Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers have responded to Millie Bobby Brown’s recent criticism of the show.
Brown, who plays Eleven in the Netflix fantasy series, participated in a video interview with The Wrap in which she and her co-star Noah Schnapp (Will Byers) were asked what they want for their characters in the fifth and final season.
Agreeing with Schnapp’s view that the Duffer Brothers “need to kill” some characters, Brown said: “It’s way too big. Last night, we couldn’t even take one group picture because there was like 50 of us. I was like, ‘You need to start killing people off’.
“The Duffer brothers are two sensitive Sallies that don’t want to kill anyone off. We need to be Game of Thrones. We need to have the mindset of Game of Thrones.”
After telling the Duffers to “kill me off”, Brown continued: “They tried killing David [Harbour, Chief Hopper] off and they brought him back. It’s ridiculous.”
Some fans have since shared Brown’s comments on social media after all of the main cast made it out of Stranger Things 4 alive.
During the latest edition of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Duffer Brothers were asked to respond to the criticism. “We heard,” Matt Duffer said.
“What did Millie call us? She said we were ‘sensitive Sallies’. She’s hilarious. Believe us, we’ve explored all options in the writing room.”
He continued: “Just as a complete hypothetical, if you kill Mike [Finn Wolfhard], it’s like… that’s a depressing… we aren’t Game of Thrones. This is Hawkins, it’s not Westeros. The show becomes not Stranger Things anymore, because you do have to treat it realistically, right?
“So even when Barb [Shannon Purser] dies, there’s two seasons worth of grappling with that, so imagine – is that something we’re interested in exploring or not interested in exploring?”
But Duffer did promise that further deaths were “on the table” as Stranger Things heads “towards the end”.
“This is me basically defending myself against these Millie Bobby Brown accusations and explaining that there are lives behind it, and it’s nothing to do with my sensitivity. So there you go Millie,” he explained.
The epic season four finale saw the main characters attempt to take down villain Vecna, though many fans feared for their favourites beforehand given the Duffer Brothers had teased a “body count”.
In the end, alongside various background characters, there were only three major character deaths across the last two episodes: Dr Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) and Jason Carver (Mason Dye).
Last month, Matt and Ross Duffer expressed their regret over killing off Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien) in the first episode of the latest season.
Speaking to NME about the forthcoming final season, Matt Duffer explained: “We do have an end. I’m sure a lot of it’s going to change, but now [it’s] the end.
“It’s just one of those things that you come up with and you go, ‘That’s it, that’s right, that’s inevitable – that’s what it has to be’.”
Meanwhile, Stranger Things season four has broken a US streaming record for minutes watched within a single week.
