The Stranger Things season 5 finale ended the hit Netflix show on a seriously emotional note, with the party gathering to play D&D one final time in a poignant mirror of the show's first scene.

Stranger Things Season 5’s biggest twist, that the Mind Flayer was the real villain all along, was pretty well signposted. The end of Season 4 had apparently turned the entire story upside down, with Vecna claiming he was the show’s real villain and that he’d created the Mind Flayer.

Some Stranger Things fans have an incredibly keen eye, and they just may have caught Henry—AKA Vecna—lurking in the background throughout the series—all the way back to the very first episode.

The making of 'Stranger Things' Season 5 is captured in the official trailer for the Netflix behind-the-scenes documentary 'One Last Adventure.'

Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, becomes visibly emotional in the documentary, stating she is "not ready to let go" of the series. Brown appears distressed during a script-read-through with Noah Schnapp, who portrays Will Byers.

Matt and Ross Duffer, the co-creators of the popular Netflix supernatural action series Stranger Things, defended the recently aired and long-awaited coming-out scene of its teenage character Will Byers after online commenters criticized the scene for seeming rushed and awkwardly written.

Joseph Quinn's Eddie Munson finally gets his graduation wish thanks to Dustin Henderson in the Stranger Things Season 5 epilogue.

The supposed “real” Stranger Things Season 5 finale is dropping on Netflix on January 7, but is Conformity Gate real?

After building up momentum in Volume 1, Stranger Things Season 5 came to a screeching halt in Volume 2. The second part of the final season of Netflix’s mega-hit sci-fi series spent far too much time stalling the action with grueling, cheesy heart-to-hearts, riddled with awkward dialogue, all nuance and subtext be damned.

Stranger Things has ended, but many fans believe what Netflix put out was a fake ending, and after new evidence seemingly emerged, those theories got a boost. After five seasons, Stranger Things' series finale was finally released on the last day of 2025.