“Stranger Things” has concluded its nine-year run, ending its fifth and final season with a single episode out on the last day of 2025.
Fans had a major reaction to the finale, which saw the defeat of the show’s big bad, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and launched our troop of Hawkins, Indiana teenagers into their futures.
A redditor said they cried “for an hour” after the finale. Another called it an “11/10 finale.”
A fan on Threads likened the finale to the feeling of becoming an adult: “Perfect. No notes. For me, that’s exactly what it felt like to grow up. Leaving a sacred portal in time before you’re ready.”
But what exactly happens, and where does it leave Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown)? Here’s what to know about the ambiguous ending.
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.
What Happens to Eleven in the ‘Stranger Things’ Finale?
The episode’s title, “The Rightside Up,” indicates what happens in the finale: Things are put, well, right, and that involves the closing of the Upside Down, the portal that opened in Season 1.
Eleven and Will (Noah Schnapp) defeat Vecna. But there’s more that needs to be done: The Upside Down itself needs to be destroyed.
Eleven seems to understand her role in the next phase of the plan, but others in her life are resistant. “I have to end the cycle,” Eleven tells Hopper (David Harbour), her adoptive father.
He’s skeptical, delivering a speech about her deserving a better life. “Life has been so unfair to you. So cruel. But you never let it break you. I need you to fight, kid,” Hopper says.
But Eleven decides to make her own choice. After Hopper creates a bomb to destroy the Upside Down, Eleven stands in the portal’s doorway and refuses to budge.
She visits her boyfriend, Mike (Finn Wolfhard), psychically before it detonates. “None of this will ever end if I’m still here,” she says. She continues later, “I need you to help them understand my choice.”
She leaves one last message: “I will always be with you. I love you.”
After one last kiss in the psychic-verse, the gang looks on as Eleven sacrifices herself to the bomb that closes the Upside Down.
“Stranger Things” stars Maya Hawke, Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo spoke with Access Hollywood at PaleyLive’s “Stranger Things” – The Final Season Celebration at The Paley Museum and talked about the finale episode.
Wait, But Does Eleven Really Die?
Depends on who you ask.
After the sequence, the episode cuts to the future. It’s the day of high school graduation and Mike confesses to Hopper he’s “not OK” with the idea of moving on from Eleven.
So does he create a story that helps him cope with his new reality, or has he really picked up on an alternate explanation of Eleven’s fate?
At the end of the episode, the gang is back playing Dungeons and Dragons. Using their Dungeons and Dragons characters as stand-ins, Mike tells stories about all his friends and what happens to them next. The show then cuts to their futures, indicating that Mike got it right with his predictions.
“But there is a story he can never tell,” Mike says. The story of the mage — Eleven’s character As for the real story?
According to Mike, Eleven and her sister, Kali, devised a plan to help her escape at the very last minute. “She had to make everyone, including her friends, believe she was dead,” Mike says.
Kali cast an invisibility spell on Eleven, then an illusion spell making it seem like she had been swept up by the bomb. “No one will ever know” where Eleven went, Mike says, but “I like to imagine she’s in a beautiful land.”
The show cuts to Eleven walking through a landscape and finding a small town to live in. “It is here, at last, that she finds peace,” he says.
Will asks, “How do we know it’s true?”
Mike responds, “We don’t. Not for sure. But I choose to believe that it is.”
“Stranger Things” fans have the same choice.
What the Duffer Brothers Said About the Finale and Eleven’s Fate
“There was never a version of the story where Eleven was hanging out with the gang at the end,” Ross Duffer told Netflix’s press site Tudum.
Ross Duffer said Eleven’s death, or disappearance, was integral to the story ending. Eleven represents childhood — and the finale is all about the kids of “Stranger Things” growing up.
“For us and our writers, we didn’t want to take her powers away. She represents magic in a lot of ways and the magic of childhood. For our characters to move on and for the story of Hawkins and the Upside Down to come to a close, Eleven had to go away,” Ross Duffer said.
There was no way Eleven was going to carry out Hopper’s dream of her becoming a “regular” girl, essentially.
The Duffer brothers aren’t ruling out whether she’s alive, but confirm she’s not coming back to the kids of Hawkins. That’s the power of Mike’s story, which allows her to remain a presence in their lives.
“If Eleven is out there, the most that they could hope for is a belief that it’s true because they can’t be in contact with her. Everything falls apart if that were the case. So if that’s the narrative, this is really the best way to keep her alive. And it’s about Mike and everyone finding a way to move past what’s happened,” Matt Duffer said.
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