Posted in: Netflix, TV | Tagged: geeked week, stranger things 5

Stranger Things 5: David Harbour on Tearful Final Episode Read-Thru

David Harbour opened up about the emotional read-thru that the Stranger Things 5 cast had for the final episode of the series.

With Netflix's Geeked Week wrapping up this Thursday with a huge event live-streaming from Atlanta, we're expecting some huge news from Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer's Stranger Things 5 (and maybe some updates about the franchise's universe expanding). But before we get to that, David Harbour offered some behind-the-scenes insights into the series finale table read and the emotional hit it took on everyone. In addition, Harbour shares how being back together to film the fifth season gave him a better understanding of just how far everyone's come since the series first started filming the first season.

"No, the interesting thing is…there was some cameras there, but we didn't do it for the publicists or the Instagram people. 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," Harbour shared during his interview with ComicBook.com in support of his work as the BoxLunch Giving Ambassador.

Harbour continued, "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. 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."

And don't forget that Nell Fisher, Jake Connelly, Alex Breaux and the amazing Linda Hamilton have joined the cast for the fifth and final season – here's a look back at the video announcing Hamilton's casting:

Stranger Things 5 "Like Season One on Steroids"

During an interview with The Guardian, Ross & Matt discuss the pressures of ending the series in a way that works creatively and satisfies the audience's expectations and how this final run with these characters will feel "like season one on steroids."

"The nine hours that precede the ending can be amazing. But if you stumble at that one-yard line, people will never forgive you for that. And they'll forget the previous nine hours of awesomeness! So it's amazing what they will forgive if you score a touchdown at the end," Matt Duffer explained when discussing their feelings on how series finales are viewed. "Endings of shows are like opening a restaurant in terms of the success-failure rate – there's an 80% failure rate, I'd say. But I think one very particular way to fail is to attempt to appease everybody."

Matt continued, "We have a huge variety of fans that span a huge age range, and I'm sure they have all their own ideas of how they want the show to end. But we're not consulting social media on this. Then you just hope and pray that it resonates. But it was funny: once we got there, it just felt right, and we're going to go for it!"

As the duo had stated previously, the universe will live on after Stranger Things 5 – but the characters that viewers have grown to love & connect with will see their stories end with the fifth season. With that much on the line, the Duffer Brothers aren't going out quietly. "This season – it's like season one on steroids. It's the biggest it's ever been in terms of scale, but it has been really fun, because everyone's back together in Hawkins: the boys and Eleven interacting more in line with how it was in season one. And, yes, there may be spin-offs, but the story of Eleven and Dustin and Lucas and Hopper, their stories are done here. That's it," Matt shared – before adding, "Outside of the play. So if you want to see more of some of them, go see the play."

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