There’s an unwritten golden rule in TV: a character is never truly dead unless you see the body.
That’s why many “Stranger Things” fans still believe Eleven survived the series finale, which ends with Mike Wheeler imagining a future in which she survives the final showdown with Vecna in the Upside Down.
It was also inevitable that, during her first major press tour after the end of “Stranger Things,” Millie Bobby Brown would be confronted with that very question. At a live recording of “Happy Sad Confused” at 92NY, Josh Horowitz playfully prodded Brown about Eleven’s fate in what’ll likely be the first round of many similar moments she’ll face for the rest of her career — or at least until the Duffer brothers allow her to break her pact.
Brown told Horowitz that after the finale aired, the co-creators texted her to remind her not to reveal Eleven’s fate to the rest of the world.
“They were like, ‘Do not tell anyone. Because we made it a secret kind of pledge,’” Brown said Wednesday evening. “No one else knows. It’s just us three. And what we do with that information, it’ll be up to them.”
Brown watched reactions pour in online alongside her husband, Jake Bongiovi, after the finale dropped on New Year’s Eve. Fans weren’t the only ones left in the dark — her castmates also had differing opinions about what really happened to Eleven.
“Jake was like, ‘Ooh, these are really split.’ And the whole cast thinks I’m dead,” Brown said playfully. “One, rude. It’s so rude of them. There’s something to it, surely. You guys are projecting! It’s like, ‘Hey guys, we get it. You want me dead!’ But I was like, ‘Believe!’ Let’s have some hope in here.”
David Harbour, who played Hawkins police chief (and El’s father figure) Jim Hopper in the series, said in his Variety cover story interview that her demise was clear from the start. “A lot of people think maybe she’s in Spain or whatever,” he said. “But right from the very beginning of that series — we love this little girl, but you really can’t have a little girl in Hawkins, Indiana, with supernatural powers running around. She just cannot exist.”
Sadie Sink was just as certain during an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”: “Is that a hot take or something? Mike’s story is just one last story, and then they say goodbye to childhood. That’s one final tale, and that’s it. It’s just a coping thing. It’s stronger [that way], right?”
Not everyone in the cast agrees, though. During a recent fan appearance at PeopleCon, Noah Schnapp asked the audience if anyone believed Eleven was dead. After a few murmurs, he waved his finger and said, “No, she’s alive,” flashing a thumbs-up and a smile to the crowd.
Horowitz did the same during the live podcast recording with Brown, and about 80 to 90 percent of the audience said they believed Eleven was still alive. “We have a hopeful audience,” Brown gushed. “I love that!”
When pressed on the question one more time, Brown concluded: “All people say now is, ‘Do you believe?’ And of course I believe. I have to believe, honestly — otherwise January will come around again.”
Brown was referring to the post-“Stranger Things” slump she fell into after the series ended. “I went into a little bit of a slight, slight depression,” she revealed. “It was very hard for me. I would not have expected that coming off of the show. I’m a very happy-go-lucky person.”
Over that month, Brown said she spent January reconnecting with her “Stranger Things” co-stars to “mend” any unresolved tensions and reaffirm that their personal relationships would continue even after the series ended.
“They probably thought I was crazy,” Brown said. “I was like, ‘We’re still friends, right? Like, you’re not gonna stop talking to me anymore?’ I was like, ‘I’m sorry if I ever upset you,’ and was just trying to mend anything. ‘It’s been 10 years, and I really want to be friends. You’re my sibling.’ And then I was on the beach, it was beautiful, and I just sat there crying. It was a very hard time for me.”
“And no one will ever understand it,” she continued. “I started the show when I was 10, and this character was me, and these people were in my life more than my own family. I saw these people more than going home and eating dinner with my family. Saying goodbye to that after 10 years was a very, very emotional thing, and I’m going to miss Eleven more than anything.”
The Duffer brothers explained in their finale postmortem interview with Variety’s Kate Aurthur that, despite the intentionally vague circumstances, there was never a version of the script “where it was Eleven down in that basement” playing one last “Dungeons & Dragons” campaign with her friends. “It was finding a way to come up with an ending where it was not that simple,” Ross Duffer said, “but also bittersweet, and that there was hope there.
While the co-creators refused to elaborate further on El’s fate, they did confirm that “Eleven does not communicate with Mike in any way” — and that, even if she were alive, a reunion would be unlikely.
“Any contact would risk bringing her back out in the open and starting the cycle again,” Ross continued. “So, in the story that Mike’s telling, I don’t think he sees a version where they reconnect.”
As for the future of “Stranger Things,” Brown teased that plans for a future project with Harbour were “concrete.” Asked for more details, she offered a riddle: “Father-daughter is where we live, but Netflix will always be our home.”
Later in the conversation, Brown said she is “slowly developing things with Netflix, my home studio,” including the rom-com “Just Picture It” with Gabriel LaBelle. She also hinted that the TV series “Prism” may be on hold as she figures out her “time and [her] schedule,” before circling back to the project with Harbour.
“The David Harbour project is sooner than expected,” she said with a smile. “And it’s David’s idea, so kudos to him.”