WARNING! Minor spoilers ahead for Stranger Things season 4, volume 1.
season 5 may be getting a substantial time jump, with the series having a few fitting choices to end on. The Duffer brothers announced that they’ll most likely introduce a time jump before Stranger Things’ fifth and final season, acknowledging that the young actors now have a noticeable age gap with their characters. A time gap isn’t novel for Stranger Things, as each new season has picked up between 6 months to a year after the previous installment, but the series now warrants a more substantial fast-forward in the timeline.
While Stranger Things season 1 primarily saw the youngest group of actors on par with the ages of their characters, the large gaps between seasons' productions as compared to the shorter time jumps in the series’ universe have accumulated a larger discrepancy. Stranger Things season 4's 2022 release came three years after season 3's debut, with the series’ timeline only ing for this with a six-month time jump. Caleb McLaughlin was 14 years old playing 11-year-old Lucas Sinclair in Stranger Things season 1, and is now 20 years old playing 15-year-old Lucas in season 4. It’s not unusual for teens to be played by actors much older than their characters, but Stranger Things’ disparities are more noticeable due to how young the kids were when the series began.
If the Duffer brothers greenlight a time jump moving into Stranger Things season 5, the gap between seasons is apt to be sizeable. While it’s possible the series will repeat the year-long gap used between seasons 1 and 2, it’s more likely the characters will be catapulted even further into the future to for the Stranger Things cast's age gaps. Since one of the primary motivations for the time jump is to rectify this disparity, it seems the best length is approximately three years. Stranger Things season 5’s time jump will most likely place the timeline in either 1987 or 1989, with the latter year being the perfect set-up.
Why Stranger Things Ending In 1989 Would Be Perfect
If Stranger Things ends in 1989, the timeline will be catching both the characters and nostalgia of the show at the perfect crossroad. While a three-year-long time jump would require significant backtracking of what happened during the gap, it would move the actors up to a more appropriate age discrepancy with their characters. Additionally, 1989 is the year that Eleven, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Will, and Max graduate high school, thus increasing the themes of Stranger Things season 5 marking the end of an era for the characters and series itself. Stranger Things is rooted in the nostalgia of the 1980s, so concluding the series in 1989 would also be the perfect way to symbolically end the real-world cultural era of the show's influence alongside the cultural era of the decade depicted within the show.
Since the Duffer brothers previously considered filming Stranger Things seasons 4 and 5 back-to-back, a three-year time jump could be a bit of a stretch – but they also didn’t intend for season 4 to be delayed by two years. The Duffers had also suggested that they wouldn’t want to bring Stranger Things’ timeline to 1988 because of an actor paradox with Winona Ryder. The Joyce Byers actress came to fame as Lydia Deetz in 1988’s Beetlejuice, so the creators didn’t want the characters seeing posters of Ryder and having "their heads explode."
However, Stranger Things season 4 already broke this rule by casting Robert Englund as Victor Creel. The actor is best known for playing A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger, with Stranger Things season 4 featuring several direct references to the character through imagery, verbal acknowledgments, and Easter eggs. With these obstacles arguably no longer standing in the way, Stranger Things season 5 beginning with a time jump to 1989 is a likely reality.
Stranger Things season 4, volume 2 is available on Netflix on July 1.