There’s a lot we don’t know about the final season of Stranger Things, but one thing’s for sure: despite all the teasing, Joseph Quinn will not be returning as Eddie Munson for Season 5.
“I love that Joe Quinn is toying with people! But no, he’s dead,” co-showrunner Matt Duffer recently told Empire for their new Stranger Things Season 5 issue. “Joe is so busy anyway, that everyone should know he’s not coming back. He’s shot like five movies since! When the hell has he got time to come and shoot Stranger Things? No, sadly, RIP. He’s fully under that ground.”
Duffer is of course referring to how coy Quinn played it on red carpets this year when being asked about the final season of the beloved series. In fact, he teased the audience with possibilities at a recent red carpet for The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
“Oh my god, yeah, I mean, it’s going to be out soon, isn’t it? Who knows?” the actor told Extra TV at the time. “There’s always a chance for anything, isn’t there, really? Nothing’s impossible.”
Now that we know Quinn and Munson will not be back before this story concludes — even though we hoped, can’t say we didn’t see this coming — fans can focus on what might actually come to pass this season… even though we still don’t know anything as far as plot details go. That said, it seems there was a lot of attention to detail put into tying up all the loose ends for this final season.
“We spent a full year filming this season,” Ross Duffer told fans who attended a recent Netflix sneak peek event in Los Angeles. “By the end, we had captured over 650 hours of footage. So, needless to say, this is our biggest and most ambitious season yet. It’s like eight blockbuster movies. It’s pretty, pretty insane.”
“At the same [time], we think it’s — or hope it’s — our most personal story,” Matt added during the event. “It was super intense and emotional to film — for us and for our actors we’ve been with for so long. And we’ve been making it together for almost 10 years now. There was a lot of crying. There was so much crying. The show means so much to all of us, and everyone put their hearts and souls into it. And we hope — and believe — that passion is going to translate to the screen.”
In the same Empire interview, Matt Duffer said Linda Hamilton’s character, Dr. Kay is a “hyper-intelligent and intimidating” government agent hunting down Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven.
Stranger Things season 5 will be released on Netflix in three drops. The first four episodes will debut for the Thanksgiving holiday on November 26th. The next three episodes will be released on Christmas, and the final episode of the series will arrive on New Year’s Day.
Photo by Arturo Holmes/WireImage.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
