David Harbour Is Emotional Over Stranger Things Season 5 Scripts
The final season of Stranger Things is still on hold amid the Hollywood strikes — but David Harbour knows it will be worth the wait.
“I know what it is,” he said of the show’s ending during the Thursday, August 17, episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “I know where we net out and it’s very, very moving. That is the term I will use.”
Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper on the Netflix hit, clarified that he hasn’t read the final ending yet, but has a general idea of how the story will resolve. He also suggested that season 5 won’t pick up directly after the fallout of season 4, which saw Max (Sadie Sink) in a coma and the rest of the gang reeling as the Upside Down crept into the town of Hawkins, Indiana.
“After where season 4 ended — when you watch us on that hill looking at the ash and the smoke fires — we’re going to start somewhere after that,” he explained. “So you’ve gotta imagine the world is a different place.”
Stranger Things season 4 premiered on Netflix in two installments in May 2022 and featured the biggest scope in the show’s history. Harbour, however, hinted that the final installment will be even more impressive thanks to the minds of showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer.
“They’re terrific, as per usual. They continue to outdo themselves, these currently on strike writers called the Duffer brothers. It’s a hell of an undertaking, too. I mean, the set pieces and the things in the scripts that we saw are bigger than anything we’ve done in the past,” he gushed.
While season 5 was gearing up to begin filming in May, things have been put on hold amid the ongoing Hollywood strikes. The Duffer brothers were some of the first to speak out in support of the writers strike, announcing they would be shutting down production until a fair deal was reached between the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
“Duffers here. Writing does not stop when filming begins. While we’re excited to start production with our amazing cast and crew, it is not possible during this strike,” the duo wrote via Twitter in May shortly after the strike went into effect. “We hope a fair deal is reached soon so we can all get back to work. Until then — over and out. #wgastrong.”
The shutdown undoubtedly was a huge hit for Netflix, as Stranger Things season 4 marked the streaming service’s most-watched show of 2022 and has continued to be a juggernaut since its 2016 debut.
The final season — consisting of eight episodes — was initially planned for a mid-to-late 2024 premiere, but with SAG-AFTRA joining the picket lines, fans will likely have to wait much longer before their favorite monster-fighting party comes back to slay Vecna one last time.
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Harbour warned the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast listeners that even when production does pick back up, season 5 will take “a while to shoot” — but he’s ready to return whenever that time comes.
“I’m excited to go back. I’m excited to wrap it up in a bold, amazing way,” he continued. “I’m excited to really swing with this character, because you know they’re going to pay off these OG characters: Eleven, Hopper, Joyce, Will, Mike. They’re going to pay them off in big ways because they’ve lived with you for the past eight years.”
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