WHO’S GONNA DIE? The Stranger Things Conversation No One Wants To Have

Whelp, with T-minus less than a week to go, it’s time to write the article I’ve been dreading. I love Stranger Things, I love these characters, and I want them all to wind up in a good place. However the likelihood of the finale killing someone off is very high.

“But this show never kills anyone,” some say….well, it’s definitely killing someone this time, and someone who’s a major player. The Duffers have said you’ll be “crying into your popcorn” as everyone weeps around you in the series finale. They haven’t been subtle about it.

I had my guesses, and my fears, but after watching Season 5 and observing all the dominoes being set up, one fan theory has taken a giant leap forward. It brings me no pleasure to give you this news, so please try not to shoot the messenger. Here are the five lead suspects. Deep breath; we’re diving in.

WILL

Odds: 90%

THE CASE FOR

• In the D&D game that opens the series, Will Byers The Wise, heroic magician, makes a sacrifice to save his party. The Duffers have said “everything comes full circle” in the ending which could definitely mean he does it in reality. The fan theory I mentioned earlier has been expecting it for a long time.
• Everything has been set up for this to happen. Will now has powers. He’s headed to the Upside Down. His powers don’t work outside of the Upside Down. It screams “sacrifice.” We are heading here at warp speed.
• The Duffers have also said “It Begins And Ends With Will” multiple times.
• We just had that big weepy scene where he came out of the closet. Wouldn’t that be even MORE effective if he died afterward? (It’s the show’s logic, not mine, don’t throw tomatoes at me.)
• Will doesn’t appear to believe he’s going to die. Other people think they’re going to die but Will hasn’t said a peep about it. Misdirection.

THE CASE AGAINST

• Noah Schnapp hasn’t blurted out loud that Will dies yet.

That’s it?? That’s all that’s against?? Ack! We said the odds were high, didn’t we?

EL

Odds: 50%

• I don’t think I’ve ever been so concerned for the fate of a person who doesn’t exist in my life. El is not just one of my favorite characters in the show, but one of my favorite characters in anything, and the possibility of a very predictable sacrifice scene, and no happy ending, has had me dreading the final episode for many years. But this percentage used to be a lot higher until a Chekhov’s Gun was introduced in Season 5 that could end up saving her life.

THE CASE FOR

• Season One told a very self-contained story for El that ended with her supposed self-induced demise to save everyone. To bring things full-circle she could do it for real.
• Kali’s logic for the suicide pact she wants to enter with El seems airtight.
• In the making-of book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down, which came out in 2018 and covers the first two seasons, Ross Duffer says this: “Eleven was going to sacrifice herself to save the day. That was always the endgame. But once we realized the show was potentially going to go on longer than one season, we needed to leave it more up in the air, because deep down we knew the show just wouldn’t really work without Eleven.” Nothing to lose now.
• They said “everyone” was satisfied with their ultimate fates at the end. Millie would be fine with El dying. (She hasn’t said so but…she’s got that Sigourney Weaver energy.)
• AND THE BIG GRAND-DADDY OF THEM ALL, though it depends on whether you believe it: someone said they sneaked on set and caught an epilogue scene being filmed on the street that took place in the summer of 1989 and had Hopper and an older-looking Mike emerging from a showing of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I don’t know why Mike would be going to the movies with Hopper, and not his girlfriend…unless they were reminiscing about the loved one they both lost.

THE CASE AGAINST

• Point #1 has existed since Season Two was released, but it’s just been invalidated by El’s plot to kill herself that doesn’t invoke a repeat of the classroom scene. She’s not going to heat up and explode herself and Vecna / the Mind Flayer like dynamite, she’s going to simply stand around. That’s, eh, anticlimactic.
• Point #2 is invalidated by Misdirection and the fact that the suicide pact only SEEMS airtight. It feels for all the world like they WANT us to think this. We are no doubt missing a key bit of information. There is also the possibility of Kali dying before this plot can be pulled off; see Kali section.
• Nothing in this show is ever straightforward. If El thinks she’s going to kill herself she probably won’t.
• El is the bravest, most fearless, most badass person in the entire state of Indiana, and possibly the world. It is completely against her character to take the Coward’s Way Out.
• THE CHEKHOV’S GUN: now that it has been established that El wants to escape to someplace “with at least one waterfall,” there MUST be a waterfall scene, no ifs ands or buts. There are no waterfalls in the Upside Down or the Abyss. This spoils the whole thing (and I could not be more relieved about that). She could not go through with it…or she could stay behind on the bridge and then SEEM like she died, but if there’s anyone who can survive in a void, it’s El. We could get all the way to 1989 and the theater and anything else while still keeping up the illusion that El perished, but the very last scene would HAVE to have a waterfall and, therein, her potential reappearance. Or maybe poor abandoned Mike just sits around waterfalls for the rest of his life. The song in the end credits is “Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls” by TLC.
• It was revealed in a recent interview that the Upside Down was created by none other than….El. By accident, so she may not even know. Suppose she finds out. Maybe she can make something else. Maybe a beautiful place with a waterfall. Maybe even three.

KALI

Odds: 99.9%

THE CASE FOR

• It seems like a waste to have a character that can create illusions and then not have her make any in the final battle. Like, come on.
• And if Kali tries that at least once, Vecna will get so mad that he’ll make Kali his main target. And she can’t do much else.
• It’s an easy offing that causes drama yet doesn’t affect the main cast. The show has certainly gone to this well before.
• Kali has to go away so El doesn’t have anyone interfering with that whole waterfall thing.
• There’s a shot from the trailers we haven’t seen yet…it’s El moon-leaping over a chasm as Vecna reaches for her. It’s not in the Abyss or the lab, it’s in the Upside Down. Kali is nowhere to be seen.
• If Kali survives all that and comes back without El, Hopper will kill her with his bare hands. (I’m only half-joking; he literally said this.)
• If Hopper doesn’t kill Kali I will
• Come on, do you REALLY think she’s going to be standing around with everyone else in the epilogue?

THE CASE AGAINST

• I can’t think of anything. Seems like an easy bet. We didn’t make it 100 just to be safe.

STEVE OR DUSTIN OR BOTH

Odds: 10%

THE CASE FOR

• They made a “you die, I die” pact. Isn’t that another Chekhov’s Gun?

THE CASE AGAINST

• Not necessarily. It’s more of a Misdirection At Work device. There is no valid story reason to kill these people off. And the show doesn’t go for senseless shock death stunts.

I said earlier that if someone thinks they’re going to die, they probably won’t, but if they don’t suspect they will, then it’s possible. Steve, Dustin and El think they’re going to die so their odds are lower. Kali thinks so but…she’s a special case in the form of an Expendable Special Guest Star. Will, however…you fans better hope he starts becoming self-aware.

All right…..time to be real. I got three hours of sleep last night and the previous night wasn’t very good either. And yes, it’s because of the show. I’ve been worried about El’s fate for a long time, I’m about to find out, and the show is doing no favors by punching me in the face with it. I think we can all agree this inevitable day has been delayed as long as possible (there’s an alternate universe somewhere where Stranger Things wrapped in 2022)…nonetheless, here it is. I know none of this is real and I’m getting upset over Play-Doh and I should go touch grass and whatnot. Doesn’t change how I feel.

There’s a new Variety interview where Matt and Ross admit a happy ending for El seems impossible under the current circumstances, but stop short of declaring it. “How can there be a happy ending here? That’s the question going into the finale.” They charge the viewers with guessing the answer. They won’t solve this mystery, CAN YOU?

I admit…probably not. But that’s not through any fault of mine. It’s because the game is rigged. We already had a Who Shot Mr. Burns-esque moment where fans had to guess who “vanishes” at the beginning of Episode 2. Just like Maggie, no one could have figured it would be…Holly Wheeler, an extremely ignored background character who suddenly took a central role in Season 5A.

I gave my best shot at guessing the fate of Max Mayfield. I had no chance at all of figuring out she was trapped in Vecna’s brain, because nothing in the entirety of Season Four suggested that was even possible. No one figured out ahead of time the true nature of the Upside Down or if it was connected to anyplace else…because there were simply no clues, only revelations. And yet despite that, none of these things feel like ass-pulls. They were simply missing puzzle pieces that weren’t placed down yet. They said the Upside Down’s true nature had been figured out before Season Two began production.

This means if it’s possible for El to get a happy ending, I have no hope of guessing how. It’s surely related to something that no other episode but the finale will reveal. I have nothing to lean on, nothing to reassure myself beyond my theories. Maybe I’m onto something with that “El has creation powers” factoid; if so, I wonder why an interview would spell it out.

But I’ve been wrong before. And there’s a chance, however remote, that it might really be that straightforward. The waterfall could lead to nothing. The show would not end with Mike and El happily reuniting, but Mike and Hopper placing a waffle at El’s makeshift grave. The fact that Will has pulled ahead in the death chatter doesn’t do much to ease my nerves, partly because they could BOTH go and partly because I know Will has rabid fans and I’d rather no one has to feel like I feel right now.

When this episode finally becomes available, I’ll have to spoil myself. Once the manipulative stuff starts I’ll pause the show and scan through the thumbnails, and if El’s smiling face isn’t one of the final images…I may just not finish it.