After the three years delay due to shooting location conflicts and the COVID-19 Pandemic, Stranger Things Season 4 did not hold back this time in giving the audience a triumphant season. In fact, the finale episode's runtime surprisingly took two hours and nineteen minutes, longer than the average runtime of a modern-day film. Although fans undoubtedly have no issues with it, it's hard not to wonder why the Duffer Brothers decided to make the finale longer than cut it into two episodes.
"I think we just couldn't find a good spot to break it because there's almost an hour of build-up tension, and then it just goes hard for an hour," Ross told Collider. "Then we have our 25 minutes of coming down the coda. It would've just not been a very satisfying episode to stop it after that first hour. In our opinion, it just would've petered out. We didn't want to force an ending, so we just figured, well, it'll just be this monster episode. If you want to pause it, go ahead."
With the Hawkins gang functioning in separate groups, it must be really challenging to find a possible plot break. However, it also might be a happy accident that fans definitely loved. Also considering that it's the Endgame for the upcoming Season 5, it totally makes sense how Season 4 was substantially longer compared to the previous seasons as it sets the pace up for the impending climax of the show.
The Duffer Brothers recently revealed in a previous interview that Season 5 would be shorter than Season 4. That said, it's fascinating to know how they would approach the show's monumental finale. Will it be longer? shorter? Doesn't really matter at all, as long as the showrunners plot a compelling conclusion to the Upside Down and the Hawkins gang, fans all around the world would surely love it.
All episodes of Stranger Things Season 4 are available to stream on Netflix.
Also read: Stranger Things Star Predicts When Season 5 Will Come Out
Explore new topics and discover content that's right for you!