It’s been about 40 years since the end of Stranger Things, and we’re still feeling its effects. Oh, sorry, we mean about 40 days, but it sure feels like the former, right? Since the finale episode of the show aired on New Year’s Eve just over a month ago, so much has been said about what happened, what didn’t, and what might be coming on the hit Netflix show. And now another one of the show’s stars wants to set the record straight about a few things.
The main thing is Conformity Gate, a wild conspiracy theory that one extra Stranger Things episode was coming after the finale, which got so much traction that even Saturday Night Live parodied it. Caleb McLaughlin was there for that, along with co-stars Finn Wolfhard and Gaten Matarazzo, and in a new interview about his latest movie, GOAT, McLaughlin tried to put the story to bed.
“At first, I thought the ‘Conformity Gate’ theory was dumb,” McLaughlin told the Hollywood Reporter. “I get that people want to live in this optimistic place of, ‘Oh, we want more Stranger Things,’ but the show is done, guys. I was like, ‘Guys, it’s over. It’s been 10 years. We were full-on kids and now we’re full-on adults, and we don’t need any more of us.’”
“The Duffers, our wonderful, amazing creators, wanted to leave everybody with this level of optimism that the show has always given everyone,” he continued. “So if they left the show without that, we would have left Stranger Things without the true essence of what we’ve been representing forever.”
“We started off season one playing Dungeons & Dragons, and we ended just like that,” McLaughlin concluded. “And Mike’s storytelling and writing ability [that’s rooted in D&D] is how the show should have ended. I think people missed the concept of what the show is when they were like, ‘Oh, there’s going to be more.’ No, that’s just Mike’s imagination. That’s who he’s always been, even in season one. It’s all just storytelling.”
Exactly, sir. We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves. Now, of course, Netflix does have an animated series coming, and it filmed the Broadway show, so Stranger Things isn’t done forever. But that main show most certainly is.
Oh, and for that other theory? That Eleven is still alive? McLaughlin laid that one to rest, too. “Yeah, she’s gone. I’m so sorry. I think she evaporated.”
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