Stranger Things is back, and this time, fans finally got to tick off many of the theories they had been carrying in their minds long before Season 5, Volume 3 premiered on January 1.
While there is no bonus Episode 9, NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) gave the show a spin by poking fun at the long-running conspiracy theories on social media, offering fans a humorous sense of closure and allowing them to finally put the decade-long journey to rest.
The latest episode welcomed actor Finn Wolfhard, who played Mike Wheeler in the sci-fi series, debut as its host of the night, and was joined by co-stars Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo.
The actors together went through a pre-recorded sketch that imagined possible yet hilarious spin-offs of the Netflix series.
The sketch played out as a mock promo unveiling a slate of alternative Stranger Things spin-offs enacted by SNL actors. The slate includes Steve Harrington-led series titled Strangerous Minds and a Nancy Wheeler-focused show called The Wheeler Report.
Finn also appeared in one of the promos for a Sex and the City-inspired humorous spinoff centred on Mike Wheeler and his life as a writer.
In the opening act of the episode, Finn Wolfhard, who also played the love interest of Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and called the leader of the party, jokingly said that now that Stranger Things is over, he is ready to act in ‘Adult films’, since he is not a kid anymore.
“I gotta tell you: It feels so amazing that 400 million people got to watch me go through puberty. What a dream,” the 23-year-old actor quipped at the start of the episode.
After making more hilarious remarks and cracking more ‘obligatory’ jokes, Finn said, “Stranger Things is over, and I’m not a kid anymore.”
Almost immediately, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin popped up on the stage and declared, “Neither are we.”
“Any time you read ‘former child star’ in a headline, it can only mean good things,” Gaten said. McLaughlin sarcastically thanked their fans for endlessly remarking about the actors’ changing faces and bodies on social media.
After a decade-long run, Stranger Things concluded with the Hawkins gang — Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Will (Noah Schnapp), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Max (Sadie Sink), Steve (Joe Keery), Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) — facing off against their archenemy Vecna one last time.
While the first volume of the fifth season premiered on November 26, 2025, the second volume hit the streamer on December 26, 2025. The final episode dropped on Netflix on January 1.
Netflix recently dropped a new documentary, One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things Season 5.
