'Stranger Things' makers tease what to expect in finale episode

Stranger Things season five, volume two has premiered, and now fans are gearing up for the finale episode, slated for the New Year.

While there are six days for finale to be released, the creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, revealed that the final episode is going to have higher emotional stakes than any episode yet.

"It's Stranger Things. We gotta go out in a big way," Ross Duffer said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

While clarifying that the upcoming episode, Rightside Up, isn’t their longest, Matt added, “It's very large in scale, but I think it's more character-focused than any of the other episodes in the season. With the 2-hour runtime, you're able to do both."

The previous episode, The Bridge, served a specific function to set up the climactic events to come.

The Hawkins gang gathered around to break into the dark dimension known as the Abyss, rescue kidnapped children, stop Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and collapse the Upside Down.

Connecting the seventh episode with the eighth one, Ross explained, “What we really wanted to make sure we did this year with the penultimate episode was get the plan in motion so that episode 8 can start at a sprint as opposed to generally with our finales where they're building the plans and it's climaxing.”

He continued, “This way, by just starting at a sprint, one, it's fun, but also it gave us more time on the backend to spend with these characters and wrap this up properly because we didn't wanna feel rushed at the end.”

“We wanted to be able to take the time that we felt that these characters deserved,” he said.

Stranger Things' final episode will have limited screenings on December 31, timed to its global premiere on Netflix and will run through January 1, 2026.