The Stranger Issues behind-the-scenes doc is much more boring than a secret episode

It’s a bizarre time within the Stranger Issues group. Following a monthslong lead-up to a finale that was so large it screened in theaters, the present’s superfans have been spending their time dissecting the fifth season with the intention to show {that a} hidden ninth episode is coming that represents the true ending of Stranger Issues. Thus far that hasn’t occurred — however that doesn’t imply Netflix is completed with the sequence. The streamer simply launched One Final Journey: The Making of Stranger Issues 5, a two hour-long documentary about, nicely, the making of season 5. And whereas it’s far faraway from a secret episode and offers little in the best way of latest conspiracy fodder, it does present some insights into how the inventive crew wrapped up Netflix’s greatest present.

My greatest takeaway from watching One Final Journey is the sheer scale of the ultimate season. Clearly Netflix was going to go large right here, however even nonetheless it’s spectacular to see; the Duffer brothers used 12 levels for filming, together with a backlot the place the crew constructed downtown Hawkins, and that’s along with scenes filmed on location. It’s particularly cool seeing among the craftspeople work on the larger set items, like constructing and portray the large, pulsing tendrils that make up Vecna’s lair, or determining how precisely to design an workplace constructing that can be melting whereas characters transfer by means of it. There are a variety of sequences within the doc the place the crew stress over simply how they’re going to drag off the concepts the Duffers have.

My second greatest takeaway: this season got here collectively on the fly. Regardless of being within the works for therefore lengthy — there are photographs of desk reads courting again to 2023 — the ultimate episode was really being filmed whereas the script was nonetheless being written. The explanation, it appears, is due to the stress of wrapping up Stranger Issues. “There’s at all times a way of panic that it’s not going to come back collectively,” Ross Duffer explains early on within the doc. There are a couple of moments the place you’ll be able to see the writers combating what to do. For instance, one of many causes the abyss within the finale is basically devoid of creatures is as a result of the crew anxious about “demogorgon fatigue.” Additionally they intensely debated how you can method Eleven’s religion within the final episode. “You need to preserve toying with the viewers,” Ross says, in reference as to if or not El will dwell.

Other than that, there isn’t a lot in the best way of revelations, however One Final Journey does have some enjoyable particulars. The Duffers employed their very own highschool drama trainer to play the Hawkins Excessive College principal, and quite a lot of thought went into how a lot blood Karen Wheeler wanted to lose in her fateful battle with a demogorgon. Even higher, there’s a shot of Vecna carrying over-ear headphones that has the potential to be a brand new meme template, albeit possibly not as a lot because the time he had an iced espresso.

So yeah, this documentary isn’t the return to Hawkins that many have been hoping for, and it’s a reasonably normal look behind the scenes of a significant manufacturing. Nevertheless it’s additionally a welcome change of tempo: within the age of streaming, behind-the-scenes featurettes have dwindled alongside the bodily media that used to accommodate them. So in that means, very like Stranger Issues itself, One Final Journey is a little bit of a throwback — and one I hope Netflix leans into extra because it pushes into its post-Hawkins future.