It’s clear that Matt and Ross Duffer have been given complete creative autonomy to do whatever they want with Stranger Things, because there’s not another show on the planet that would abandon any semblance of a consistent running time to deliver two episodes of television that run for a combined length of over four hours.
While Netflix subscribers are happy to indulge in as much Hawkins-based content as possible, the creators have already hinted that the fifth and final season won’t be quite as butt-numbing. Or at least, it won’t up until the finale, which has already been teased to run for upwards of two hours.
During a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Duffer brothers explained why Stranger Things 5 will be slightly less epic, but there is a catch.
“The only reason we don’t expect it to be as long is because if you look at it, it’s almost a two-hour ramp-up before our kids really get drawn into the supernatural mystery. You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, what they’re struggling with, adapting to high school, and so forth. Steve’s trying to find a date, all of that. None of that obviously is going to be occurring in the first two episodes of [Season 5].”
The siblings then went on to half-jokingly say that the series finale will be “Return of the King-ish”, and will feature “like, eight endings”. While there was an element of mirth about their comments, the fact the last chapter in season 4 continues for a good 20-30 minutes after the main drag of the plot had wrapped up indicates that Stranger Things 5 will almost certainly ape Peter Jackson’s classic when it comes to tying up loose ends.
