Credit: Netflix

Nobody, and we mean nobody, is still not over that Stranger Things finale, and can you blame them? The show ended back in December 2025, and fans are still trying to figure out what really happened to Eleven. Did she survive? Did she sacrifice herself? Did she go to the place with three waterfalls, or was it just Mike’s theory? Was that final sound meant to hint that she’s still alive somewhere?

Well… we know two men who definitely know the answer, and they are none other than the show’s creators, Duffer Brothers. The problem is, they apparently want everybody to wait 20 years for it.

Yep. 20 freaking years! They revealed it on Josh Horowitz’s ‘Happy, Sad, Confused’ podcast. When Horowitz asked when viewers could expect answers, Ross replied: “If we’re talking to you in 20 years about Stranger Things, then in 20 years.”

Sadly, Ross Duffer was joking. The audacity of this man to leave every fan devastated and then joke about it needs to be studied.

And if you think that was the wildest part, wait till you hear what he said next. He also added, “I hope people still care [by 2046]. That would be great, and then I’ll say everything.” So basically, the plan is to keep the mystery alive for as long as humanly possible.

Now, if you watched the season five finale, you already know why fans are so divided. The final episode saw Eleven and the Hawkins crew come together one last time to defeat Vecna, but the ending never fully confirmed whether Eleven survived the battle. Even the characters inside the show seemed unsure. By the final moments, they chose to believe she was still out there somewhere, staying hidden, and that makes sense for her character, too.

And remember that final heartbeat-like sound? The Duffers actually addressed that, too, during the podcast. Matt Duffer admitted the sound was written to potentially feel like a heartbeat, saying: “It is written in the script that it is supposed to sound like a heartbeat.” But then he clarified that the sound itself was distorted enough to leave room for interpretation. In other words, yes, they knew exactly what they were doing to everybody emotionally.

What’s funny is that even some of the cast members came away with completely different interpretations of the ending. Actors including Gaten Matarazzo and Sadie Sink previously suggested they believed Eleven may not have survived. But according to Matt Duffer, those conversations never actually happened with the creators.

Now that it’s straight out of the creator’s mouth, you can finally choose to believe your own interpretation because nobody’s going to remember this in 20 years. Or who knows?

The reason why we’re keeping the possibility of The Duffers actually thinking of something good by then is that the ending received mixed reactions from the viewers. Some fans loved the emotional ambiguity, while others were convinced Netflix was secretly planning a surprise extra episode because they refused to believe the story would end with that many unanswered questions still hanging around.

The good thing is, you might find answers to some of the open-ended questions, as Netflix’s expansion of the Stranger Things universe with new spin-offs. One live-action series is currently in development, alongside the animated project Stranger Things: Tales From ’85.

So yes, even though the original series is over, the conversation around Stranger Things clearly is not going anywhere anytime soon. See you in twenty years, Strangers!