Why Steve, Nancy, & Jonathan’s Fates Were “Organic” In Stranger Things Epilogue Explained By Creators
Speaking with Netflix about the final episode, the Duffer Brothers explained how Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan’s endings in Stranger Things made sense for their characters. The pair always knew Steve would be staying in Hawkins, while Nancy’s journalistic work in Boston emphasizes her independence. As for Jonathan, his NYU film was somewhat inspired by their own film school experiences:
Matt Duffer: It just felt very organic to us. It always made sense to us that Steve would choose to stay in Hawkins. He just feels like that kid that you grew up with that ends up staying in their hometown and that he would be working with kids. That’s something we’ve discovered he’s very good at. We like the idea that he would be teaching and coaching. He doesn’t have kids of his own, but as we have implied, that’s imminent, I think.
Ross Duffer: And then for Nancy, we never want her to take the obvious path. Even in Season 1 when she’s going down the trajectory that all these suburban girls go down, Nancy obviously has proven to be much more independent than that, which is one reason she and Jonathan aren’t together at the end. She’s still trying to find herself and what she wants from the world, so that’s why we wanted to give her that ending. For Robin, Smith College was Maya’s suggestion. And then Jonathan at NYU, we set up that he’s been wanting to go to NYU for a very long time. That’s all the way back to Season 1. So it made us happy to see him finally realize his dream.
Matt Duffer: The teens had called us the day before we were gonna shoot that scene. I think Charlie, in particular, wanted some more specifics about what he was doing at NYU, so we all worked together to cook up this movie idea. Even on that day, we kept elaborating on what this movie is. The movie we made at film school in college was not an anti-capitalist movie, but it was a cannibal movie about a shape-shifting cannibal, so that was the idea behind that.
While the trio, who’ve been around since season 1, are off on their own adventures, they’ve still kept in touch with each other. This includes Robin, who had a guest stint at WSQK, “The Squawk,” earlier in the epilogue. The trio end up making a plan to meet at Robin’s uncle’s house in Kentucky once a month to catch up with one another.
As for each of the characters’ fates in Stranger Things, the Duffers emphasize how everyone’s wrapped-up storyline makes sense. For Steve, it seemed clear he would always stay in Hawkins, considering how much he can connect with kids. This is especially apparent in his friendship with Dustin, who was the catalyst for his fate.
Nancy, however, is more surprising. Ever since season 4, she’s wanted to go to Emerson College and hone her skills as a journalist. However, now that she has a job at an organization, she appears to be more content than when she was in school. This highlights her independence following her breakup with Jonathan, taking the future into her own hands.
With the fates the trio have, Stranger Things properly built them to where they are throughout their series-long stories. While they each end up independent, they still have a core, unbreakable connection to one another that will stay despite so many departures from Hawkins. It gives them all happy endings as their lives continue in various ways.
