One Last Adventure, the new behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the final season of Stranger Things, came out on Monday. Now that Conformity Gate, the fan theory that there was a secret ninth episode that would serve as the real series finale, has been proven untrue, fans have turned their attention to what inside information they could learn from the documentary.
Unsurprisingly, parts of the fandom have spent the past few days dissecting it. They jumped on clips, quotes, and even froze certain frames. Thanks to a screenshot that shows a draft of a script in progress on a computer screen, some tenacious fans think they’ve uncovered a new conspiracy: That Ross and Matt Duffer were creeping on Reddit to get plot ideas and used ChatGPT to help write scripts.
Stranger Things season five backlash has reached new levels after fans supposedly caught the Duffer brothers using both Reddit and ChatGPT while writing the script. The revelation came after Netflix dropped One Last Adventure, a documentary that takes us behind the scenes of the making of the fifth and final season of the show.
One clip doing the rounds shows Matt and Ross Duffer working on a script draft on a laptop, with the apparent Reddit logo on one tab catching the attention of internet sleuths.
“Duffer Brothers had a Reddit tab open while writing the Stranger Things 5 ending,” one X user wrote alongside a snippet of the scene.
The implication is that the creators were consulting fan commentary or theories when penning the final season, and scores of fans took the claim and ran with it.
“Who on Reddit is responsible for the terrible ending?” one user wrote, while others said the Duffers “took the ending from the wrong [Reddit] post” or suggested that “the subreddit unwittingly played a role in the finale”.
But the Duffers’ extracurricular ‘research’ didn’t stop there. Another viral screenshot from the doco, also lifted from script writing sessions, seemingly shows the ChatGPT logo on at least one tab as the Duffers tap away at the finale.
“The Duffer brothers really used ChatGPT for this script? WTF,” one fan wrote, with others claiming the use of AI would explain “why the finale felt different and incomplete”.
But for every dissenter, there was a defender. Some fans rejected the claims by explaining that chatbots were not at their peak when the finale was being written, while others described the viral screenshots as “desperate”.
The blurriness of the screenshots makes it difficult to say with absolute certainty that the Duffers used Reddit or ChatGPT. Much like Eleven’s fate in the finale, it’s up to you what to believe, but it’s not the only tidbit to emerge from the Stranger Things doco.
I looked at the screen shots. I think it’s too blurry to tell if that’s the ChatGPT logo or not, but it does look like they at least have Reddit open. Even if they did have both sites pulled up, that doesn’t mean that they were consulting either one to write the script. I have Reddit open in a tab right now, and it’s for a subreddit that I like to read when I take breaks during the day. As for ChatGPT, it’s more likely that they were using it for research than to draft text of the script. There are not enough gratuitous em dashes in that document to be a smoking gun! It also looks like they had Zillow up. Sometimes a tab is just a tab. That said, I absolutely believe that the Duffer brothers lurk on fan sites and subreddits. They’ve said in the past that they try to avoid all social media theories, but I don’t buy that at all. They totally look to see what people are saying about Stranger Things. What’s the point of creating a mythology-heavy mystery show if you don’t look at some of the insane or brilliant theories that fans come up with? That’s half the fun.
While I understand why some want to blame bad ChatGPT dialogue, I think the bigger deal is that the Duffers were still trying to figure out things like how to end Eleven’s storyline as they were shooting the finale. There were also instances where the actors caught things about their characters that the Duffers either forgot about or ignored. For example, while filming episode six, Maya Hawke pointed out to director Shawn Levy that Lucas doesn’t know about Robin and Vickie and told him that she wanted to do the laundry room scene differently to reflect that. They had a bajillion years in between seasons four and five to lock all of this down. It blows my mind how chaotic that production seemingly was.
Duffer Brothers really used chatgpt for this script? WTF 😡😡 pic.twitter.com/f2fyOZ7zWa
— Vicky Shinde (@iamshinde83) January 12, 2026
Photos credit: StillMoving.Net for Netflix, Getty Images for Netflix
If they were using chatgpt for “research” that would be even worse! It is text generator software at best.
Plus, they had the resources to hire an actual researcher and a whole writer’s room. That’s what kills me about them not having a finished script for the finale: there are professionals for just this purpose! You don’t have to just shoot the draft and hope everything comes together!
The fact that there was 18 months between seasons and they were STILL writing episodes when production started is insane to me! What were they do for all those months?!?
Some writers don’t have the chops, and it shows. Embarrassing for them.
‘’As for ChatGPT, it’s more likely that they were using it for research than to draft text of the script.’
Omg that does NOT make it better!
Using AI and LLMs for anything (esp like this!) is detrimental. Dont rationalize. Dont whitewash. There is NO excuse.
I’m a TV writer. I would never use Reddit to source plot ideas, but… I often have a Reddit tab open, because (wait for it) in addition to being a writer, I’m a person who likes reading Reddit.
Likewise, just because they had ChatGPT open doesn’t mean they were using it for their job. I hate ChatGPT and won’t use it for anything, but I have a friend who swears by it for meal planning. My point is there are a lot of reasons why a person might have ChatGPT open and there is absolutely nothing in the way of a smoking gun here.