Am I crazy to still believe that a secret episode is still coming??

Netflix has officially closed the door on one of the Internet’s wildest 'Stranger Things' conspiracies with the release of a new BTS documentary.

I was literally falling asleep last night when I saw a notification come up saying the doc was finally ready to watch, so I thought, OKAY, LET'S DO THIS! 

Looking back, I should have just gone to bed. 

For weeks, fans were convinced the show was hiding a bombshell twist: A secret ninth episode set to drop without warning. The theory, dubbed ‘Conformity Gate’ by fans, exploded online, with believers claiming Netflix was planning a bigger finale on January 7th. 

The hype got so out of hand that the streaming service reportedly crashed as viewers scrambled to find it.

Instead of a surprise episode, Netflix dropped ‘One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5’, a two-hour documentary pulling back the curtain on the final season.

But even that DID NOT stop the speculation.

While January 7th was initially dubbed as the “release date” thanks to Netflix’s ‘What’s Next’ announcement, theorists quickly found what they thought was new evidence. 

A viral TikTok suggested the documentary itself was the secret finale, a meta twist inspired by ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’

Fans pointed to the Duffer Brothers’ love of ’80s horror, Vecna’s dream-like grip on his victims, and the fact that Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund appeared in the series as Victor Creel. 

The deeper thought? Wes Craven’s ‘New Nightmare’, the seventh film in the franchise, which famously disguises itself as a normal documentary before revealing Freddy has crossed into the real world.

Instagram creator Gregory Lawrence fuelled the frenzy, proposing that 'One Last Adventure' would be “invaded” by Vecna in a similar fourth wall-breaking reveal.

Yeaaaah, that… did not happen.

With no real-world Vecna terrorising the cast or hijacking the documentary, reality finally set in: Stranger Things is actually, truly over.

And fans (like me) are not taking it well.

“Just skipped to the end. None of the Conformity Gate theories were real,” one viewer fumed on X.

“They didn’t pull a Freddy Krueger 7 move. The Duffer Brothers suck at writing. #StrangerThings5 deserved better.”

Another went even harder: 

“Netflix dropped the documentary, and it’s just a normal documentary. Conformity Gate was wrong. $450 million wasted.”

Honestly, the doco lowkey made everything worse. THEY HAD THREE YEARS!! And yet they left some of the biggest plot holes, like Holly Wheeler, just dangling in the air. 

The only difference from seasons one to four to this season is that the ex-wife of one of the brothers (Leigh Janiak), who was married to Ross Duffer, and was one of the main writers of the show, filed for divorce before season five began….I'm not tryna cause more friction here, but...come on, guys.

How do you go from being one of the best-written shows to leaving your entire fanbase hoping for a better finale? 

Not even GOT fans went this crazy, but we’re not gonna open that wound again.

After years of theories, easter eggs, and viral sleuthing, it seems the Upside Down’s final twist was simply… no twist at all.