The fear that Stranger Things could ruin its reputation with a dodgy finale worried the show’s cast, star Finn Wolfhard admitted after watching the brutally “torn to shreds” final season of Game of Thrones.
I’m talking to TimeWolfhard cited the widespread reaction to the final episodes of Game of Thrones as an example of how a long-running, big-budget television series can build huge expectations for a hotly anticipated climax, and then create a huge backlash when it fails to deliver.
The negative reaction to the final season of Game of Thrones continues to dominate discussions around the series, following widespread criticism of the plot, pacing and abrupt character development. Many fans blamed the show’s uneven final season on the show’s creators running out of book material to adapt, while others suggested the show was simply trying to do too much in too few episodes. Either way, it has become a model that other series clearly don’t want to follow.
“Honestly, I think everyone was very worried,” Wolfhard said. “The way Game of Thrones was torn apart in the last season, we all conclude: ‘We hope things like this don’t happen.'”
This isn’t to say that Wolfhard is suggesting that Stranger Things will end its run with a similarly polarizing finale – far from it.
“Then we read the scripts,” Wolfhard continued, saying that the show’s actors now felt more confident. “We knew it was something special.”
The fifth and final season of Stranger Things will air on Netflix with four episodes on November 26, with the next three episodes arriving on Christmas Day, December 25. The full-length series finale will then air on New Year’s Eve, December 31, bringing the supernatural saga to an end after almost a decade. No pressure.
After all this, will this really be the end of Stranger Things? Of course not. Netflix already has plans for animated series and at least one spinoff.
This week, fans learned that the final episodes of Stranger Things will close one long-standing mystery about the series – what the Upside Down actually is Is. That’s something.
Photo: Rich Polk/Variety via Getty Images.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s news editor. You can contact Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
