Originally appeared on E! Online
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for “Stranger Things” season five, volume three.
Friends don’t lie — and neither does Sadie Sink.
After the “Stranger Things” series finale ended with Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) sharing an alternate ending for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who was believed to have died while destroying the Upside Down, Sink shared her opinion of what really happened.
“I think she’s dead,” the actress — who played Max Mayfield in the Netflix show’s last four seasons — admitted on the Jan. 5 episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” “I think Mike’s story is just one last story and then they say goodbye to childhood. But that’s just one final tale and that’s it.”
Instead, the 23-year-old believed that Mike telling pals Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) and Max a story that Eleven escaped and found herself in paradise was simply a coping mechanism. Although Max and the rest of the group proclaimed that they believe she’s alive, Sink is content with the ending.
READ How Stranger Things’ Spinoff Will Answer “Loose Threads” After Series Finale
“I think it’s stronger,” she added. “That’s my interpretation.”
But it turns out some people know what really happened to Eleven: Millie and co-creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer. However, they plan to keep the truth a secret.
“We were just talking to Millie about it,” Matt explained on the Jan. 4 episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “I think it takes away the power of the ending if you tell people what you were thinking as you were writing it.”
The brothers emphasized that there was a reason they chose to leave Eleven’s fate ambiguous.
“We want the audience to be in the shoes that Mike and the whole gang are in, which is, it’s up to you to choose whether to believe or not,” Matt noted. “I mean, there’s evidence that could point in both directions. So, that’s the intent of the scene.”
Thematically, Eleven represented the “more fantastical elements of the show,” they said, which needed to conclude as the group transitioned into adulthood. However, from a realistic standpoint, the writers struggled to see how she could have her happy ending. After all, a large segment of the American military was hellbent on capturing her for further experimentation throughout season five.
“How does she continue to exist in that world?” Matt explained. “We had that debate and have characters having that debate throughout the season. What could that look like? Is a happy ending possible? Like a full, happy ending where she’s married to Mike and they’re living a completely happy life and the government has laid off them and they’ve ended their experiment?”
He admitted that their team simply “couldn’t figure out a way to make it work.”
While Bobby Brown hasn’t shared her thoughts on the ending, her husband Jake Bongiovi did share an Instagram Stories Jan. 2 with the actress, writing, “I believe!!”
Mike Gavin of NBC Local asks cast members from “Stranger Things” — including Caleb McLaughlin, Maya Hawke and Jamie Campbell Bower — to pick their characters’ best looks.
