The Stranger Things Season 5 finale is one of the most anticipated episodes of TV in some time. According to star David Harbour, the team behind the show may have made it their best ever.
Speaking during an appearance at the Happy Sad Confused podcast’s 10th-anniversary celebration at New York Comic Con 2024 about the upcoming fifth and final season of the Netflix hit, Harbour said that the cast for the show had just recently gotten to read the script for the final episode of the series.
According to Harbour — who plays Jim Hopper in the show — even though he’s close to the show, he believes the last episode will be special.
What did David Harbour say about Stranger Things Season 5’s finale?
“I can be very critical of this show,” said Harbour (via People), before saying that the team behind Stranger Things nailed it for the final episode. “They land the plane, and it is the best episode they’ve ever done.”
Harbour also went on to say that while reading the script for the last episode, the cast eventually finished it completely crying.
“The end of this episode when we were reading it — just us reading it — about halfway through, people started crying,” Harbour said. “Then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people. Noah Schnapp being my favorite.
“I think part of that also is the fact that these kids, it was their childhood. Like, they started the show when they were 11 and 12, and here we are reading [the finale]. It’s 10 years later, and we examine that idea, and it’s so well done and so beautiful…It’s such a great episode, and it’s such a great season. You guys will love it.”
Stranger Things Season 4 set a record for Netflix, having been viewed for more than 287 million hours during the week of May 23-30. That’s not only good enough for the top spot of the week for Netflix, but it’s also more than enough to break the record for the streaming platform’s biggest-ever premiere weekend for an English-language series. That was previously held by the second season of Bridgerton (193 million hours).