Posted in: NBC, Netflix, Peacock, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl

SNL: Stranger Things 5 Episode 9?!? Yes, The Conspiracy Is "Real"!

#ConformityGate confirmed?!? Stranger Things 5 Episode 9 is real?!? No, not really, but SNL did have some fun at the conspiracy's expense.

After all of the denials and pushback, it seems there really was a ninth episode of Netflix and series creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer's Stranger Things 5. #ConformityGate is real! Okay, not really – except on last night's midseason return of NBC's Saturday Night Live. During a filmed SNL "trailer" from Netflix, the streaming service finally admitted that not only is it not done with "Stranger Things," but it's also going to give you the prequels, sequels, and spinoffs you never even knew that you wanted. How about Steve as an inner city teacher in "Strangerous Minds"? Or a series built around Will still giving his coming out speech? There was a whole lot to love, but the headline grabber was how Netflix is retroactively making the conspiracy a reality. Standing alongside SNL host Finn Wolfhard's Mike were Gaten Matarazzo's Dustin and Caleb McLaughlin's Lucas, with Dustin and Lucas questioning Mike's theory that the finale was all an illusion created by Vecna. To prove his point, Mike welcomes back Eleven… but it's definitely not Millie Bobby Brown.

SNL/Stranger Things 5: Duffer Bros on Vol. 2 Deleted Scenes Conspiracy

Speaking with Variety earlier this month, Matt Duffer noted that someone had sent them the Google Doc, making it clear that, regarding the claims being made and what was allegedly deleted, "Obviously, that's not a real thing." When told of the Change.org petition that was in play, Ross Duffer said that he hadn't seen it, adding, "I don't think there's a single cut scene in the entire season." From there, Matt Duffer offered a broader perspective on the downside of being a series loved by so many, adding that there was "no interference or direction at all" from Netflix to impose changes, not this season, nor during the previous four seasons.

"The show has just grown so massive. Online, there's just so much misinformation. Just tons of it. We would be here for hours trying to bat down the stuff that was not true. But at the end of the day, hopefully the work speaks for itself, and it is the show that Ross and I wanted to make," Matt Duffer explained. "Netflix was, and has always been, incredible. I mean, there's no interference or direction at all from them on us. They really trust us, and that's been true from Season 1 on. It's never changed, even though the show and the size of the audience have grown."

The Duffers continued to drive home the point that the rumblings of massive changes to storylines and deleted scenes were nothing more than noise. "There were no deleted scenes," Matt Duffer shared with Collider, going on to push back on deleted scenes claims two additional times. "I mean, the only thing that got trimmed down a little bit was the teens on the rooftop scene, because there was so much kind of improvising going on. It was one of my favorite scenes, but I think it was five minutes longer, so that got [cut] down. So there's an extended version of that," he added. In fact, Matt Duffer would go on to share that there has only been one deleted scene in the streaming series' five-season run. "But no, throughout the course of 'Stranger Things,' there's been only one scene that's been deleted, all the way back in Season 1. Which was a scene Netflix had us write that we didn't want to write, so we just shot it and deleted it, and they forgot we shot it. It was kind of amazing."

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