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• Sadie Sink's Max Mayfield Is the True Hero of Stranger Things — and could be the heart of the show’s series finale

While Netflix has had some big hits over the years, none of its TV shows have been quite as big as Stranger Things. The series is something that probably shouldn’t work on paper – a throwback series starring a bunch of kids making D&D references and fighting monsters – but it was one of the first shows that proved Netflix had a future in making their own content. According to star David Harbour, part of Stranger Things’ success has been not trying to capture what we love about other fandoms like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings without just rehashing them.

“The other thing is, we love Star Wars, right?” David Harbour said in a recent interview to promote Stranger Things Season 5. “We love Lord of the Rings. I think what Stranger Things is trying to do is, instead of rebooting Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, they’re taking the archetypes or the tropes -or the words and letters, let’s say, and creating new sentences out of them. Hopper is Han Solo, is Indiana Jones, is Gandalf the Grey. There are these archetype tropes that just live in our subconscious cinematic lexicon and we love them. Stranger Things just reinvents them with Eleven, Hopper, Max. It’s not afraid to play those really strong power chords.”

Leaning into the tropes we know and love from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and other cinema classics has clearly helped Stranger Things become the massive success it has been. Now they just need to make sure they stick the ending of Stranger Things Season 5 in a way that is going to make all their very anxious fans happy.

As we all collectively wait for Stranger Things season 5, here's the keys to getting ready:

• How to watch Stranger Things in chronological or release order
• Getting to know the Stranger Things season 5 cast
• There needs to be more death in Stranger Things, says co-star Gaten Matarazzo
• The Stranger Things time jump between season 4 and 5 has been confirmed by Netflix - and it raises some serious questions
• "They land the plane," David Harbour describes the Stranger Things finale, which he calls its "best episode"