- - Millie Bobby Brown breaks down in tears watching “Stranger Things” finale scene for first time

Wesley StenzelJanuary 11, 2026 at 12:48 AM

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Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven on 'Stranger Things' season 5

You're not the only one who lost it watching Stranger Things' emotional series finale.

Millie Bobby Brown, who played Eleven on the hit sci-fi series, recently posted an Instagram video of her reacting to her character's send-off in the final episode.

The actress seemed to be recording automated dialogue replacement (or, ADR) in a booth — a standard practice in movie and TV production to maximize sound quality — as she cried through the intense goodbye scene for Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Eleven.

"Thank you for all the years. I appreciate it," Brown says in the video, seemingly directing her gratitude toward the crew overseeing the ADR session.

Fighting back tears, she then whispers, "F---. This damn show!"

Eugene Gologursky/Getty

Millie Bobby Brown in New York City on Dec. 8, 2025

Brown captioned her video, "Watching THAT scene for the first time."

The Stranger Things finale gave Eleven not one but two farewell scenes. In the first sequence, Eleven chooses to stay in the Upside Down as it collapses to avoid a lifetime spent evading military capture and experimentation. As she looks at Mike from a distance, she telepathically links with him to say goodbye.

Then, after she seemingly dies in the Upside Down, Eleven gets another send-off as Mike reckons with the tragedy they both endured over the course of the series. As he plays one final session of Dungeons & Dragons with his friends, Mike offers a theory suggesting that Eleven staged her own death and survived the Upside Down's collapse. Her sister, Kali, has the power to create illusions, so the Eleven that everyone witnessed in her final moments could have been fake, and the real Eleven could have slipped away without being detected.

The series' showrunners, Matt and Ross Duffer, reflected on Eleven's fate in a conversation with Entertainment Weekly last month. "The ending, we wanted it to be from Mike's point of view and the kids' point of view," Matt said. "So they don't know, and because they don't know, the audience doesn't know, because if we knew and they knew, then it defeats the entire purpose of her sacrifice."

Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown on 'Stranger Things' season 5

He added that regardless of whether she lived or died, Eleven made a life-altering sacrifice when she disappeared. "Either she's dead or she's left her friends behind for a different life," he said. "But I think that sacrifice is ultimately very courageous and heroic. She's choosing to do that to prevent other kids from experiencing what she's experienced."

Ross underlined that the ambiguity of Eleven's fate is the entire point of the finale. "Our goal, our hope is to leave it up to the fans, ultimately, and the audience in terms of what they believe, just as we leave it up to our characters in that basement to decide what they believe or not," he said.

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But Eleven's farewell didn't feel ambiguous to everyone involved with Stranger Things. Sadie Sink, who portrayed Max Mayfield on the series, recently told Jimmy Fallon that she has a definitive read on the final episode.

"What do I think? I think she's dead," the actress said on The Tonight Show. "Is that a hot take or something?"

The final season of Stranger Things is streaming now on Netflix.

on Entertainment Weekly

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”