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The Stranger Things Season 5 finale epilogue and its end credits were inspired by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, creators the Duffer brothers have revealed.
Warning! Spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5 Episode 8, The Rightside Up, follow:
Stranger Things ends with Season 5 Episode 8, dubbed The Rightside Up, and an epilogue set 18 months after the events that showed the destruction of the Upside Down, the death of Vecna, the apparent death of Eleven, and the rescue of the kidnapped children.
We see relatively happy endings for pretty much all the main characters as they move on with their lives, kicking off with the core characters’ graduation from Hawkins High School. The show comes to a close with the end of the Dungeon and Dragons campaign that kicked off the Netflix series nine years ago, and the passing of the torch to a new generation of D&D fans made up of Holly Wheeler, Derek Turnbow, and more.
A decent chunk of the final episode’s 2-hour 8-minute runtime is devoted to this epilogue, which even finds room for a successful marriage proposal from David Harbour’s Jim Hopper to Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers. Fans are then treated to end credits that show famous scenes as D&D illustrations, characters in the style of D&D character profiles, maps of locations from the show, and a final image showing Stranger Things as a D&D players manual.
the ending credits was so cool though #StrangerThings5 pic.twitter.com/63rHUdpFMD
— clueified 🤍 (@clueified) January 1, 2026
The epilogue and the end credits were inspired by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Matt and Ross Duffer told Deadline.
“We thought about [The Lord of the Rings] Return of the King a lot, just in terms of the length of the epilogue,” Matt Duffer said. “I always defend the Return of the King epilogue, but I’m one of those hardcore Lord of the Rings fans, to the point where I’ve watched all extended editions in a row on a single day. If you do that, the epilogue feels absolutely perfect and not long at all. In fact, if it felt shorter, it would feel absolutely distressing.
“I think, Stranger Things, if you watch Season 5 all the way through, it’s going to feel great. You just want to spend extra time with these characters. Anyway, that was sort of the reference for the epilogue. Then we love the credits at the end of Return of the King. So that was the initial idea, and they were these very simple illustrations.”
And on the end credits, Ross Duffer confirmed: “we wanted to be able to pay tribute to our cast and how much they’ve grown through the years. Obviously, it’s not to say the whole show was a D&D campaign. It was just a way to pay tribute to everyone and also let the audience, hopefully, take in this journey that they’ve been on for nine years.”
If you’ve watched The Return of the King you’ll know what the Duffers are talking about here. Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy ends with an epilogue set four years after the hobbits return to the Shire. Frodo leaves Middle-earth for the Undying Lands with Bilbo, Gandalf, and the remaining Elves. He gives Sam the Red Book of Westmarch, detailing their adventures, bids farewell to Sam, Merry, and Pippin, and departs. A saddened Sam returns home and is comforted by his family.
As for the end credits, The Return of the King shows the main characters in illustrative form, also as a goodbye following their extensive adventures.
We’ve got plenty more on Stranger Things, including the Duffer brothers explaining what they were going for with the Season 5 finale and Eleven’s ending, and first details on the live-action spinoff.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
