(SOUNDBITE OF THE THEME SYSTEM'S "STRANGER THINGS")
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
If you're a fan of the Netflix show "Stranger Things"...
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
...Or if you are raising teenagers...
SUMMERS: ...There's a good chance you heard that theme music over Thanksgiving and again on Christmas and yet again on New Year's Eve.
KELLY: "Stranger Things." It's the story of a group of kids in the 1980s fighting a super-powered villain in an alternate universe. The feature-length finale aired on Netflix on New Year's Eve and in more than 500 theaters nationwide.
SUMMERS: The finale marked the end of the show's nearly 10-year run, but fans are not quite ready to let the show go.
KELLY: Enter the viral theory known as #ConformityGate.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK VIDEO)
MEECHSKI: "Stranger Things" fans are literally going crazy. They think that there's a secret ninth episode coming out on January 7, based on a theory called Conformity Gate that claims that the season finale that we got isn't real and everyone is just conforming to the distorted reality in that epilogue.
SUMMERS: That's TikTok user Meechski in a video with over 6 million views. And there are plenty more TikToks, Instagram Reels, X posts, Reddit threads and articles just like that.
KELLY: Like this one from TikTok user Matthew Irizarry. In nearly six minutes of dense analysis, he breaks down some of the alleged evidence.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK VIDEO)
MATTHEW IRIZARRY: If you zoom in on one of the brand-new posters we got for the final season, you can actually see Mike and Vecna side by side with each other being connected by the Mind Flayer. During the graduation and Will's coming-out scene, so many of the characters can be seen standing just like Vecna with his hands crossed.
KELLY: As you can hear, a lot of the theories are pretty inside baseball.
SUMMERS: Or maybe inside Hawkins.
KELLY: Right. Theories point out the hairstyles of certain characters and the fact that January 7 is another big holiday - Orthodox Christmas.
SUMMERS: And let me tell you, Mary Louise, that is not even scratching the surface of some of these fan theories. There's also the way some characters on the show broke the fourth wall, like this line from Lucas Sinclair, played by Caleb McLaughlin, early in Season 5.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STRANGER THINGS")
CALEB MCLAUGHLIN: (As Lucas Sinclair) I don't know about you guys, but I don't believe in coincidences.
KELLY: I think he's trying to tell us something, Juana. Matthew Irizarry sure hopes so.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK VIDEO)
IRIZARRY: Conformity Gate is real. We're going to be getting the secret ninth episode to "Stranger Things" that's going to be the actual finale to the show.
SUMMERS: Or perhaps there's a simpler conclusion. Maybe all of these elaborate ideas and supposed Easter eggs are an escape hatch for fans who are disappointed with the "Stranger Things" finale.
KELLY: Yeah. Maybe this fan base is too young to understand that, yeah, sometimes your favorite show does not end the way you want it to.
SUMMERS: I mean, come on. Do you remember "The Sopranos" finale?
KELLY: I will never get over "The Sopranos" finale. And let's be clear, there is no official reason to believe that a second "Stranger Things" finale will, in fact, come out tomorrow.
SUMMERS: Matt and Ross Duffer, the brothers who created the show, said in an interview with the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast on January 4 that they do not have plans to do new stories with the "Stranger Things" characters. Here's Ross Duffer.
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ROSS DUFFER: It would take away from this story. So there are no plans. No plans.
SUMMERS: And, quote, "friends don't lie," right?
KELLY: No, they do not. And Netflix did not respond to our request to comment on #ConformityGate.
SUMMERS: So I guess, Mary Louise, we're just going to have to wait and see.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PURPLE RAIN")
PRINCE: (Singing) I never meant to cause you any sorrow. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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