‘Stranger Things’ creators defend their upcoming epic feature-length finale in season four
(Credit: Netflix)

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'Stranger Things' creators defend their upcoming epic feature-length finale in season four

Stranger Things season four has been split into two separate volumes. The first volume comprised seven episodes and premiered on Netflix on May 27th, 2022, becoming an instant sensation, smashing previous Netflix premiere records.

The second volume is scheduled for a July 1st, 2022 premiere. It will contain only two feature-length episodes, with the upcoming finale, titled ‘The Piggback’ being nearly two-and-a-half hours long.

When questioned about the gargantuan length of the episodes, the creators, the Duffer brothers (Matt and Ross Duffer) were quick to defend the finale. While the showrunners had not anticipated any of the episodes to be so long, it only made sense during the editing process, according to att, since they did not want to disrupt the pacing of each episode.

Matt has argued that none of the episodes would make sense at a shorter length.  “Structurally we have this year- I think it was four major storylines. And they each have three or four beats per episode. So they’re all building towards a specific point,” he explained.

Ross added, “We looked at the final episode ’cause it’s so long. There really wasn’t a good spot to break it.” Before granting the audience to “pause” if they wanted to, the showrunners explained how they came about making “a mega episode”:

“Even to do sound and editing, we had to break [the finale] into reels as if it was a movie, which we’ve never had to do before. So reel one is build-up/dread, reel two is action/chaos, and then reel three is sort of our traditional coda/come down after all of that.”

Ross added, “You didn’t really wanna break it after just the build-up, it wouldn’t feel like a satisfying episode. So at a certain point we just said, ‘well, it’s just a mega episode.'”

While fans are excited about the ambitious episode, watch their candid interview below: