The Upside Down was destroyed, the last game of Dungeons and Dragons was played, and the Stranger Things series finale left the final tape selection to Joe Keery (Steve Harrington) — and he chose to cue up David Bowie for the goodbye.
After the final scene of episode 8 plays, the show doesn’t jump to its typical credits sequence. Instead, it takes a beat, rolling into a nostalgic animated end-credits segment and letting Bowie’s “Heroes” play all the way through.
The idea came straight from Keery, as the Duffer Brothers were finalizing the show’s last moments. Keery suggested using the original version of “Heroes,” a song already woven into the show's DNA thanks to earlier seasons featuring Peter Gabriel’s cover.
“It was actually Joe Keery who suggested that we do the Bowie version,” Ross Duffer tells Tudum. “Once Joe said that, we immediately knew that was the right song to end the show on because it is, in some ways, an anthem for Stranger Things. To use the original Bowie version just felt fitting for the conclusion.”
In the animated credits — created for the final episode by the show’s design studio Imaginary Forces — familiar Hawkins scenes fly on and off-screen on various pieces of paper, compiled into a worn binder with “Stranger Things Players Manual: Fantasy Role Playing Game” on the cover. The closing of the binder gives viewers one last emotional piece of closure before saying goodbye.
All episodes of Stranger Things are now playing, only on Netflix.
