The Duffer Brothers Originally Planned To Kill Off Max In Season 4

Matt and Ross Duffer confirmed they originally planned to kill off Max in the season four finale of Stranger Things.

Sadie Sink's character had a grisly final showdown with Vecna in the last episode of the latest instalment, however we got to see her being treated in hospital.

But that ending wasn't always in the script.

While chatting with host Felicity Day on Stranger Things: Unlocked, the brothers said of Max's planned death: “For a while that is what was going to happen.

"But we ended up in this… we wanted to end it with a little more of a question at the end of the season.”

Just to catch you up to speed with Vol. 2, Max’s fate has been mainly left ambiguous after coming head-to-head with Vecna while stumbling into the Upside Down. 

Vecna brutally attacked Max, started to break all of her limbs and savagely started to permanently damage her eyes.

Thankfully, Robin, Steve and Nancy were able to stop him before he could finish the job.

Max was left blind and paralysed while being cradled in the arms of Lucas, as Hawkins was viciously ripped open. 

The season ended with Max in a coma while Eleven tries to connect with her mind through the Void.

While the brothers admit Max’s storyline is particularly ‘dark’, her fate remains unknown for the next season.

They said: “It’s still really dark and if Max is going to be okay, we just don’t really know. We wanted to leave it up in the air moving forward into Season five.”

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Matt Duffer also went on to describe how he wanted season four to feel like Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as the kids had to ‘actually lose'.

"We wanted our characters to experience what that felt like," he said.

“That was the big idea coming into Season 4 — that they were going to lose.

"We were going to introduce Vecna, and they were going to lose to him. That sets our characters up for what will be the ultimate final confrontation with Vecna and with the Upside Down in Season five.”

While little is known about the fifth and final season, the brothers revealed in a separate interview that it will take place entirely in Hawkins after shooting in so many different locations in season four.

While speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Matt Duffer said: “We wanna go back to a lot of the things we did in season one. 

"A lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in season one — there's something nice about coming full circle.”