Did We Really Say Goodbye to This ‘Stranger Things’ Character For Good?
Stranger Things 5 bid goodbye to Eleven and all her friends this week. A lot of viewers, and prospective viewers, are wondering if Millie Bobby Brown’s signature character met her end in the popular Netflix series.
Well, the answer is complicated. It sure seems like Eleven died as she went down with the ship. (In this case, chose to stay behind in the Upside Down to make sure that the military could not use her blood to make more child experiments.) But, the final picture isn’t quite as black and white as that noble sacrifice would have you believe.
Vecna, and The Mind Flayer, have been thorns in the Hawkins kids’ sides for multiple seasons at this point. Stranger Things 5’s final episode, “The Rightside Up,” decides to ditch all the talking we’ve been doing in this final season of the show and get right to the fight. The kids managed to catch Vecna off guard long enough for Joyce buyers to deliver a final blow to the malignant force that’s been plaguing them. (With one really choice f-bomb in there for good measure!) However, that is not the end of this episode. Not really close when you think about it.
Kali, Eleven’s sister from earlier in the series, made it a point to stress that both super powered young ladies should remain behind in the Upside Down as it closes to make sure that their fate doesn’t befall anymore children. (Also, it’s worth noting that the same weird experiments created Vecna inadvertently. Probably smart to avoid that too.)
Eleven “dies,” but Mike doesn’t seem to think so…
After successfully defeating the big bad, the Hawkins kids try to make their escape back into their reality. But, Eleven decides to remain behind. What follows is a tearful farewell to Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and his piercing scream at Eleven disappearing was frankly hard to watch! Yet and still, when the gang is having their adorable little final D&D game before they leave their childhood behind, Mike still thinks Eleven is out there. For the creators of Stranger Things, they want you to believe too.
There was always going to be a frankly irresponsible amount of lore to unpack with the end of Stranger Things. Matt and Ross Duffer did their best to put a bow on lingering questions about this series in an interview with Tudum. This is always where the road was gonna end for Eleven, and really for the group at large.
Ross Duffer said, “There was never a version of the story where Eleven was hanging out with the gang at the end. For us and our writers, we didn’t want to take her powers away. She represents magic in a lot of ways and the magic of childhood. For our characters to move on and for the story of Hawkins and the Upside Down to come to a close, Eleven had to go away.”
“We thought it would be beautiful if our characters continued to believe in that happier ending even if we didn’t give them a clear answer to whether that’s true or not,” he continued. “The fact that they’re believing in it, we just thought it was such a better way to end the story and a better way to represent the closure of this journey and their journey from children to adults.”
Stranger Things 5 keeps things open to interpretation
The end of Stranger Things 5 might feel a little cloudy for some viewers. But the Duffers want fans to embrace that ambivalence. There wasn’t any real way to give the kids a complete happy ending. The show does go as close to that line as possible in the final entry. Being that their tethers to childhood have been severed for good, Eleven lives on as a reminder of the magic from those years. In a satisfying way, similar to how all of the Hawkins kids will live on inside of the viewers watching at home.
“And the reality is, if Eleven is out there, the most that they could hope for is a belief that it’s true because they can’t be in contact with her. Everything falls apart if that were the case,” Ross Duffer observed. “So if that’s the narrative, this is really the best way to keep her alive. And it’s about Mike and everyone finding a way to move past what’s happened.”
(featured image: Netflix)
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