One of the wildest reactions to the Stranger Things finale has been a conspiracy theory dubbed “Conformity Gate.” Conformity Gate is the theory that a secret ninth Stranger Things episode would drop on January 7 and serve as the show’s real finale. Jan. 7 was picked because it’s Orthodox Christmas, which fits with the other season five releases happening on holidays. Will also infamously rolled a seven in the very first episode of the series and in one of the final shots, you can see the die with the number seven side up.
CG truthers believed that the ending of the series “conformed” to themes that went against what they felt ST always stood for. According to these fans, the events of episode eight, particularly its long ass epilogue, were actually an illusion created by Vecna and that viewers will get the real final showdown in a surprise bonus episode. Fans have come up with a ton of evidence to support this theory, like the fact that everyone in the graduation scene was sitting with their hands folded in the same way as One’s and possessed-Billy’s always were. They also point to certain plot discrepancies that would make sense if they were in Vecna’s reality. This all may sound like a lot to follow, but Conformity Gate got to be so big that Netflix and the Duffer Brothers finally had to address it.
Amid theories that Stranger Things season five did not actually come to an end with episode eight, the show’s creators Ross Duffer and Matt Duffer shared their honest answer to whether the Netflix series could possibly make a return.
“I feel like this season really, truly does close the door on this story,” Ross told Entertainment Tonight in an interview published Jan. 2, “on the story of Hawkins, and the story of the Upside Down and the story of these characters.”
However, that doesn’t mean revisiting the original characters—including Mike (played by Finn Wolfhard), Will (Noah Schnapp), Max (Sadie Sink), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo)—is totally out of the question in the future.
As Ross quipped, “I guess never say never.”
“[Maybe] in 20 years, if we’re all broke and need some money [and] we’ve all talked about it,” the director added, noting that the idea is his and Matt’s “safety net.”
And while fans may be disappointed that it’s officially time to say goodbye to the Upside Down, the Duffer Brothers’ decision to step away from the story has plenty of support from the cast.
“If there’s a story when we’re all in very, very different stages of our lives, maybe,” Finn told Entertainment Tonight of coming back for more episodes. “But I think that the whole point of the show ending is because it’s run its course.”
And Netflix echoed those feelings, putting an end to an online theory—dubbed “Conformity Gate”—that speculated there would be a surprise ninth episode released on Jan. 7.
Indeed, following the rumors, the streaming platform changed the bios for the official Stranger Things social media accounts on Jan. 7 to read, “ALL EPISODES OF STRANGER THINGS ARE NOW PLAYING.”
Even with the denial, fans still logged onto Netflix on Wednesday night to see if they were right, which briefly crashed their server. I followed a little bit of Conformity Gate over the past week. While some of the theories or evidence presented gave me pause, others really seemed like they were reaching. That said, I never believed the rumors. What we saw felt pretty final to me. I freaking loved the idea of a surprise bonus finale, though. It would have been a wild, epic way to go out. If any show could get away with a stunt like that, it would be Stranger Things. I liked the fifth season overall, but had mixed feelings about the finale. Honestly, I would have been excited to get a second chance at seeing how the story wrapped up. In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for the upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary, One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, which will be out on Monday, Jan. 12.
photos credit: StillMoving.Net for Netflix and Netflix
while i think overall this fifth season was my least favourite it was still good and tied the whole thing up nicely. it was so hard for them to live up to expectations especially when previous seasons had just been amazing.
online fans expectations are just too high these days and the over examination of every little detail can really take the joy out of the show.
Forget conformitygate, the real rabbit hole is divorcegate: the theory that the ex wife ghost wrote the majority of the plot and left halfway through writing series 5, resulting in the nosedive in volume two. She’s well known for her queer representation in her other work, and “byler” was her ship, apparently.
I love all this nonsense, honestly. Almost makes up for that disaster of a finale where nothing makes sense!
In my little corner of social media / I had zero idea about all of this. And my feed is stranger things heavy, my algorithm just LOVED the finale.
I’m close to the age of the characters – and the whole thing was a delight, for me.
Love missing out on all the malcontents.
This was not a great series. I think after season 2 everything went downhill. And the last season and the finale. Yeesh. The fans theories were much better than what we got.
This is not the first fandom to theorize and get worked up over a secret, surprise *real* final episode, one that only those in the know were savvy enough to know about and that was going to drop after the officially announced finale and that would upend events, themes shown in the official finale and support their personal pet view of what the show, characters represented.
I just hope the ST fans who grabbed onto the Conformity Gate theory don’t follow the lead of the slice of Sherlock fandom who’d gotten so caught up in their online theories and letdown at being wrong about their pet ships and imagined plot points that they spout off at the creative team, set up hate blogs and disparage/ review bomb anything the writers, creators, cast work on for years afterwards.
The Conformity gate people were going absolutely nuts. It’s a TV show for chrissakes…about monsters. It doesn’t all have to make sense.
Personally I love the fan theory that Will actually did die and everything afterwards is made up as a coping mechanism by Mike. Makes you look at the series in a completely different way.
The Duffer brothers left the ending up to interpretation but some “fans” cannot deal unless all their theories are addressed and tied up. They really need to lighten up and watch some David Lynch. They would loose their minds.
I have yet to watch the episodes for Season 5, Part 2 but I wasn’t thrilled with Part 1. I will get around to finishing it but am in no hurry. I just finished Ozark (incredible, IMO) and Castle Rock (love me some King) and Black Rabbit (so sad at the end). Netflix just has SO much content, I keep finding shows and generally like what “they” recommend.