It’s a weird time in the Stranger Things community. Following a monthslong lead-up to a finale that was so big it screened in theaters, the show’s superfans have been spending their time dissecting the fifth season in order to prove that a hidden ninth episode is coming that represents the true ending of Stranger Things. So far that hasn’t happened — but that doesn’t mean Netflix is done with the series. The streamer just released One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, a two hour-long documentary about, well, the making of season 5. And while it’s far removed from a secret episode and provides little in the way of new conspiracy fodder, it does provide some insights into how the creative team wrapped up Netflix’s biggest show.
My biggest takeaway from watching One Last Adventure is the sheer scale of the final season. Obviously Netflix was going to go big here, but even still it’s impressive to see; the Duffer brothers used 12 stages for filming, including a backlot where the team built downtown Hawkins, and that’s in addition to scenes filmed on location. It’s especially cool seeing some of the craftspeople work on the bigger set pieces, like building and painting the massive, pulsing tendrils that make up Vecna’s lair, or figuring out how exactly to design an office building that is also melting while characters move through it. There are a number of sequences in the doc where the crew stress over just how they’re going to pull off the ideas the Duffers have.
My second biggest takeaway: this season came together on the fly. Despite being in the works for so long — there are shots of table reads dating back to 2023 — the final episode was actually being filmed while the script was still being written. The reason, it seems, is because of the pressure of wrapping up Stranger Things. “There’s always a sense of panic that it’s not going to come together,” Ross Duffer explains early on in the doc. There are a few moments where you can see the writers struggling with what to do. For example, one of the reasons the abyss in the finale is largely devoid of creatures is because the team worried about “demogorgon fatigue.” They also intensely debated how to approach Eleven’s faith in the last episode. “You have to keep toying with the audience,” Ross says, in reference to whether or not El will live.
Aside from that, there isn’t much in the way of revelations, but One Last Adventure does have some fun details. The Duffers hired their own high school drama teacher to play the Hawkins High School principal, and a lot of thought went into how much blood Karen Wheeler needed to lose in her fateful fight with a demogorgon. Even better, there’s a shot of Vecna wearing over-ear headphones that has the potential to be a new meme template, albeit maybe not as much as the time he had an iced coffee.
So yeah, this documentary isn’t the return to Hawkins that many were hoping for, and it’s a pretty standard look behind the scenes of a major production. But it’s also a welcome change of pace: in the age of streaming, behind-the-scenes featurettes have dwindled alongside the physical media that used to house them. So in that way, much like Stranger Things itself, One Last Adventure is a bit of a throwback — and one I hope Netflix leans into more as it pushes into its post-Hawkins future.