Warning: This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4 volume 2.
Stranger Things is no stranger to shocking deaths, as every run of the Netflix juggernaut to date has delivered multiple surprising character exits. As a result, fans are primed for its fifth and final season to push the death count higher than ever before. As the Upside Down bleeds into Hawkins, expect the population of the small Indiana town to drop precipitously.
As for who specifically will perish, though, we have no idea. Neither, it turns out, do the cast. With production on season five being a while away, star Sadie Sink — who plays Max Mayfield — admitted to Deadline that she “definitely” thinks some of the gang will have to meet a tragic end in the last season in order to raise the stakes to an appropriate level. However, Sink’s got no clue who the unlucky ones might be.
“Definitely. With season five being the last season, I don’t know what they have planned. But there are so many characters. Some of the deaths on the show are so impactful to audience members and the other characters in general. But they really moved the story. I know the Duffers are always very careful and calculated with who they’re killing off. They’re never gonna kill a character for the sake of just killing someone off. It always has to move the plot along and be right in that moment and in the story. I have full faith in them.”
Of course, one major question folks have after the season four finale is whether Max will live, as volume two ended with the fan-favorite hospitalized in a coma. Eleven might have managed to bring her back from the dead but she’s not out of the woods — or rather the Upside Down — yet. In the same interview, Sink stressed that creators the Duffers are being “very secretive” about what they’ve got planned for next season so Max’s fate is “up in the air.”
“They’ve been very secretive about season five in general. We did have a conversation. They called me before I read the ninth episode because in the script it literally says that Max dies. So they called me beforehand and were like, ‘just warning you, this is in there, so you’re not like truly shocked.’ I have no idea what’s coming in five and what that looks like. Max’s storyline is very up in the air, ’cause obviously she’s in a coma and Eleven can’t find her in the void. So who knows where she is and what state she’s in.”
Sink clearly knows a little more than us, as her comments hint at what Eleven’s next mission will be at the beginning of season five: she’ll be trying to rescue Max’s consciousness from the void. Seeing as she revived her once, we’ve got every faith El can pull that off, too. But will Max meet her end later in the season instead? That seems like exactly the sort of cruel twist the Duffers would dream up.
For now, revisit all four seasons of Stranger Things so far on Netflix.
