Stranger Things Fans Have A Cool D&D Idea For The Final Episode
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"Stranger Things" is the kind of TV show that's tailor made for fan theories, both about what's going to happen on the show, and which artifacts of pop culture are going to show up. The show is set in the 1980's and wears its love for that decade on its sleeve. For fans, part of the fun with each new season is trying to predict whether it will contain a reference to "Back to the Future," or the Garbage Pail Kids, or Orange Slice soda.
Creators Ross and Matt Duffer have said that "Stranger Things" will end after five seasons. The most recent season to drop is Season 4 Volume 1, which came out on May 27, 2022, with Volume 2 scheduled for June 1. While fans are already enjoying the Hawkins' gang's latest battle with a Dungeons & Dragons-style monster, the Vecna, some are already looking ahead to where the show might end.
On Reddit, Redditor u/PetevonPete shared their idea for the final moment of "Stranger Things," and it makes plenty of sense.
According to fans, Stranger Things should end with the arrival of the 2nd edition of Advanced D&D
u/PetevonPete surmises that the main characters on "Stranger Things" will graduate from high school in the spring of 1989–more on this below. u/PetevonPete envisions a time jump to their graduation. This would mark both the end of the "Stranger Things" story as well as the end of the 1980's, which are as much of a character on the show as the characters themselves.
However, u/PetevonPete noticed that 1989 is also the same year that the 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was published. This could be significant, since D&D is such a huge part of the show.
"I thought it would fit even better for the last scene to be them trying to play it but being really confused by the new rules," u/PetevonPete said. "It would be a great symbolic example of the trope where you bring characters full circle, but with something about them fundamentally changed."
Other Redditors agreed with the overall idea to end the series in that specific year. "1989 is a perfect year to place the last scene of Stranger Things," wrote u/maloftajo. "End of childhood and end of the 80s obviously, but also fall of communism and end of Cold War. So many important things for the show ends there."
Fans' only skepticism of the theory involved whether "Stranger Things" would have such a big time jump. "I doubt the show would go that far," wrote u/hedabla99. "The Duffers say that they want only five seasons, so that means the series would probably end in '87."
So, would "Stranger Things" actually do this?
A brief look at time and time jumps on Stranger Things
First, u/PetevonPete is accurate when they say the boys will graduate high school in 1989. The series begins in the fall of 1983, when the boys are in middle school. In Season 3, it's the summer of 1985 and the kids are about to head into their freshman year of high school. So, they're definitely part of the class of 1989 (via Insider). Also, the Player's Handbook for the second edition of AD&D did come out in March of that year, so the timing would work (via Amazon).
Luckily, Matt Duffer already addressed the question of whether "Stranger Things" Season 5 would jump ahead in time in an interview with TVLine. "I'm sure we will do a time jump," Duffer said. "Ideally, we'd have shot [Seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that. So these are all discussions we're going to have with our writers when we start the room up."
So yes, there will be a time jump. The question is, how big of a jump would it be? Overall, the time between "Stranger Things" seasons is usually between six months and a year. For example, "Stranger Things" Season 3 takes place in the summer of 1985, and "Stranger Things" Season 4 takes place in March of 1986 (via Insider).
So, it seems unlikely that Season 5 would jump ahead four years and take place entirely during their senior year. It's more likely Season 5 would take place in late 1986 or early 1987. If u/PetevonPete's idea did happen, most likely the show would need to do another time jump at the end of Season 5.
But overall, bookending "Stranger Things" with another D&D scene does make plenty of sense.