The Stranger Things series finale left fans divided, and some viewers are even convinced the ending was fake — with a secret extra episode still waiting to be released.
The hit Netflix series came to an end on December 31 after five seasons, which were released across the span of nearly a decade. The last episode wrapped up at 2 hours and 8 minutes, but some fans weren’t thrilled by how the story concluded.
In the days since the finale premiered, a viral “Conformity Gate” theory appeared online claiming there were Easter eggs pointing to another episode. According to various social media posts, the time jump at the end of the finale is an illusion created by Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).
Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and their friends appeared to defeat Vecna — and the Mind Flayer — in their final battle, which left Eleven’s fate up in the air. A flash forward then offered a glimpse at a happy ending for those still in Hawkins. While some viewers were happy to see the group thriving after years of being plagued by supernatural beings in their small town, others felt the ending was too hopeful.
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The social media accounts for Stranger Things seemingly addressed the theory by changing their bios to read, “ALL EPISODES OF STRANGER THINGS ARE NOW PLAYING.”
Stranger Things became a pop-culture phenomenon following its debut in 2016, but it was also known for its long gaps between seasons and lengthy episode runtimes.
Creators Ross and Matt Duffer have yet to weigh in on the “Conformity Gate” speculation. They recently received backlash, however, for suggesting in interviews that many of the show’s final story lines were up for interpretation. Some critics have also pointed out there is context provided in the Broadway play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which is not accessible to the majority of the show’s fandom.
The Duffers previously confirmed their plans to expand the Stranger Things franchise with a spinoff.
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“So we have an idea, but the idea is to ultimately pass the baton to someone else who is hopefully talented and passionate. Even the idea of Ross and I doing a pilot and then leaving it, it just feels silly to me. You need to be there from the beginning to the end. We need to find a partner to help us with that,” Matt explained during an episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in July 2022. “I don’t want to do another decade in the Stranger Things universe. [But] we do want to be very involved.”
The writing duo added: “It is 1,000 percent different from [Stranger Things]. It is not following [any of the main characters]. That is not interesting to me because I feel like we have done all that. It is very different. But it shares a connection with Stranger Things and the most connective tissue is the storytelling sensibility of it. There is [a] story that connects to Stranger Things.”
Stranger Things is currently streaming on Netflix.
