'Stranger Things' fans think there's one secret episode left

After 10 years, five seasons, 42 episodes, billions of streams, and one in-theaters finale, the Netflix television series Stranger Things has come to an end. But some fans aren’t accepting that the journey is really over.

Fans of the time traveling, multi-dimensional epic were treated to an extended Season Five three-part rollout over the winter holidays — beginning with Volume 1 on Thanksgiving, Volume 2 on Christmas Day, and a two-hour finale on New Years Eve. Set in Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s, Stranger Things starts with a true-crime mystery that quickly turns supernatural. The disappearance of 12-year-old Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) after a game of Dungeons and Dragons, and the search by his friends Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) — as well as the emergence of a mysterious orphan, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) — quickly embroils the entire town into an years-long battle over the mysterious interdimensional world called the Upside Down.

But while the show’s creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, saw the finale as the series “coming full circle,” some fans weren’t quite satisfied with where the team left their favorite characters. Ending a beloved series can be a daunting task — see Game of Thrones or Lost — but much of the discourse around the Stranger Things finale doesn’t center on one colossal reveal. Instead, people seem to be mad that there was none. So some Stranger Things devotees have another theory. It’s called Conformity Gate, and it’s the idea that the Season Five finale was a trick, and there’s a real finale secretly dropping Jan. 7.

While Netflix did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment, the Stranger Things Instagram account now includes the caption, “ALL EPISODES OF STRANGER THINGS ARE NOW PLAYING,” even as fans continue to fill the comment section begging for an episode nine.

Warning: Spoilers below.

A History of Sleuthing

Conformity Gate’s biggest believers aren’t making up plot points without anything to back it up. Since the release of Stranger Things Season One, the series’ writers have often left clues about a character’s fate or upcoming storyline in dialogue or props. Most of the clues come from times the characters have played Dungeons and Dragons on screen — with the problems in their campaign often mirroring real life issues they face in their battle with the main villain Vecna, who was also called Henry before Eleven banished him to a shadow world known as the Abyss. In Season Four, Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) was vocal in campaigns about his feelings about personal sacrifice for the good of the party, leading fans to correctly predict he would meet a grisly fate protecting his friends in the Upside Down. In Season Five, it’s also revealed that Will can tap into Vecna via the hive mind, which was teased as early as Season One, when his D&D character, a sorcerer, has similar abilities. “We’ve been talking about Will having powers for as long as I can really remember,” Ross Duffer told Variety in November, describing the decision to link Will’s first disappearance directly to a run-in with Vecna. “It sets up the season the way we want it to, which is everything is going back to Season One.”

There’s a lot for potential conspiracy theorists to work with. In the Stranger Things series finale, Vecna shows the group that he’s in a parasitic relationship with the evil Mind Flayer. The massive spider-like monster wants to use Vecna and the children he’s captured to bring the Abyss to the real world. In the final battle, the group of heroes kills Vecna, and the Mind Flayer, before rescuing the children and setting off bombs that destroy the Upside Down. In front of a group of military forces, the friends see Eleven close the gate to the Upside Down with herself inside, saving the world but seemingly dying in the process.

After a flash-forward to close to a year later, the show ends with Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Max (Sadie Sink) finishing one last Dungeons and Dragons campaign after their high school graduation. There, Mike reveals he believes that Eleven faked her death, and is now forging her own path somewhere out in the world where the government will never know to look for her. Going around the table, they reveal the other friends’ futures. Mike stays in Hawthorn to write a book based on their adventures. Will, who came out as gay in the final season, moves to New York. Will’s mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) get engaged and discuss a move to Montauk, where Hopper can rejoin the force. Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Steve (Joe Keery), Robin (Maya Hawke) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) all go their separate ways but agree to meet up once a month to keep their friendship alive.

But for fans of Stranger Things, who waited close to three years for the conclusion to this multi-dimensional saga, something about the happy endings rang false. The line that seems to be encompassing people’s feelings about the finale comes from Max in one of her final scenes in the series, as the final D&D campaign comes to a close. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. That’s it?” she asks. “Comfort and happiness? Could you be more trite?” Stranger Things has become known for being relatively un-precious with its characters, and past seasons saw the brutal deaths of fan favorites like Munson, Bob Newby (Sean Astin), and Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine). So audiences were surprised that the long awaited finale only had one real main character death — and a full half hour of seemingly “trite” happy endings for every main character.

@nvncyaeps#CONFORMITYGATE – conformity theory. Everything’s the opposite of what they wanted it to be. #foryoupage #nvncyaeps #shadowbanned #strangerthings5 im going crazy guys
♬ original sound – 𝐉𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐀 💋🤍

The Growing Fan Theories

This is where Conformity Gate originated. The theory uses past examples of Stranger Things clues, interviews, and fans’ personal feelings about the direction of the series to come to a single conclusion: the Duffer brothers are pulling one last misdirect and will release a real series finale on Jan. 7, 2026. The name comes from a frustration with the characters’ resolutions and the idea that Stranger Things ends with everyone conforming to things they were previously afraid of — Mike staying in Hawkins, Joyce just being a mother and wife, and Hopper returning to the police force — life as they know it essentially going to back to normal, as if nothing ever happened. Conformity is also used in an extremely memorable rant from Munson, where he yells, “It’s forced conformity. That’s what’s killing the kids!” The date of the new finale’s supposed release comes from the recurrence of the number seven in the last season, which appears on clocks, on vehicles, and on D&D dice.

Conformity Gate truthers believe that during an early Season Five episode, when Mike is knocked unconscious during Vecna’s attack, he’s put in a trance. Everything he — and therefore, the fans — see in the series finale is allegedly not real. So what’s the evidence for this? Aside from the characters’ happy endings, many of the Conformity Gate clues appear in the finale’s graduation scene. Lucas, Mike, and Will are in the audience while Dustin gives a rousing Valedictorian speech. But when the camera pans to the audience, almost everyone is sitting with their hands poised in their laps, similar to how Henry/Vecna sat in his human form. A cameraman in the audience has a t-shirt that says “The Duffers,” and one woman holds up a blank yellow poster. Several characters, including a group of popular girls who finally invite the boys — admitted loners — to a party, look directly into the camera. Some Conformity Gate believers point to these as signs that Vecna’s hold over Mike is starting to break down.

@stevenknowsbal1#greenscreen for those saying “why would the Duffers do a fake finale in theaters”, because ITS CONVINCING😭 they make money regardless guys, this would be unreal do yall think we’re getting #conformitygate #strangerthings5 #strangerthings5finale
♬ original sound – stevenknowsbal1

People are also pointing out a few plot points that aren’t resolved. Robin’s girlfriend Vicky (Amybeth McNulty) isn’t even mentioned after the Upside Down is destroyed, despite being part of the team that is protecting Max. The military presence in Hawkins is completely gone one year later — without any repercussions for the teenagers who killed several of its members. At the radio station the Squawk, the dial Robin uses to turn up the power — which she once used to shock a Demogorgon back to life — is grey when it’s first shown, but red in a subsequent shot. While it could be simple continuity error, others are pointing out purposeful changes in color, like in Volume 2, when Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) uses items of the wrong colors to determine escape routes from Vecna’s mind. And when the intrepid group hang up their D&D binders for the seemingly last time, the order of names seems to spell out “xalie” — which fans are interpreting to mean “it’s a lie.”

It’s unclear whether fans will accept the end of the show after Jan. 7 comes and goes without a new episode, or channel their Conformity Gate energy towards another theory they think proves there’s still more story left in Hawkins. Either way, there is some more Stranger Things content to look forward to: Netflix will release One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 on Jan. 12. The documentary will chart the filming and editing process of Season Five, marking fans’ official last look at the show. For the rest of the people desperately searching for answers to their questions, it seems like the only way out is through.