If you are one of the few who couldn’t watch the Stranger Things finale on its December 31, 2025, release date and time, you’ve done a stellar job at avoiding spoilers — until now. As expected with any show’s finale, the internet explodes with debate. So, it’s nearly impossible to avoid learning something you wouldn’t have guessed, or maybe even feared, such as a character’s death. Now that Netflix’s hit five-season show is done, fans are wondering if Eleven dies in the end since her conclusion is seemingly left up to the viewers’ discretion.
If you want a breakdown of what happens at the end of Stranger Things, keep reading! (Warning: the following contains spoilers from the season 5 finale episode of Stranger Things)
Eleven definitely looks like she dies, but is she really dead at the end of the finale? Millie Bobby Brown‘s character sacrifices herself when Hopper (David Harbour) creates a bomb to destroy the Upside Down. She tells her adoptive father, “I have to end the cycle.”
She then shares one final kiss with her boyfriend, Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and tells him, “None of this will ever end if I’m still here. … I need you to help them understand my choice.”
The bomb detonates, and Eleven certainly appears to have died. But it turns out that she’s alive. Her sister, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), cast one last spell to produce a fake Eleven, making it look like the real one blows up with the bomb.
The Duffer brothers spoke with Netflix’s Tudum about Eleven’s fate, and for the most part, they kept their points of view as vague as possible.
“If Eleven is out there, the most that they could hope for is a belief that it’s true because they can’t be in contact with her. Everything falls apart if that were the case,” Matt Duffer noted. “So, if that’s the narrative, this is really the best way to keep her alive. And it’s about Mike and everyone finding a way to move past what’s happened.”
