Stranger Things raised the stakes at the beginning of the fifth and final season — but will fans be satisfied by the series finale?
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Cara Buono weighed in on the show’s ending — starting with her character, Karen, and onscreen husband Ted (Joe Chrest).
“Like any yearslong relationship, there’s a lot left unsaid between two people. I think the show ends in the best way for everybody,” Buono teased. “With every great show, you can’t satisfy everybody. But I do think that the audiences will be very happy.”
Buono praised creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer for doing “an amazing job” with how they ended the season “for everybody.” For the actress, filming the finale felt like a full-circle moment.
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“I remember the read-through before we got started [on season 5] and we were all together as a cast. That was a great moment. We embarked on what was going to be a full year, which is really unheard of — especially in television. We all thought, ‘That’s going to be a long time.’ But I felt like it went by really fast,” she noted. “And the last day of the show for me was the very last day of shooting.”
Buono recalled the “very emotional” day. “Everybody was there, the families were there and I was in the second-to-last setup for the very end of the show,” she told Us. “So, it was really a beautiful moment. Because in season 1, I was the first day, first scene and first take. For me, it came full circle at the end. It was just a matter of getting out by trying not to cry and getting to deliver my lines.”
Stranger Things, which debuted in 2016, focuses on a fictional town where a series of supernatural events take place and cause mystery and mayhem. After being kept out of the loop about what was taking place in Hawkins for the first four seasons, Buono was thrilled that Karen’s luck changed in the most recent episodes.
“I just wanted Karen to get off the couch and into a fight. And they did that,” she said about the part 1 scene where Karen fought a Demogorgon. “The Duffers approached the scene like filmmakers, which I like. There was a seriousness to it even though it was a lot of fun. The emotion is always driving the action. So, rather than a fight, the storytelling of it is what Karen is unleashing in this moment and what she’s doing to protect her child.”
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The first part of season 5 ended with Karen in the hospital. According to Buono, her character is “alive” and hopefully will join the action before the series comes to an end. Season 5 also connects back to Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which is a prequel play that touches on Hawkins in the 1960s when Karen was a teenager.
“There’s so much lore. There’s so many directions the show can go — from what happened prior to where it can go in the future. What we see in the play is really fun depictions of Karen and Joyce and a lot of the characters. It’s always fun to see what’s changed them over the years,” she explained. “I would be curious to see what happens after all this for Karen as the ’90s begin and where she goes from here, especially after encountering a Demogorgon. As she is going on with her life — to me, that’s an interesting story.”
Buono concluded: “Especially if she moves out of Hawkins once Holly is in college, [maybe] she decides to fulfill some unfulfilled dreams and maybe move to New York.”
Stranger Things returns on Netflix with Volume 2 on December 25, and the finale drops December 31.
