The Stranger Things Series Finale Line That Seemingly Sets Up A Spin-Off

Contains spoilers for "Stranger Things" Season 5, Episode 8 — "Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up"

"Stranger Things" is done — or perhaps more accurately, we should say that the mainline series is over. Ever since it first aired, "Stranger Things" has ascended the ranks to pop culture ubiquity, and an animated series titled "Stranger Things: Tales from '85" will come out later in 2026. The "Stranger Things" writers have also insisted a spin-off based on Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) won't happen, but the final episode does seem to hint that more adventures could be in store for Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce (Winona Ryder). 

During the lengthy epilogue in "Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up," we check in with the pair at a fancy restaurant where Hopper discusses how he and Joyce can move anywhere they want now that her youngest son Will (Noah Schnapp) has graduated and is moving away. He brings up how he received a job offer in Montauk with a hefty raise that would allow them to start over somewhere new without a bunch of baggage and craziness. But the fact they're going to Montauk could have some big implications. 

The original working title for "Stranger Things" was "Montauk," and it sounds like it would've taken inspiration from The Montauk Project conspiracy theory. This theory alleges that the United States government experimented on people in Montauk, New York to develop psychic warfare techniques and conduct research into time travel. Hopper and Joyce may think their days of dealing with monsters and government conspiracies are over, but there could be a lot more of that around the corner.

"Stranger Things" may have gotten a name change from the original "Montauk," but there's no denying that the show still covered a lot of the same ground as the conspiracy. The Montauk Project theory claims the government experimented on people, including children, to develop psychic abilities and mind control techniques. That's a huge part of the premise of "Stranger Things," and a "Montauk" spin-off probably would want to explore something different so that we're not literally getting the same thing all over again.

Prior to the "Stranger Things" finale airing, many theories online speculated that time travel would enter the mix. This was, in part, due to Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens) name-dropping time travel during a science class about wormholes. We eventually got the wormhole via the revelation of the Upside Down being a wormhole connecting Hawkins to Dimension X, but there was no actual time travel in the finale (unless you count some characters entering Vecna's mind and seeing his high school). 

If Hopper takes the Montauk job, he could stumble upon another conspiracy and get mixed up in some time travel shenanigans. The spin-off could even explore the period when he and Joyce were in high school with Henry Creel, aka Vecna, and finally realize the guy they were fighting all along was their former classmate. Maybe Hopper would even want to change the past so that Eleven would never be in danger. It's a big playground to be in, but we'll have to wait and see if it pans out.