The new Stranger Things documentary shows just how delayed creators Ross and Matt Duffer were when it came to finishing the series finale script.
Netflix released the two-hour special One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 on Monday, January 12, where Matt and Ross, both 41, documented their writers’ room trying to plan out the script for the final episode of the show.
“The longer it goes, the more stories you have to tie up and the more character arcs you have to end. The more expectations there are with the audience,” Matt said. “How do you meet those expectations but surprise the audience still?”
Matt and Ross were seen arguing while writers Caitlin Schneiderhan, Paul Dichter, Kate Trefry and Curtis Gwinn tried to help them map out the show’s conclusion. The biggest divide was over Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) ending and how her death would play out on screen.
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As filming was underway for the first half of season 5, Ross and Matt were caught spoiling story lines for cast members multiple times. In order to prepare for the costumes, special effects and set design, the crew consistently asked Ross and Matt for their thoughts on an episode they had no script for yet.
“It’s not like we don’t know what the ending is. It’s all plotted out. I just have to write it. We are just low on time,” Matt explained. “I used to be, like, seven days a week and I can’t do it anymore. I have two kids now and I just … It’s a tough career to have with kids.”
In another conversation from the writers’ room, Matt and Ross defended not killing off too many characters. Matt specifically argued that multiple deaths “just becomes depressing.”
Production on Stranger Things was nearly halfway over when the Duffers visited the set to take the crew “through the big beats” since there was “still no script.” Caleb McLaughlin, who played Lucas, approached Matt and Ross to ask how their “scriptwriting” was going.
“This show is so large and there’s so many pages to shoot that Ross and I can simply not direct the whole thing,” Matt noted in a confessional.
Behind the scenes, the crew discussed concerns about how they “can’t get sets ready in time” if they don’t know what is happening on the show. One of the crew members mentioned that they were “not going to get a final script in time,” so they “have to base” their planning on “conversations with” the Duffer brothers.
Filming subsequently wrapped on episode 4 — titled “Chapter Four: Sorcerer” — which left six months on the production schedule. When asked whether there was a script, a crew member confirmed nothing has been shared yet.
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“We are going to try to get the entire remainder of this season in our heads and understand it,” he said as they prepared to film episode 6.
Matt and Ross had to agree to film certain scenes from the finale ahead of time due to the weather. They weren’t thrilled by the change, saying, “We are shooting episode 8, which isn’t completely written yet. We don’t even fully know what is going on yet. I haven’t read episode 8 through and we are shooting it. I have never done something like this before. I don’t love it.”
According to Matt, they “were getting hammered constantly by production and by Netflix for episode 8.”
“It was the most difficult writing circumstances we have ever found ourselves in,” Ross noted. “Not just because there was the pressure of we had to make sure the script was good, but there’s never been so much noise at the same time.”
Elsewhere in the doc, Finn Wolfhard, who starred as Mike, revealed that they “waited a year” to get a script for the ending. Matt and Ross, meanwhile, admitted they were nervous about the reception to the finale.
“It’s terrifying because you see these shows that people love and adore and the ending falters. They just discard the rest of the show,” Matt said, before Ross added, “You couldn’t leave anything dangling. You have to wrap everything up.”
Matt continued: “We went into production without having a finished script for the finale. That was scary because we wanted to get it right. It was the most important script of the season.”
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Stranger Things became a pop culture phenomenon following its debut in 2016, but as the show continued, the gaps between seasons grew longer. Following the series finale in December 2025, Ross and Matt received backlash for suggesting in interviews that many of the show’s final story lines were up for interpretation.
“We feel really happy with how the show ended up. I think in the finale, in particular, the last scene, which again, we’ve had an idea of what that scene was going to be like for years, and when we sat down to break season 5, it’s the first thing we broke,” Ross told The Hollywood Reporter. “Everything is really building to that moment and making sure that works. Because we knew that no matter what we did, we could do eight hours of entertainment that people love, and then if you slip in the last five minutes, it’s all anyone’s going to talk about! So you just want to make sure you get those five minutes right, and then hopefully everything falls into place. We’re so proud of that scene and the performances from our cast in that scene, so we’re feeling good about it. But it’s always nerve-racking to put it out there for the audience.”
Matt further pointed out that the ending was “challenging” for them.
“When you read about people reacting to the show, sometimes I feel like they’re watching very different shows. And in a way, they are, right? They’re fixated on different aspects of the show that are more important to some people than others. It just gets confusing. So you can’t really work towards satisfying [everyone], because who are you choosing to satisfy?” he shared. “At the end of the day, you do kind of have to shut out all the noise and just listen to your gut and the other writers with whom we’ve been working with for so long, and hope that what we feel is right resonates with everybody else.”
Stranger Things is currently streaming on Netflix.
