Two months on, and Stranger Things’ final season still feels like a weird lucid dream on Christmas morning, despite all of the widespread finale criticisms still echoing in my head alongside the fandom’s unrealized hopes for a super-secret finale. Anticipation has now set in for the animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 hitting Netflix's 2026 release lineup, but the latest batch of new details and character posters makes it seem like the creative team is making the one narrative faux pas that I thought this show would 100% avoid.
Given that Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 won’t be expanding the Hawkins’ teens stories beyond the finale so much as filling in some of the blanks between Seasons 2 and 3, my only real expectation was that the creative team would avoid adding anything new that could potentially create hiccups regarding the final three seasons. Such as — oh, I dunno — bringing in a new character whose presence is so important and vital to the others that it would make zero sense for the live-action series’ characters to never reference them. And yet…
