A few years after Stranger Things premiered in the summer of 2016 on Netflix, I joined this publication as a wide-eyed intern with an overgrown fondness for the ‘80s and a playlist full of synthy classics. My first byline was a small essay titled How Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ makes the most of ’80s nostalgia, which was a crude attempt at decoding how a show about Dungeons & Dragons nerds and monsters from another dimension had me so transfixed. Nearly a decade later, everything has come full circle. Who could have guessed that the giddy-headed intern would one day be speaking with the cast and creators of the series that made the ’80s cool again?
November 6, 1983. The night Will Byers vanished from Hawkins, Indiana became the spark for one of the most defining mythologies of modern television. Over its nine-year run, the time capsule of ‘80s Americana — refracted through adolescent fear, friendship, and the supernatural — has become one of Netflix’s crown jewels. The indie gamble-turned-global phenomenon now returns for its fifth and final season. As the story that served nostalgia to the modern pop cultural lexicon nears its end, its cast and creators reflect on a legacy that has long outgrown the screen, and the bittersweetness of bidding farewell.
Time After Time
When asked about when the series evolved from an ’80s pastiche into something larger, the creators of the series, Matt and Ross Duffer, trace its conception. “Even when we conceived of the show, that was one of the last things we talked about,” Ross says. “It was originally inspired by this real-life conspiracy theory in Montauk called the Montauk Project, and it just happened to be set in the ’80s. We thought it would be great as a partial love letter to those movies.”
Few shows have so thoroughly recorded a decade’s cultural residue into global iconography. The Duffer Brothers’ sentimental bildungsroman reintroduced an entire generation to the analogue aesthetics of VHS crackle, Dungeons & Dragons, mall arcades and more, that have always felt distant but strangely evocative.
“For us, even from Season one, it was the story of our childhood,” Ross adds. “Part of that was we consumed a lot of pop culture, but it was about us and our friends growing up. We always just saw it as a coming-of-age story. Season to season, our guiding light was the journey these characters were going through as they headed towards adulthood.”
(L to R) Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, and Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in a still from ‘Stranger Things 5’
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Netflix
Don’t You (Forget About Me)
For Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven — the telekinetic lab escapee turned small-town superhero with a soft spot for Eggos —there is an easy familiarity in how she reflects on the decade she spent growing up with her character. “I don’t think I was rediscovering Eleven in any new ways,” Millie says. “I was chasing closure. I needed answers, and I’m excited for the fans to get those answers too. This season was more like living every day like it’s our last, because it is. I savoured every scene and moment I had with everyone because it felt like it was going to be our last. On the last day, I realised it really was.”
Noah Schnapp has lived a similar evolution through his on-screen character Will Byers — the role where it all began. “It was definitely a challenge this season,” he says. “I wanted to stay true to Will’s quiet intensity, but I also wanted to bring out a stronger, more direct side of him. Staying true to the character while expanding him was a challenge, but exciting.”
(L to R) Noah Schnapp as Will Byers and Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna in ‘Stranger Things 5’
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Netflix
Millie reminisces the memories they had cultivated over the years. “Saying goodbye made me realise how I want to be present in everything I do from now on. As much as it has felt like the longest 10 years, it also feels like yesterday. If I could live through it all again, I think I would.”
She adds, “When my grandma was alive, we showed her Season 3. She had Alzheimer’s, so she didn’t really understand it, but she kept yelling at the TV, ‘That’s my baby!’ Those moments… I’d love to relive them.”
Running Up That Hill
Most memories of the Stranger Things years are rooted in revived pop curiosity about the era it celebrated. Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill surged to the top of global charts after Season 4, while Eggo waffles saw a real-world sales bump post-Season 1. The Duffers’ pastiche of Steven Spielberg’s wonder, David Lynch’s suburbia and Stephen King’s terrors, quickly became a vivid echo chamber for both past and present.
(L-R) Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, in a still from ‘Stranger Things’
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Netflix
The nostalgia that once defined the show now feels almost self-referential, and the cast has become part of the very decade they helped reimagine. Finn Wolfhard and Caleb McLaughlin — who play Mike Wheeler, the earnest dungeon-master-turned-leader of the Hawkins gang, and Lucas Sinclair, the sharp-witted realist of the party — describe what it is like to have grown up in the glare of that mythology. “Specifically this time,” Finn says, “I feel like everyone was savouring everything. I could feel that everyone just wanted to be around each other. It was more deliberate — like, ‘okay, it’s the last season, you better get your hangs in now’. And it’s never enough time, but we have our whole lives together too.”
Caleb reflects on how that connection spilled beyond Hawkins. “Sometimes you don’t realise the impact it makes,” he says. “As a kid, you’re just doing what you love. Over time, people come up and tell you you’ve changed their lives, or that your show brought their families back to the couch. That’s amazing, but I didn’t go into it thinking that. It’s a very grateful, humbling feeling.”
The Duffer Brothers and the cast of ‘Stranger Things’ behind the scenes of Season 3
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Netflix
Electric Dreams
The Duffers credit much of the show’s atmosphere to composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, whose score became synonymous with the series. Matt says, “They’re so integral to what the show is. One of our earliest ideas was to go against what you might expect and use a synth score. We thought, we’re never going to be able to compete with a John Williams-style orchestra, so let’s lean into something different. We even tested it by putting a synth score over images from E.T. — it completely transformed the tone.”
The show’s signature needle-drops of ‘80s hits have also been essential to its identity. Asked about their favourite songs that never made it into the show, Noah is quick with: “Forever Young by Alphaville.” Caleb adds Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears, and Finn mentions Thriller by Michael Jackson. Millie chuckles. “In Season 2, Runaway by Bon Jovi was actually in the show, and the fact that I actually married Jake [Bongiovi] (son of Jon Bon Jovi) is unbelievable.”
Video Killed the Radio Star
When Stranger Things debuted, streaming television was still untested ground and its runaway success redefined how global audiences consume serialised stories. A decade later, as Netflix faces contraction and recalibration, the show’s final season feels like a farewell to that early optimism.
“We just feel lucky that we came to TV at this very specific point in time,” Ross explains. “It was a great period, especially for creatives, because new companies needed shows produced. We had no success prior, and the idea was definitely outside the box. Traditional networks told us no one cared about the ’80s, that we couldn’t centre kids in a show that wasn’t made for kids. But Netflix took the risk.”
(L-R) Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers and Gaten Materazzo as Dustin Henderson, in a still from ‘Stranger Things’
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Netflix
He adds, “Our only hope now is that people keep getting shots like that — that bold ideas keep being made, instead of playing it safe and relying on the algorithm. That’s when you get great stuff.” The brothers have since channelled that belief into Upside Down Pictures, their new banner for nurturing original voices beyond Hawkins.
Stranger Things 5 premieres on Netflix on November 26, with the first four episodes dropping that day, three more arriving on Christmas, and the finale landing on New Year’s Eve.
