The Stranger Things Documentary Gave Season 5 Haters More Ammunition

Given the very loud fallout from Stranger Things’ series finale and a portion of the horror show’s fandom descending into a mass hysteria in believing that a secret ninth episode might fix the whole season, I have to wonder if there were any conversations at Netflix about not releasing the One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 documentary that went live on the streaming service yesterday, January 12. Already, every word that series creators the Duffer Brothers had been uttering in interviews was being picked apart, and now the conspiratorial mindset fueling that scrutiny has been given a lot of new wood to burn by the documentary.

The two-hour documentary includes behind-the-scenes footage of the writers’ room and table readings, as well as the set of the show during shooting. In a world where Stranger Things hadn’t been combed through by fans looking for any proof that a secret episode was coming, it could have been viewed as a surprisingly honest look at all the moving parts a production of this scale has to contend with. But there’s a segment of Stranger Things fans looking for any explanation as to how it all went wrong, and the documentary sure has a few moments that fans are latching onto.

Some of the things people are pointing out are mostly speculative. In one section, the Duffer Brothers are shown with what fans believe to be ChatGPT and Reddit tabs open on a computer while writing the script for a season five episode. The Reddit logo is pretty clear in one shot, but the ChatGPT one is more contested. Even so, these tabs being open doesn’t actually confirm anything, but detractors are running around with accusations that the Duffers used ChatGPT or relied on fan discussions on Reddit when making important creative decisions, all based on…open tabs? Let’s be serious.

As for more substantial stuff, a few scenes in the documentary have caught the eye of people critical of the season, and more specifically, of the Duffer Brothers. At one point during filming of the finale, Montana Maniscalco, the key production assistant on the show, says that the episode isn’t completely written yet, with the presumptive takeaway being that the Duffer Brothers must still be trying to figure out how the season is going to end this late into production.

Other scenes of note include a moment in the writers’ room in which writer Paul Dichter said that there should be more monsters in the finale’s climactic battle, even going so far as to name the Demogorgon from season one as a potential foe for the Stranger Things crew to face in the final fight. He says it would be “crazy” if there was nothing there. Well, if you saw the finale, you know that’s exactly what happened, and it seems Dichter’s feedback was “ignored.”

In another clip, Maya Hawke is seen discussing a moment her character shares with her girlfriend Vickie. Their relationship is a secret at this point in the story, and we see Hawke is saying she wants to have this conversation “in a whisper.” This, too, is being read in the most bad faith way, with the narrative being that Hawke is having to “remind” the crew about things the writers “forgot” about characters, rather than actors sharing ideas on how things should be played because they’re a part of this process, too, and might have opinions.

I don’t mean to be dismissive of people who didn’t like the ending, but I have “played these games before.” I know what it’s like to be searching for any justification for your disappointment and projecting narratives onto some pretty normal interactions in a creative space. I can’t speak for why they ignored Dichter’s note about the monsters, but Hawke’s point about tweaking that scene? That shit happens all the time in movies and TV. We had this same conversation when James Gunn and David Corenswet had a debate about some lines in the Superman movie. People reacted to it as if it was a “fight,” but this is literally just something that happens when you’re collaborating with someone else on a creative project. 

I know the confirmation bias is too embedded in the Stranger Things fandom right now, with people still holding out hope that there’s another finale locked away in a vault somewhere waiting to fix everything. Y’all can keep fighting ghosts, but I do hope that the people who are still caught up in this conspiratorial cycle find their way out of it.