Stranger Things Final Season: Cast Says Goodbye After a Decade Ahead of November 26 Premiere

After ten years, Hawkins is closing its gates. Stranger Things Season 5 — the final season — begins its three-part rollout on November 26, and the cast is in the middle of an emotional farewell tour, sitting for exit interviews about growing up on television's biggest sci-fi phenomenon.

Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin spoke with Backstage about their favorite cinematic endings, coming to terms with the show's end in the days after wrap, and their advice for young actors. Wolfhard was candid about the pressure, telling The Hollywood Reporter the team worried about a Game of Thrones-style backlash: "I think everyone was pretty worried, honestly… But then we read the scripts. We knew that it was something special." David Harbour has been the season's biggest champion, telling Collider the finale is "spectacular" and will leave fans satisfied.

The numbers tell the story of the phenomenon: Season 4 was among the most expensive TV productions ever at around $30 million per episode, and the final season is reportedly even bigger at $50–60 million per episode. The eight episodes arrive in three drops — Volume 1 on November 26 (four episodes), Volume 2 on Christmas (three episodes), and the finale on New Year's Eve.

For a generation that watched Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Max and Eleven grow up on screen, the goodbye is personal. As Entertainment Tonight's cast interviews show, the stars feel it too — a decade of bikes, Christmas lights and Demogorgons ending where it always had to. Hawkins forever.

The rollout strategy is itself an event: three drops across the holidays, ending on New Year's Eve — a victory lap designed to dominate the cultural conversation for five straight weeks. Ten years after a missing boy and a girl with a buzzcut changed television, Hawkins gets the send-off it earned.

Photo: TheWrap, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons