Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Stranger Things finale.
Stranger Things officially came to an end on New Year's Eve, but it wasn't the welcome to 2026 that many fans of the Netflix hit were hoping for.
The Duffer Brothers had promised emotion and devastating consequences as their show finally reached its denouement following nine years of production and filming.
Fans waited for what felt like an eternity to see the final season, which promised to answer everybody's questions regarding the Upside Down, while also putting all of our favourite characters in huge danger.
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While we all came away from the huge Netflix finale with a much better understanding of where Vecna got his powers, there are plenty of folks on the internet who reckon it was all a bit easy when it came to defeating the evil monsters in their home land, known as 'The Abyss'.
After climbing up through the radio tower, Will and Eleven worked together to take down Vecna while the others managed to kill the mind flayer with a mixture of fire and guns, without suffering any significant casualties of their own.
Other than the heart-rending death of Bob in season two, fans have been waiting to see a big character be killed off during the show and it was almost a disappointment when it didn't happen in the finale, even if we all let out a sigh of relief that Steve and Dustin survived together.
Fans were also split when it came to the ending, which had seen Eleven sacrifice herself to ensure that the Upside Down was destroyed and no further children with special abilities could be born - even if we didn't actually see what happened to the pregnant women who were being experimented on with Kali's blood.
However, the eternal optimist that is Mike came up with another theory during the final Dungeons and Dragons game in the closing moments, which suggested that Kali's magic might have helped Eleven escape to start a new life on her own, which only added to fans woes as it meant that every major character had potentially survived.
That ambiguity was seemingly always the plan for the Duffer Brothers, and they talked about why she was never going to feature in the final scene, which emulated the opening scene from season one with the kids in Mike's basement playing D&D.
Ross said: "There was never a version of the story where Eleven was hanging out with the gang at the end. For us and our writers, we didn’t want to take her powers away. She represents magic in a lot of ways and the magic of childhood.
"For our characters to move on and for the story of Hawkins and the Upside Down to come to a close, Eleven had to go away. We thought it would be beautiful if our characters continued to believe in that happier ending even if we didn’t give them a clear answer to whether that’s true or not.
"The fact that they’re believing in it, we just thought it was such a better way to end the story and a better way to represent the closure of this journey and their journey from children to adults.
Matt Duffer added: "And the reality is, 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.
"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."
So while Eleven didn't appear at the table, we did see her out on her own, and it's up to us to decide whether that really happened or whether it was just Mike's coping mechanism.
Topics: Stranger Things, Netflix, TV
James Moorhouse