now been retconned into suddenly being caring parents.
Karen had a nice turn fighting the Demogorgon with a broken wine bottle, but these three adults are ultimately expendable. Nancy and Steve can raise all the children!
Dead: Vecna
Duh. Wait…unless he shows up in the spin-off?
Or…?
Maybe we will watch them all die while Sia plays. They were all dead the whole time (jkjk don’t come for me Losties)? Or Mike is playing a game of DnD alone in an insane asylum after his best friend disappeared as a kid and he never got over it, forever trapping his memories in a snowglobe-like hallucination? Maybe it was all a dream? They do keep playing that “Dream a Little Dream” song. We’re going to find out that Vecna’s favorite song is “Don’t Stop Believin’” and then the screen will cut to black.
I’m joking, but honestly—HONESTLY, I think the best possible ending for Stranger Things is something more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s finale: Sunnyvale has fallen into a crater, the Hellmouth is closed, and the gang wonders, “What are we gonna do now?” I hope our Stranger Scoobies get to bid the Upside Down adieu in a similar fashion and play one more game of DnD in Mike’s basement before they go.
