Stranger Things has now wrapped up the beginning of the end as we bore witness to the final two episodes of the fourth season on the weekend.
The highly anticipated finale saw the core group of characters attempt to take down the evil entity Vecna from various locations, though many fans feared for their favourite characters beforehand, given creators, the Duffer Brothers, had teased a “body count” prior to its release.
As it transpired, we only endured three major character deaths over the last two episodes of the season – Dr Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) and Jason Carver (Mason Dye).
Dr Brenner met his fate in the first of the two episodes after trapping Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in the lab after she tries to leave to save her friends in Hawkins. He believes that she needs to regain her strength to face Vecna.
Sadly, the desert lab is ambushed by Lt. Col. Jack Sullivan (Sherman Augustus) and his team, and while Brenner manages to carry Eleven out, he is shot by a helicopter sniper. Eleven manages to destroy it but subsequently watches Brenner succumb to his wounds.
Meanwhile, Munson falls in the final episode. He and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) must distract the bats in the Upside Down to allow the others to get to Vecna, though as they are attacked in their caravan, Munson lets Dustin go back through the gate before riding off in a heroic act to draw the bats away. As such, he is swarmed and attacked by the bats and later dies in Dustin’s arms.
Finally, we had to say goodbye to Carver later on in the episode after he confronts Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) while he tries to protect Max (Sadie Sink). After they get into a fight, the portal to the Upside Down begins to open, and Carver is sliced in two as the ground parts.
Technically, a fourth death comes when Max is killed by Vecna. After she dies in Lucas’s arms, Eleven manages to use her powers to bring her back to life after piggybacking into her mind, leaving her alive but comatose as the finale comes to a close.
The dramatic season four conclusion leaves much to anticipate ahead of the fifth and final season. Speaking to NME in a recent interview, the Duffer Brothers revealed that they have already decided how the show will end.
“We do have an end,” Matt said. “I’m sure a lot of it’s going to change, but now [it’s] the end. It’s just one of those things that you come up with, and you go, ‘That’s it, that’s right, that’s inevitable – that’s what it has to be.”
He added that it would pick up where season four left off, saying: “Typically in the previous seasons, everything wraps up in a nice bow. Four and five are really [connected] together.”
“[With five], there’ll be no wind-up time – like even this season, you get to experience the kids and what they’re going through in high school before things start to escalate. Then it gets crazier and crazier and crazier – that’s typically the trajectory. Five, you’re just going to be right in the middle of it so it’s going to feel very, very different.”
