Stranger Things caused quite a stir with its series finale, and one of the more divisive elements was the ending of the story for Eleven. The series finale allows for interpretation, with some fans choosing to believe she’s actually dead, while others are hopeful she’s actually alive and well. Most of the cast have revealed their thoughts on the finale and Eleven’s story, but there’s been one holdout, and now the time has finally arrived to find out how they feel about the finale.
In an interview with THR, Dustin star Gaten Matarazzo spoke about his new film Pizza Movie and the final season of Stranger Things, and that’s when he finally shared his thoughts on what happened with Eleven and if he thinks she’s actually dead. “(Laughs.) Initially, I was like, I’m going to keep pleading the fifth. And then everybody else started saying what they thought, so maybe I will do the same. But I feel like it’d be such a bummer to get on that train and say that I think she’s dead as well. I definitely believe Dustin thinks she’s dead. He’s such a pragmatic, scientific dude who looks at all the evidence in front of him, and I don’t think he would truly believe it the way an optimist like Mike would. But for his friend, he will probably always say that he does believe she’s alive,” Matarazzo said.
“But for me, I’m just going to say that I don’t know. I think she would be [dead], but I also see a world where Matt and Ross would flip it around at some point. I think that’s kind of their intention. So “I don’t know” is what I will say right now,” Matarazzo said.
Eleven’s fate wasn’t the only aspect of the Stranger Things finale that Matarazzo addressed, as he was also asked about Conformity Gate and the secret series finale. When the final episode was released, a theory picked up steam that there was going to be a surprise ninth episode of the series that was the true series finale. The Duffer Brothers addressed that theory and promptly shot it down, but it still didn’t stop the presence of the theory.
After the supposed time frame for the secret episode came and went, the theory was eventually put to bed as fans accepted that the series finale was, in fact, the finale. That said, Matarazzo remembers an encounter where someone actually skipped out on a date because they thought the ninth episode was supposed to air that night.
“So while it was fun to watch from afar, there was secondhand disappointment on my end because I felt bad having to say that nothing was coming. There were a lot of people genuinely really stoked for it. But that’d be pretty sick if it happened. Certain projects have been doing some pretty crazy publicity stunts lately, so I get why there was an idea,” Matarazzo said.
The complete Stranger Things series is now streaming on Netflix.
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