Nancy and Jonathan had an emotionally-charged moment — with a proposal — in the second part of Stranger Things season 5 but was the scene actually a breakup?
During the second installment of the final season, which aired on Thursday, December 25, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) found themselves in a near-death situation. This led to a heart-to-heart where they reassessed their relationship — and admitted to holding things back from each other.
Nancy and Jonathan acknowledged that their shared trauma kept them together. “It made me feel safe. But also,” Jonathan said before Nancy added, “It can be suffocating.”
Jonathan ultimately revealed the engagement ring that he was going to use to propose. Instead of asking for Nancy’s hand in marriage though, he asked if she would “not marry” him and noted that getting engaged “was just gonna make things worse” for them.
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“I figure that I have screwed up enough with you that it’d be nice to get something right for once, in the end,” he said. “Nancy Wheeler, will you not marry me?”
Nancy accepted Jonathan’s “un-proposal” and said they loved each other before realizing they were safe. Their attention switched to finding a way out so they didn’t address their relationship status again. After the episodes premiered, Some viewers were surprised to find out off screen that Nancy and Jonathan’s scene was them calling it quits.
“That’s a breakup,” creator Matt Duffer told People on Thursday. “They are broken up.”
Matt said he and cocreator Ross Duffer have known for “a while” that a breakup was in the cards for Nancy and Jonathan, adding, “It’s hard to recall when exactly that idea came, but I think us — and the writers — all felt that Nancy needed to end up on her own and be independent and have an opportunity to find herself.”
He continued: “I mean, how many people wind up with their girlfriend or boyfriend that they met in high school? [They] have a little bit more of a complicated relationship than normal high schoolers.”
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Ross, meanwhile, referred to their connection as a “trauma bond.” The fictional couple has been at the center of the show since it debuted in 2016. Off screen, Dyer, 30, and Heaton, 31, found love and have continued to date as Stranger Things prepares to come to an end.
Us Weekly confirmed in 2017 that the costars took the romance off screen. Dyer later reflected on the “pros and cons” of working with her boyfriend, exclusively telling Us in 2018, “It’s a lot of fun, truly. He’s alright, I guess. He doesn’t mess up our scenes too much! No, he’s great. He’s talented, like everybody in the cast. They’re all super, just great to work with.”
More recently, the actress recalled having to adjust to dating in the public eye.
“The weirdest thing about [our relationship] is other people’s perception and reaction to it. Everything else just feels very human. It’s an understanding that would be hard to replicate. It’s an indescribable thing,” she told Cosmopolitan UK in May 2022. “I’m always curious as to why it comes up. Why do people want to know about it?”
Stranger Things is currently streaming on Netflix.
