The Stranger Things finale set out to bring the series to a satisfying close, and a critical part of making that happen was answering many of the show’s biggest mysteries and questions. It mostly did just that, though the series finale actually ended up producing some of its own untied threads. One particularly glaring question has thankfully been addressed by the show’s creators, and it should bring some closure to one important part of the story for fans.
The series finale was split into two different pieces, with the first being the epic final confrontation with the Mind Flayer and the second being an epilogue that revealed what happened to most of the characters after an 18-month time jump. While the military and Dr. Kay were both part of the first part, they were completely missing from the second, and fans have been wondering what happened to them. The Duffer Brothers revealed those details in a new interview with Collider, and it turns out the reason they weren’t included was mostly that their departure was rather uneventful.
When asked what happened with the military after the events of their last battle, Ross Duffer said, “In that 18-month gap? I suppose there’s not much else to do. You can’t explore this other dimension. There’s no Eleven to chase anymore because she’s gone. So, my guess is they just sort of slowly dismantled operations and left town.”
The Stranger Things Creators Reveal Why Dr. Kay Wasn’t Killed
The other part of that military question revolves around Dr. Kay, who was leading the charge on the experiments and was trying to capture Eleven all season long. Ross was asked if he knew Dr. Kay’s backstory and if she was released to Dr. Brenner, and that’s when he revealed why she wasn’t killed at any point during the finale.
“Not related to Dr. Brenner. No. The idea was that Kay was always just like a weed. It’s like, you pull out one of these big bads from the government, and then another one is going to sprout up. They could have killed Kay, and it wouldn’t have changed anything. It wouldn’t have changed the decision that Eleven made. If there’s not Kay, the next one could be even worse, just as Kay was, in a way, worse than Dr. Brenner, and certainly worse than Dr. Owens,” Ross said.
At least getting a glimpse of the military leaving Hawkins would have helped convey that message, but with the 18-month time jump, that doesn’t seem like it was ever in the cards. It would have been great to see some sort of resolution with though in terms of their plan and hunt for Eleven completely failing, as that had a major influence on Eleven’s choice in the final episode. At least now we know what ultimately happened.
Stranger Things season 5 is streaming on Netflix.
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