The Netflix series Stranger Things has finally come to an end. Fans have been debating the show’s ending since Netflix dropped the controversial episode, and while most loose ends have been tied up, many feel as though the Duffer Brothers left too many details hanging. Now details for an alternate ending to Stranger Things have surfaced – promising a very different conclusion to the saga.
The series as it stands concludes with Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven sacrificing herself to end Vecna’s legacy once and for all when the Upside Down is destroyed. Mike and friends struggle to accept her death, and while her fate is left ambiguous, Mike tells a story to suggest that she could have survived and found a new place to live with a different identity.
It’s an ending that has fans arguing whether or not Eleven actually survived. Mike and his friends claim to “believe” the story, and as such, it’s become commonplace for supporters of his story to also claim they believe. Now, as pointed out by one fan on X, it looks like Eleven’s fate was once much more obvious.
The alternate ending was spotted by Stranger Things fans as part of a whiteboard featured in One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5. The newly-released Netflix documentary has already come under fire for suggesting that the Duffer Brothers used ChatGPT during the creation of the show. Now, however, fans are mining story details that were apparently dropped from the finale.
“HOLY SHIT!! GUYS THEY COMPLETELY CHANGED THE ENDING TO MAKE IT MORE AMBIGUOUS,” one fan notes on X. “Hopper knows about El’s fakeout and is on it. Kay and Akers were supposed to kill each other. Hopper learns about the new plan from Kali. It explains his acting on the bench. Wtf this is SO MUCH better”
HOLY SHIT!! GUYS THEY COMPLETELY CHANGED THE ENDING TO MAKE IT MORE AMBIGUOUS. Hopper knows about El’s fakeout and is on it. Kay and Akers were supposed to kill each other. Hopper learns about the new plan from Kali. It explains his acting on the bench. Wtf this is SO MUCH better pic.twitter.com/Cit6ZiV8OD
— BettysLilis (@BettysLilis) January 13, 2026
The tweet has since gone viral with thousands of fans in agreement that this would have been their preferred ending. Clearly the Duffer Brothers decided at some point to leave Eleven’s fate more ambiguous, but based on these details, it seemed like they clearly intended for her to survive.
Obviously because the plot points were dropped, it doesn’t mean that Eleven’s survival is canon, and it seems as though her fate is still ambiguous. However, for Millie Bobby Brown fans in favor of her character surviving the events of the series finale, it seems as though this is some solid evidence.
Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates regarding Stranger Things and the future of the franchise as we have them. Though the main series has come to an end, an animated series is scheduled to drop later this year, and a live-action spin-off series is currently in development.