Stranger Things: David Harbour Reveals Cast Reaction to Series Finale Script (Exclusive)

The final season of Stranger Things is still a work in progress for Netflix and the Duffer Brothers, and fans continue the wait for the finale that began more than two years ago. There’s no release date for Season 5 just yet, but the cast and crew seem to have the finish line in sight, and it sounds like the road to the end has been an emotional roller coaster for everyone involved.

ComicBook recently sat down with David Harbour, who stars in Stranger Things as Jim Hopper, to talk about his career and work as the BoxLunch Giving Ambassador. When the topic of Stranger Things 5 came up, Harbour spoke fondly about the series finale table read, which he said was a pretty intimate experience for his TV family.

“No, the interesting thing is…there was some cameras there, but we didn’t do it for the publicists or the Instagram people,” Harbour told us. “There was something intimate about the way they structured it that I’m hoping that you don’t see very much of that, because there was something profound in the sense that we are a family. There is the deeper level, it is about us as individuals who’ve worked together for nine years since they were kids, and that really came through. There was a real deep kind of honesty and heartbreak and bittersweet quality to all of it.”

In addition to the emotions coming from the fact that this upcoming fifth season is indeed the end of Stranger Things, there was also an element of catharsis when Harbour and the rest of the group got back together to start filming. For most of Season 4, he and Winona Ryder were separate from the rest of the cast, as Hopper was busy busting out of a Russian prison.

“[Season 4] was a challenging season for a number of reasons. The biggest being COVID and just the ripples that that sent through our industry, because we are an industry of intimacy. mean, we are close. We are about humanity. We’re about engagement and we had masks and face shields and we were just very afraid of each other,” Harbour explained. “So that was really tough. I also had to do a lot of weird weight loss stuff, that was really tough. The being alone thing is it was kind of OK, because I had to.I mean, we’ve been together a long time, it’s like it’s like a family, sometimes you need a vacation. So I think that was in a way sort of fun, and I had guys like Tom (Wlaschiha) and it was it was a cool storyline. So I enjoyed it.”

In Season 5, the cast is all back together in Hawkins, Indiana, fighting off the forces of Vecna and the Upside Down together. This final go-around is a bit strange for Harbour, though, because it’s easy to see just how much has changed since production on the very first season started nearly a decade ago.

“Getting back to the OG crew of this final season has been wild in a way because we have come so far and it is not the show that we started in Season 1,” he said. “I think that’s a wild experience for all of us. I mean, those kids were 11 years old when we started, 12 years old. Now they’re 20 and they’re shaving and they aren’t kids anymore. Finn (Wolfhard) just directed a movie. I think to have it all come back full circle…We just read we just did a read through of the last episode and the amount of crying… like the episode is very beautiful. But there’s also a deeper level of that, this was actually their childhood. They were 11 years old and grew up and fought this monster. And I’ve never seen so much heavy, heavy weeping from teenagers or young adults in my life.”