Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for both parts of Stranger Things Season 4.
Stranger Things Season 4 gave us some of the darkest moments we’ve seen in the series yet. But according to the Duffer Brothers, it could have been even darker had they gone through with killing off fan-favorite Max Mayfield, played by Sadie Sink.
In the after show, Ross Duffer explained, “It was discussed as a possibility. For a while that is what was going to happen. But we ended up in this… we wanted to end it with a little more of a question at the end of the season. It’s still really dark and if Max is going to be okay, we just don’t really know. We wanted to leave it up in the air moving forward into Season 5.”
Max’s narrative for season 4 was especially brutal. Fresh off season 3, she is dealing with the death of her brother. This causes her to be a prime target for the season’s villain, Vecna. Max’s first escape from Vecna in episode 4 paired perfectly with Kate Bush’s 1980’s hit “Running Up That Hill,” which has seen a huge surge in popularity.
Unfortunately for Max, she was less lucky the second go as her encounter left her blind and with broken limbs. Max even died for a full minute, but Eleven was able to bring her back even if, as of the end of season 4, Max is in a coma.
Matt Duffer says they wanted Stranger Things’s fourth outing to be “‘Empire Strikes Back’ season” for the series. The Duffer brothers “wanted them to actually lose [to Vecna].” Stranger Things has been no stranger to killing off its characters, but with the death of Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson and the brutalization of Max, the losses hit especially hard this season.
Stranger Things season 5 will likely be shorter than season 4, and we have plenty of burning questions we hope to have answered in the final season of Stranger Things.
Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.